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  • Gluten free in France?
  • unfitgeezer
    Free Member

    Off to S.France next week for family vacation, completely forgot about son #2 and his gluten free diet.

    Will take a few packs of GF pasta ! What are the French supermarkets like for GF ??? The boss is being boss like !

    Thanks in advance

    Kryton57
    Full Member

    The boss is being boss like !

    So you are taking her this time?

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    I take it he’s Coeliac?

    onandon
    Free Member

    The coop supermarkets are usually good here ( in France/ Switzerland )
    Better than in the uk.

    I_did_dab
    Free Member

    I have found it fairly easy to find GF products in France in supermarkets, usually in the health-foody section. Not so easy in restaurants though, even with the correct translation.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    Sans/sin gluten pretty easy in supermarkets in France/Spain these days. Restaurants not so easy so for eating out, probably best to stick to foods which aren’t going to contain it in the first place.

    atlaz
    Free Member

    Big supermarkets will be fine. Restaurants will probably not be. How intolerant is he, you may not be eating out much or at least feeding him stuff you know to be safe (healthy green salad not pasta, that sort of thing) rather than enjoying the best of french cuisine.

    stevextc
    Free Member

    It’s now a decade since I lived there …
    Shopping-wise the trickiest bit might be labels….

    Wheat is Ble (with accent) but a more “artisanale” name is Froment and confusingly buckwheat is Ble Noir or Ble de Sarracin

    Eating out was generally a lottery .. with the exception of when i knew the owners.
    e.g. you can buy Crepes made with buckwheat but they will be usually cooked on the same hotplate as the wheat….

    If you order a salad with “no bread” it will often still come with bread… and this is from someone who speaks fluent French usually eating with friends who speak native French… not to mention the argument “Oh this is organic wheat so it’s OK so we didn’t bother telling you”

    A decade ago France was decades behind Italy (but France tends to do things in BIG jumps… rather than little bits so they could well have jumped ahead).. I’d mostly cook for myself on holidays… or stick to stuff I tested… (e.g. usually the rotisserie roast chicken is safe so that can be used as some sort of base for a meal without the whole needing an oven)

    unfitgeezer
    Free Member

    How intolerant is he

    within 20 mins of eating wheat its full evacuation for anyone near him- farts like you’ve never smelt before and he generally gets loose poo

    I take it he’s Coeliac

    Luckily not but treated like one at school for lunches etc.

    Kryton57 – Member
    The boss is being boss like !
    So you are taking her this time?

    She talks the France so its useful that she comes- oh and we all love her !

    He’s had tests, eating wheat wont kill him just really uncomfortable for him (and us when he trumps)

    Thanks for help all

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    My dad finds most restaurants in touristy areas very accomodating after he says sans gluten.

    Outside of the tourist areas much as edukator says it’s very hit and mostly miss.

    warton
    Free Member

    we’re going to France for the first time with our kids, in two days.

    the youngest has a dairy and egg allergy, so I feel your pain. As above, we’ve been told supermarkets are excellent, restaurants not so good, but we’re used to that in the UK…

    we’ve been told the Bio section is the ‘free from’ section in supermarkets.

    stevextc
    Free Member

    we’ve been told the Bio section is the ‘free from’ section in supermarkets.

    Not quite it’s meant to be “organic” but ends up being a mixed bag…. e.g. one product might be wheat fee and the one next to it might be organic wheat…. (but not called ‘wheat’ (ble) but ‘posh wheat’ (Fromont)

    Equally many of the GF products by default seem to contain things you wouldn’t necessarily choose to eat… like Soy…or. dairy and egg which your youngest can’t…. In a lot of cases I used to find it easier to avoid the gluten free specialist products altogether…many seem to be long shelf life hence have all sorts of preservative etc. though I do tend to buy stuff like GF pasta but only if the label has no more than a couple of ingredients….

    TBH I

    mostly

    do his in the UK presently…. its just simpler taking stuff you know like carrots or meat than looking through loads of labels … There are a few convenience foods I buy but these tend to be after extensive testing… but in general I find what you save on the preparation time you lose on the reading the labels…

    jimoiseau
    Free Member

    There is a posh organic (“bio”) supermarket called Naturalia which may be better for finding truly GF stuff or have more options than a normal supermarket if there’s one near where you’re going.

    MrOvershoot
    Full Member

    trail_rat – Member

    My dad finds most restaurants in touristy areas very accomodating after he says sans gluten.

    Outside of the tourist areas much as edukator says it’s very hit and mostly miss.

    Has he another alias?

    antigee
    Full Member

    mrs antigee is gluten / dairy free and we’ve found labelling in french supermarkets pretty easy to read and gf ok to find

    eating out and bakeries and the like then need some language skills and persistence mrs is good on both – me less so

    – youngest is walnut/hazelnut allergic and what I’ve done in past including France is had someone check my translation of what the issue is and then had a laminated card I can show people or more now a pic of the card on my phone – just slows it down and shows you really mean it and need to think about it

    beaker
    Full Member

    Tick for future reference.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    Mr overshoot

    It was early but I swear edukator posted about. Clearly not !

    freeagent
    Free Member

    Eldest daughter is gluten free (not coeliac but similar results when she has gluten)
    France is a lot better that it was few years ago – most of the big chain supermarkets will have a gluten free section/aisle.
    It is expensive (not helped by current exchange rates) so if you’ve got room, I’d take a few bits with you.

    MrOvershoot
    Full Member

    trail_rat – Member

    Mr overshoot

    It was early but I swear edukator posted about. Clearly not !

    No worries it would be the sort of thing John posted, I just thought you had sussed an alt log in of his 😉

    jerseychaz
    Full Member

    Mrs Jersey is intolerant of Gluten, Eggs & Milk – the Bio aisles in most supermarkets carry recognisable products that are safe. Beware rotisserie chickens – the seasoning on some isn’t GF…most sizeable towns have a “Bio” shop/supermarket – Le Heron Bleu in or part of Brittany who are excellent.

    paulx
    Free Member

    I was in a SuperU supermarket today in a small French town. They had a full on selection of GF and Free From products. Pretty much the same as our local Waitrose / Tesco in the UK.

    stevextc
    Free Member

    I was in a SuperU supermarket today in a small French town. They had a full on selection of GF and Free From products. Pretty much the same as our local Waitrose / Tesco in the UK.

    The problem is that much of the produce in the Waitrose/Tesco are not actually safe but play games on labelling. (Asda own brands used to be the only ones who don’t but Asda selling non-own brands was the same)
    To illustrate and pertaining to France …
    About 10 yrs ago I was on a prescription in France and had problems the whole time. Then there was a change in legislation and prescription medicines had to list full disclosure of sources…

    It turned out after relabelling that the maltosdextrin used in the tablet coating was wheat derived and hence has a tiny amount of gluten. That amount would not need to be declared on food but had to be listed on prescription medicines. (I changed to a different brand of the same actual medicine and the problems disappeared)
    The amount is set by a body that is part of the WHO but is sponsored and represented by the food industry and the relevant part was <200ppm

    200ppm had no scientific or clinical basis (its now 20ppm which has no basis either) but your body doesn’t care from an auto immune perspective how much… it’s either detected and responded to or not…
    The 200ppm was based on a deeply and deliberately flawed study paid for by the food industry with the relevant part being a statement “No additional damage to the villi was seen in subjects consuming products containing 200ppm than those on a gluten free diet”

    The study did not specifiy how the diet of the control group was controlled… hence most of them would unintentionally have been eating gluten…. and the fact “no additional damage” was seen .. the key being additional… obviously autoimmune damage to the villi only occurs when the gluten (or accurately the gliadins) binds to a receptor… but that is completely ignoring all the other damage that occurs.

    The CODEX also bans anything actually gluten free as being labelled as GLUTEN FREE unless it has a product substituted.

    Danone refuse to play and refuse to answer questions on if their yogurts are GF as they can’t… the only way they can follow the CODEX and label them as GF is to add a gluten containing ingredient below 20ppm.
    (Obviously not of interest for anyone with dairy intolerance)

    Beware rotisserie chickens – the seasoning on some isn’t GF…

    I should have mentioned this …
    I wouldn’t buy any with any seasoning .. this in practice tends to mean buying from a street stall/butcher rather than the supermarkets who get the things delivered in packets with seasoning already provided.

    With the butchers I usually ask what seasoning they added (without saying why)… and the answer is often “erm non…we don’t need any .. we just scoop the juices and pour them back over….” – I then say great .

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