Living on a gluten free diet, UK and Spain

Sixteen years ago I was diagnosed with Coeliac disease which is an intolerance to gluten, gluten is found in wheat, rye, barley and some coeliacs can´t tolerate oats. I had to drastically change my diet and shopping was initially a nightmare! I was diagnosed when specialised gluten free food was only available on prescription, you can imagine how the household food bills sky rocketed!

The first eight weeks of being on a gluten free diet I was waiting for an appointment with a dietician and had no idea what I could or couldn´t have. This time consisted of eating rice cakes and not much else! Then my appointment with my dietician arrived and he opened up the world of gluten free living for me. He also told me about the crossed grain symbol, any product bearing this symbol is gluten free which made it easier to shop.

I have always loved sausages but couldn´t find gluten free ones so we went out and bought a sausage maker attachment for the kenwood chef and we made our own, my family decided they preferred gluten free sausages as they had no added ingredients and were more wholesome so we made them for the whole family.

Back then having to abide by a gluten free diet wasn´t easy. I had to do without a lot of foods I had previously enjoyed or find ways around things which proved expensive as we had to buy the methods of making them, (ie sausage maker attachments). My first attempts at making gluten free bread turned out like bricks and ended up in the bin as they were inedible! Eating out was a very rare occasion as there was very little knowledge of the gluten free diet.

I was given details of the Coeliac society who produce a book which lists everyday food items that are gluten free, so the next step was finding the foods that I liked on the list then going shopping armed with the book. I was by now getting into the habit of label reading and double checked everything as some manufacturers do change their ingredients from time to time so a product that was once gluten free may now contain gluten!

I would highly recommend joining the Coeliac society, they send out newsletters keeping you up to date with what´s happening in the gluten free world, updates to the book and also samples of new foods available. They also have Coeliac meetings where you meet other people living on a Gluten free diet, at these meetings they have cookery demonstrations and the gluten free companies are invited to speak.

It seems more and more people are being diagnosed with Coeliac disease, I believe this is down to more awareness of the condition, and also the fact that it´s fairly easy to diagnose. The diagnosis involves a blood test followed by an endoscopy which is a day procedure. With this progress has come more variety in specialised gluten free foods that are readily available in Supermarkets and even mail order gluten free foods delivered fresh straight to your door. Eating out can still be a tricky subject, but saying that there are restaurants that will specify if a meal is gluten free on their menu, I do still check with them that the meal is cooked seperatly from other meals due to the risk of cross contamination. I tend to stick to restaurants where I have spoken to the chef and enquired if they can cater for a gluten free diet, sometimes the chef´s know exactly what I mean and I dare say I have educated a few others! If in doubt I go for plain meat with boiled potatoes and steamed vegetables.

I make my own bread using the Juvela mixes and bake the bread in the oven. Through experimenting with the juvela mixes I now also make pancakes and batter for fish and chicken nuggets. When I have an end product that I like my husband tastes it, as a result he now enjoys gluten free battered fish and chicken nuggets even tho he isn´t on a gluten free diet! Evening meals at home are gluten free as I don´t have the time to make two seperate meals. When we have people round to eat, they don´t know it but their meals are gluten free as well, to them they are just eating a wholesome home prepared meal. I would never impose gluten free bread on other people as I know that gluten free and normal bread taste different, saying that, the gluten free bread is getting better both in consistency and taste.

Just over 2 years ago we moved to Spain, we had been here on holidays before so I knew I could get gluten free foods but I´d never had to do weekly shopping week in and week out and wondered how I would manage! I was pleasantly surprised, my weekly shop is in a supermarket called Mercadona which is a large chain of supermarkets here in Spain. They have their own symbol for gluten free which is a red circle with a blue bar through it, and Spanish for gluten free is "Sin Gluten" All Mercadona food products that are gluten free display this symbol which makes it incredibly easy to shop, a lot of fresh meat products in Spain are naturally gluten free, burgers and sausages etc as they don´t fill out their products with rusk. There are some meat products that do contain gluten so it´s a case of looking for the symbol. My nearest Mercadon shop stocks a small range of Procelli gluten free products which include, bread mix, bread loaves, part baked baguettes, part baked croissants and ready to eat magdalena cakes.

The Coeliac organisation in Spain is F.A.C.E, if their symbol is on products, it guarantees that the products are eligible for consumption by coeliacs. To be on a gluten free diet in Spain is relatively easy. The dietetica shops in each town may hold a small range of gluten free products but if you ask them they will show you a catalogue and you can place an order and the products are usually in the shop within 2-3 days!

While being on a gluten free diet isn´t always easy and you do have to think about everything you eat, I do believe it is getting easier, more companies are ploughing money into making gluten free food as there is a market for it so there are more products available. Supermarkets have designated shelves full of gluten free products and when Easter or Christmas comes around you can get shop bought hot cross buns, mince pies and Christmas cake. Sixteen years ago it was a very different story! For those of us who have Coeliac disease we have to be on a strict lifelong diet, after being on the diet for a while it becomes a way of life and you can see and feel the benefits and these far outweigh the symptoms of the days before we knew we had to be gluten free!