Gluten free foods seem to be everywhere now.  Not only are supermarkets full of gluten free products, but more and more restaurant menus are featuring little ‘GF’ annotations next to items. Lots of people have been embracing these foods for all manner of reasons.  As a result I’ve noted a fair bit of scepticism that eating gluten free is just a trend.  The latest of these ran in the Fairfax press.

This particular article focused on gluten free eating being a fad on the affluent trendies of Eastern Sydney.  The article suggested that going gluten free was often “a fashion statement” that people made to “make them feel special.” This may well be the case for many.  However, for the celiac (or coeliac), eating gluten free is often essential.  However, to a large extent it is misunderstood.

I clearly remember the day I entered the world of gluten free. It was back in 2001 and my then one-year-old daughter had a biopsy under general anaesthetic to determine whether she was indeed a celiac.  This was the final part of the diagnoses.  An earlier blood test had all but confirmed that the reason our child was constantly vomiting, displaying other symptoms of gastro-enteritis, and basically wasting away with malnourishment before our eyes was that she was a celiac.

For me, this diagnosis came as a relief, as I had feared that she had cancer…

If you, a friend or family member always lacks energy, gets stomach aches, vomits, is either completely constipated and/or has diarrhoea – or a mixture of these – perhaps get them to ask their doctor for a blood test for gluten intolerance.  You’d be amazed how many people I know who were constantly diagnosed with gastro or told they had irritable bowel syndrome before they got the celiac diagnosis.

Shortly after the wave of relief of my daughter’s diagnosis subsided, it dawned on me that I had absolutely no idea where to start when it came to gluten free eating.  What would we eat?  How would we afford it?  The world was turned upside down.

We fumbled through the supermarkets and specialty stores to try and find answers. Edible answers.  Affordable answers. Convenient answers.

Here is the thing you quickly find out: most convenient food involves gluten.  When we started out, gluten free pizzas were nowhere to be found. Fast food outlets that had anything gluten free were non-existent.  If you wanted your child to eat when you were on the move you had to bring it with you.  If you took them to a party, you took food for them or they missed out.

I’ve come a long way in the last 12 years.  Now I’m going to impart to you some of what I’ve learnt.

But first, a disclaimer…

However, before I do I want to make clear the following things:

• I am not a medical professional.  I’m just the father of two celiacs imparting what has worked well for us.  It might not work for you at all.
• My experience is that celiac/gluten intolerance isn’t a one-size-fits all thing.  One of my daughters can actually consume a bit of gluten before she gets sick, but the other is really quite sensitive to small amounts of gluten.
• When making their packaging a lot of companies err on the side of caution.  Just like ‘may contain traces of nuts’ is now commonly seen, so is ‘may contain traces of gluten.’ My experience is that my sensitive celiac hasn’t had a reaction to products with this on the packing.  Again, this isn’t to say you or yours won’t have a reaction.

Key ingredients

The first thing you really get used to is reading the ingredients of products.  As you can see from this list there are a plethora of ingredients for you to look out for.  It goes on and on. However, you quickly get to know what is key:

• Wheat flour;
• Wheat;
• Breadcrumbs;
• Malt, Malt Extract, anything Malt – although maltodextrin I’ve found to be OK;
• Thickeners in the 1400’s – where it doesn’t specify Corn or Maize; and
• Starch – where it doesn’t specify potato or corn/maize.

We have found that “Glucose Syrup (from wheat)” is OK.  It is generally put in the category of “no detectable gluten.”  (see above disclaimers though).

There are more but these are the big ones and they take out all manner of products:

• Anything battered or crumbed;
• Pretty much all biscuits – and things biscuits are put in like ice cream;
• Bread, crumpets, muffins, cake, pies and pastry;
• Canned soups, sauces and prepared meals often use gluten thickeners;
• Lots of sweets;
• Breakfast cereals often have malt extract which is a big no-no;
• Chips and corn chips often are coated in flavouring which is flour based.  The plainer ones are often OK.

Pretty scary list, right?  Sure it is.  And I was really scared when I first saw it.

The next thing you do is go to the ‘health food’ aisle at your local supermarket and look at the products.  The first thing you notice is how expensive they are.  Nowadays there is quite a big selection of products available, but what they don’t tell you is just how many products in the normal aisles that are gluten free.

So why would you care anyway?  Well the main reason is that you find you have someone you have to cater for that is a celiac.

When this circumstance happens lots of people often make the following mistakes:

1. Get a gluten free orange and poppy seed cake…  They are ok the first five times but they are often the “Groundhog Day” experience for celiacs;
2. Make sandwiches with GF Bread.  Most GF bread doesn’t make good sandwiches at all; and/or
3. They go grab some random product from the gluten free aisle and hope it is ok.

In some cases what you do may ‘cut the mustard’ but in most cases you’ll basically have your guest feeling obliged to eat very undesirable food.  AND lots of pre-made GF stuff is really high in fat and sugar too.

Good GF stuff

What I want to detail to you now is a range of products that I use all of the time that I recommend.  Let me point out that these are purely my opinions and I do not work for any of these companies, nor have I received any benefit from them.  I live near a Coles so lots of my faves are from there. I like both Woolies and Aldi too!

Bread

This is the big one for most.  You can either make your own or buy ready-made loaves.

If you are going to make your own the Lauke Gluten Free Bread Mix is both a good price and fantastic straight out of the oven. There is a multigrain option as well as white.

Orgran has a multigrain with Quinoa that Mrs Bloke thinks is great.

If you are going to buy there are two great options.  The first is the Country Life range.  These are good and moderately priced.

If you are in Canberra or immediate surrounds there are the loaves made by Deeks bakery.  There is a massive range at their two outlets (Pearce shops and Dickson Shops) and Coles Supermarkets stocks at least three types: Fruit Log, Quinoa Loaf and – our favourite – the Pumpkin Loaf with Chia seed.  These are quite pricey but they are really good.

Be warned with breads, though, that it is only when they are really fresh that they are at all suitable for sandwiches.  After day one you need to freeze them for use as toast.

Crumbs

Crumbing foods is still possible. It is expensive but kids love schnitzel…  You can use rice crumbs or there is a brand of gluten free bread crumbs that Coles stocks that we love. Oh, and make sure you flour in GF flour.  I use pure cornflour.

Pasta

Gluten free pasta has really improved.  There are lots of types available at varying costs.  There are three that I use religiously.

The first is a recent addition from Coles.  Their range of Simply gluten free pastas is both cheap and pretty tasty.  It also doesn’t go gluggy too quickly.  BUT it is made of cornflour so it will make anything it is added too (soups) gluggy and opaque.  If adding it to soups, cook it separately, rinse thoroughly and then add it.

The second is the Buontempo pasta.  This is reasonably good for quality and taste and quite affordable.

Less affordable is option 3: the San Remo Gluten Free pasta range.  This pasta is excellent.  Most people wouldn’t know it was gluten free either.  It is more expensive but it is also worth it.

A tip for cooking gluten free pasta is to err on the side of undercooking it and rinse it well with hot water after straining.  It won’t stand well for long either.

Flour

There are heaps of interchangeable flours on the markets that work almost exactly the same as wheat flours.  When making a cake or pancakes they work almost as well.

The Orgran Self raising and plain flours are my personal favourites.  They are pretty cost effective and great quality.  White Wings also have GF flours which are great.

When it comes to flouring foods or thickening them I recommend you use pure corn flour.  White Wings corn flour is always GF – as is their custard powder.  Coles cornflour is also GF.  Beware of “Wheaten Cornflour.” it is finely milled wheat flour and is hyper gluten.  Lots of lazy cooks and chefs inexplicably use it to thicken their sauces and gravies when it will often be the only thing that makes the meal not GF.  If they just used actual cornflour they’d deal all the celiacs back in. Tell these people off about it as you find them.

Cakes

There are lots of packet cakes out there.  They are of varying quality.  The one I have found to be the best is the Deliciously Moist range.  You wouldn’t know they were GF.  The other thing I love is the White Wings 3 egg cornflour sponge recipe.  This is the cake to make for kids I’ve found.  It is light and fluffy.  No one would know it is GF.  NOTE: substitute GF self raising flour for normal flour in this recipe to make it GF.

Fast food

So how do we do fast food?  Easy:

• Tacos from Zambreros are GF (not the soft ones though!)
• BBQ Chook and chips are GF (Usually not the stuffing though and check the chips aren’t battered)
• Snag Stand is excellent for GF.  They have made a point to cater for celiacs.
• Dominos and Crust both do good GF pizza bases.
• McDonalds and Hungry Jacks chips and Hash Browns (not KFC though – chicken salt is gluten).
• Ali Baba has pretty good GF wraps for their kebabs.
• Sushi/Nori rolls.  We particularly love Sushi Sushi (beware of crumbed products in them though and their Soy sauce can have gluten).
• Lots of Sumo Salad’s products are GF.  Rice vermicelli noodles are fine. Watch out for tabouli – it has cracked wheat (like cous cous…)

Everyday products

Don’t panic people.  There are plenty of things that are gluten free you eat every day.  Here are a few of them that I buy frequently (always double check ingredients to check things like flour and malt extract etc haven’t been included again – sometimes they change recipes):

• Rice – we mostly use Basmati as it is low GI
• Heinz Baked Beans
• Fountain and Masterfoods tomato sauce
• Fountain Soy Sauce
• Coles corn flakes (check they don’t sneak malt extract back in. Rice bubbles usually have it)
• Aldi and Hans cocktail franks
• Aldi and McCains potato jewels/gems and hash browns are usually GF (check for flour though)
• Arnott’s corn cruskits
• Real Foods corn and rice thins
• Rice crackers (check coatings)
• Mighty Mite (a pretty good GF Vegemite alternative)
• Jelly
• Cheese
• Most ice cream (look out for malt extract and cookies though)
• Jam
• Honey
• Peanut butter
• Most yoghurts
• Canned tunas
• lots of stringers and roll ups for kids lunches

And most vitally:

• Non processed meat;
• Fruit and vegetables.

Eat lots of those.

Good luck people!

A note from our resident nutritionist, Kate Freeman: Love this article from Tim – a fantastic resource for celiacs! It’s important to note that you only need to go gluten free if you’re a celiac or have a medically diagnosed gluten intolerance. Gluten isn’t an unhealthy nutrient for a someone with a healthy gastrointestinal tract.

If you’re following a gluten free diet without having been medically diagnosed, you may be at risk of nutrient deficiency and you should consult with a nutritionist/dietitian for guidance to ensure your diet is nutritionally adequate.