fruit and nut

[dobido]

hi everybody, yesterday i was shopping in lidl and fancied a health treat choose a small pack of mixed fruit and nut they where right near the tills and i thought they would be ok, sat watching tv lastnight just about to open them look on back to see what fruit was in it just to find the words i dread contains gluten,has anybody else notice this with other supermarkets? i,ve only been diagonised since december 2012 even though i try my hardest to avoid gluten i,m still suffering with some problems i had before i,ve been told know to avoid wheat,gluten totally and not even have the so called safe limit and no oats for at least another 6 months. i,m really missing having porridge but suppose i,ll become adjusted to it. Sometimes it really gets me down and last week i was so low i nearly got my boyfriend to go to the fast food place with the golden m to get me a burger meal, but at last minute i avoided it.seems like i,m so limited advantage is am having fresh meat,fish and veg but its not the same,just learning to make pastry so i can make a pie but wish i had a recipe for puff pastry mine is so short that you have to be careful get it out of loose bottom tins has it crumbles i made 8 pastry cases yesterday blind baked and ended up with two that didn,t break.(sorry for moaning and going on)

[Hidden]

thanks for the warning. I use the little Whitworth packets of fruit and nuts,lots of varieties and just right to tuck in your pocket. They are gluten free. Hope things get easier soon and you start feeling the benefit.

[FionaGFG Administrator]

Look for 9 bars, Eat Natural bars as they are GF. Do not give up it will only make you ill. It takes time to learn what is GF but you will get there. Do not let yourself get hungry and have nothing to eat. Start being like a Squirrel and take nuts or fruit with you anywhere and just remember it's great you're not putting crap in your body when your friends are all eating take aways. If you do crave the big M then take your own GF roll (we like the Free From ones in Sainsbury's & BFree in Ireland) and then order a meal minus pickles. The Mgr of the big M will show you a allergy sheet if you ask e.g burgers are GF minus bun as are chips in the UK & their ketchup. So you can eat rubbish. After a while you won't want to though. Follow some online baking bloggers for cooking tips. A lot of the USA ones are great you just have to remember to have cups & USA to UK conversions.

[Regalbirdy]

Hi,

Just to clear one thing up, the safe limit of gluten is zero! Nada! Zilch! That's why it is called a gluten-free diet!

And yes, I agree this is very hard, especially in the beginning. I made the same mistake you did with a packet of nuts. In my case it was honey roasted cashews from Asda. I didn't read the label's properly and had to give them to my mum to eat at Christmas.

I love shopping in Waitrose - the labelling is so clear on all of their products. I think that it is worth paying the few pence extra for the peace of mind you get.

I got diagnosed around the same time as you, so understand many of the early frustrations you have written about. The medical profession focus so much on your physical health, they practically ignore the psychological impact it has as well. Our lifestyle has had to change so fast, it can leave your head spinning! For one thing, eating out becomes quite a minefield.

For me personally, I would say that having CD was the underlying cause of my depression issues. I was very lucky in that my work supported me with several counselling sessions to help me come to terms with all the changes and deal with some related emotional issues. Having these sessions helped a lot. Do you have access to a similar service where you are?

Could you ask your GP for help?

At the risk of making you feel even more down; I find that eating dairy causes me to feel like I have been glutened. Worth bearing in mind if you are sure that no gluten is getting into your diet.

I will say the contents of my handbag has certainly changed since being a coeliac. It has doubled in weight and now almost always contains food items. 9 bars - love 'em! They are so handy and can stand a battering, unlike most cakes and fruit (which get squished!). Doing this stops me panicking about what to eat when I am out.

Don't give up, being ill again is not worth the temptation of that burger.

[dobido in reply to Regalbirdy]

thanx regalbirdy at my docs i can,t even get blood test done been told they will test me when its sunny as according to my doc everybody is difficent of vitiamns in the winter. I have suffered from depression for 20 yrs i,m lucky to get help with that but i won,t give up trying to get blood test done, and i am lucky enough i don,t usually feel like burgers,was just p,d off with can,t have this can,t have that felt like i couldn,t eat anything.

[Regalbirdy]

Hi dobido,

Do you think this week will be sunny enough for your GP to agree to get your vitamin D levels checked

I had a debate with my GP yesterday about the appropriate levels of vitamin D supplement for a recently diagnosed coeliac. After looking at the guidelines for my area, I politely but firmly disagreed with his original assessment made several weeks ago of my current situation. (I am on a supplement level of 800ui at the moment). My vitamin D levels are truely shocking and fit into the severe category. If it helps you, I was told yesterday that 800ui is pretty much a maintenance dose for someone like me. After some negotiating and reminding about the total villius atrophy in my guts, I won the toss and now have a referral (for an endocrinologist I think) to try and get my Vit D levels back on track. There are risks with taking higher doses, which need to properly monitored - hence the referral.

It can be done.... you can get what you need if you are persistent....do your homework and go back to argue your case if you must!

So good luck changing the GP's mindset. My advice is to be as persistent as you can be.

[DartmoorGuerrilla]

Hi dobido, for me the Heather Whinney GF cookbook (available on Amazon) has been superb and my pastry turns out well every time.

For healthy sweet snacks I love the Nakd bars - you can get them in the major supermarkets or buy direct online (they do a selection pack so you can find your favourite flavours).

I agree it's a right pain finding gluten in places it has no right to be!

[Petros]

Hi dobido!

I was diagnosed fairly recently like you. I found life very frustrating at first, but now see food buying as a challenge. Aldi do a good selection of gluten free chocolate, but you've got to check the labels on everything I'm afraid! Thorntons also do a good selection of wonderful GF chocolate. As far as porridge goes, I love it too. My Consultant told me only to buy GF oats though, as ordinary ones have been contaminated in the harvesting and processing. Since then I only buy GF porridge oats from the 'free from' section of any supermarket. Now I'm back to enjoying my porridge without being 'zapped' by gluten. Hope this helps! All the best!

[Lellymay]

Hi, SNAP! I was diagnosed last year and getting used to things..we have to relearn cooking skills altogether. I subscribe to Elenas Pantry and have one of her cook books, most of her recipes are on line. She uses a lot of almond flour to avoid too many grains and I find most of her recipes far nicer than I ever expected. Trying to make pastry as close to "Normal" as possible does not work for me :(. Porridge I can help with..try sorgam, you can get it at asian stores and some large tesco stores, you can find methods of cooking it on line but I find treating it like porridge works ok. It tastes bland..like porridge does, in africa it is used as a first baby food as it is easily digested. The cakes in Elenas recipes are much nicer than any you can buy..nicer than regular cakes. The mix you can get on prescription makes fair cakes too but I don't use it alone for pastry, I use mostly ground almonds with some of that mixed in to make it cheaper.

Just had a trial of oats and it was as bad as wheat so don't think all coeliacs can tolerate gluten free oats!

I eat "9 Bars" latest treat to be not gluten free is frys chocolate cream!

[Regalbirdy]

Hi Dobido,

I have been having a look around the Internet to see if there are any guidelines for the management of coeliac disease.

It seems that Nice do not produce specific guidelines as such; but I did come across the following on their website: cks.nice.org.uk/coeliac-dis....

It is interesting because it specifically mentions That "Routine testing for indicators of compliance and malabsorption should be considered (of coeliac disease): .........full blood count, red cell folate, serum ferritin, calcium, and vitamin D, and tests for associated autoimmune conditions."

It could be worth making your GP aware of this document, if they are as bad as you say they are!

As you might have seen me post about before, I have found that the first rule of coeliac management (besides keeping to a gluten-free diet) is learning to argue the toss with your GP to get from them what you need!

I have found they are much less likely to dismiss you if you can back up what you are saying with documents like the above.

I hope this will be of interest to you as well.

[Jacks]

Aldi - they do have some GF nuts and others not. Best thing about Aldi is they do have the gluten free logo on the bag of their snacks. They do have a salted peanuts and cashews mix in a dark blue bag that has the GF logo for your stash.

Last time I was in one of the big supermarkets at the free from section some fellow coeliacs were chatting about the gluten free pastry that they loved. Someone pointed to Mrs Crimbles and another said they liked the gf frozen pastry that they thought was so easy - might be DS brand.

Re the burger - I make my own quarter pounders - quality minced meat, onions, seasoning made into burger shapes (obviously) and freeze them. Somebody bought me a little tupperware-style plastic burger press thing so I'm a machine now! Just separate them with some baking paper or they stick together. I eat them in gluten free buns (Livwell do a pack of 2 x 2 toasting bread buns that can live in the cupboard) and a big dollop of tomato sauce (gluten free). Simple to do, even for me, and most important - no gluten or added animals you didn't know about!

It also might be worth getting an annual subscription to Coeliac UK then you get the book to carry around shopping - just a thought.

[Lunarhine]

I was gutted when I found I shouldn't have oats (ever). But, I did find that, as I kept rigidly sticking to the gluten-free diet (and also kept removing surprises like you found from my diet), I was able to absorb more energy from food than before. So now a bowl of cereal sees me through till lunch, whereas I could never understand before how anyone lasted ten minutes on cereal! So, stick with it and your breakfast choices will get easier. Oh, and Coeliac UK say 'gluten free' when they mean 'just a teensy bit', which is deemed safe here (but not in other countries). Now I've felt the difference in no gluten I don't want any, but that's your choice.