NHS help for gluten free foods

[Widget]

My coeliac test cam back negative 😕 But due to having RA & fibromyalgia both of which do not help with IBS symptoms, I have gone gluten free but am finding that the foods are more expensive and that's a struggle to buy them, my health seems to be changing little by little so something seems to be working. Is there any financial help if you are not officially diagnosed?

[Lisahelen]

Not that i know of.

Some might give by blood test confirmation. i had to have biopsy as well even though my bloods had shown it.

[RodeoJoe]

Gluten free alternative food is always more expensive. It's cheaper and probably better for you to skip these foods altogether. I'm not even sure coeliacs get food on prescription anymore, I could be wrong. I gave up on it for a number of reasons.

One of them being that I heard the cost of a loaf of bread to the NHS is greatly inflated.

[EvieMarie in reply to RodeoJoe]

Coeliacs can still get food on prescription. They've gotten quite strict about it though. X

[kaspa]

It is unfair that things are very expensive.

I don't tend to buy much of the processed food, though gf breadcrumbs are handy to have in the store cupboard.

Eating lots of seasonal veg and making things and popping some in the freezer is one way of getting round it.

I'm planning on making a big batch of sweet potato falafel next.

anyone got more cheap nutritious food ideas or links?

[Hidden]

Buy a box of GF cornflakes and crumb these for breadcrumbs. I crumb my chicken using these.

Silly as this sounds look at the Asian food section of your local supermarket, different flours most are gluten free, you can experiment with these in cakes and cookies. I use demera sugar instead of refined sugar if you are trying to cut back on sugar. I also use BUTTER and rapeseed oil. Carrot cake using rapeseed oil.

[freelancer in reply to Hidden]

Agree about the Asian foods but be careful if you're sensitive as some of the time they're not processed in a separate place. Also Chinese supermarkets are good for rice noodles/wraps.

[lo2748]

I found the same buying gluten free foods,i now only eat freash food not only are they cheaper,i also lost weight. good look

[Margo]

Don't know if this is any help Widget, but it is an interesting read.

stopthethyroidmadness.com/rai/

[Daisy77]

I thought it would be difficult at first but not now... I wouldn't go back. Gf pastry made with cornmeal and gf flour is lovely. As are buckwheat muffins. I buy very little prepared/,bought things other than gf pasta and m&s sausages!. Check out "gluten free on s shoestring" by Nicole Hunn, and "how to cook for food allergies ",by Lucinda Bruce gardyne, that is excellent. Also the BBC website has a host of recipes. I made my mind up in the beginning that it was a challenge but one I would have fun with.

[Daisy77 in reply to Daisy77]

When I said cornmeal, that was the American part of me coming out! I meant polenta! Makes lovely things, like pastry and cornbread. I also buy gram flour from the India section, great for curries, and my favourite is buckwheat flour...the best muffins ever, recipes on the package.

[Fruitandnutcase]

Have to agree with Daisy77, I made up my mind I was going to do it. I don't buy much that is pre prepared and I no longer eat bread, although I did like Schar best, it actually tastes like bread but it is expensive - I was T2 diabetic for a while and I discovered that grains of any sort 'good or bad' raised my blood sugar so I get my carbs from vegetables. I cook from scratch, chicken, fish, meat along with vegetables. I do make cakes using GF flour but not all that often.

At the moment I like the NOSH cookbooks, I have regular meals one and the baking one, I mostly just look at that and read the recipes although I baked a chocolate marble cake and another recipe for some friends who didn't realise - well they couldn't believe the cakes were GF.

As Daisy says there is a load of information online - in fact I'm off to look at her two suggestions, I've not seen them before.

It might be worth joining coeliac.co.uk - it's worth it for the handbook of GF foods and where to buy them alone, plus you get a magazine a few times a year and there are various local groups you might find helpful.

[Daisy77 in reply to Fruitandnutcase]

Don't forget Nigella either. In her latest book she has lots of good gf healthy recipes. Love Nigella!

[Hidden]

I have found Polenta also makes a good crumb. Not the stuff that is in the block, it is the stuff that looks like grits. Italian week. I bought ten bags and put these in the dry goods pantry for future use. I make my own hash browns and use the polenta as the crumb. Make sure you get the stuff does not contain any other cereal other than cornmeal.

[Fruitandnutcase in reply to Hidden]

Thanks fir the tip about checking. I was looking for polenta the other day - I want to try it for cake making so I was after fine polenta but I was looking in Waitrose and they only had one and it didn't mention 'fine' or look particularly fine so I thought I'd wait and try the health food shop in town.

There is a fish shop locally who do gluten free fish and chips on Monday and Tuesday night's - think they must clean their fat fryers on a Monday - anyway, I didn't ask what they used - I asked to make sure it was GF - but it looked as if it was maybe polenta.

[Hidden]

Polenta looks like grits, not fine like cornflour. I use it in a lot of things. I was amazed when I found sometimes they add other cereals to the mix. it is more like the corn meal you buy in the States.

[EvieMarie]

My 4 nearly 5 yr old is totally gluten free due to her Ana type symptoms. We used to get the juvela bread on prescription but over the past couple of years they've said no.

It is so expensive every month just for her food. But to keep costs down we buy in bulk her rice pasta, cheese crackers & gf flour. Normal supermarkets don't sell these. So online it is through quidco for the cashback & click & collect.

We make cakes with her flour which are amazing. Everybody loves them.

She also has a sensitivity to sugars & lethicins. So again we are very careful.

She can only have chicken from Asda that has been frozen (after hours of research & tests we figured out that morrisons chicken were fed wheat when alive but asda's are fed corn). So we boil the chicken

She's a very complex little girl. Her allergies also cause RAS seizures.

Hope this helps somebody. X

[Fruitandnutcase in reply to EvieMarie]

Gosh if ever anyone was deserving of gluten free bread on the NHS it is your little girl. Allergies are so difficult to deal with, like you say all you need is someone to change the diet of their chickens from corn to wheat and off you go again. Hopefully things will improve in the future. Forcing manufacturers to label is a big step forward but you really need to know everything involved in every process - right down to what the animals you eat have to eat. Good luck with it all, it's amazing how people cope with all that sort of thing isn't it.