Crisps

[Donken]

Hi

Stupid question does anybody know if I can eat snap crisps they are my favourite and I’m really missing them. Just been diagnosed with coeliac

[Regalbirdy]

Hi Donken,

There are loads of gluten-free crisps that you can eat.

Sadly Smith’s Snaps do not fall into this category - there is wheatflour in the flavouring.

It’s a bummer when you can’t have your favourite foods anymore. I remember missing many things - not least decent breakfast crumpets!

Keep experimenting with new things - you will soon find replacement foods that are just as good. Remember to check the labels on everything that you eat; and twice if necessary! It does get easier with time - I promise!

You are asking all the right questions to keep yourself safe. Everyone here is happy to help you as much as they can.

[Donken in reply to Regalbirdy]

Thankyou it’s so difficult. My family hate the gluten free life I’m going to have to cook for them “normal meals” and myself separately

[Regalbirdy in reply to Donken]

That’s tough going. I hated being ‘different’ at first. The GF diet sure does change all your social relationships! And it can be quite isolating at times. For example, I remember the office birthday cakes in my early days - colleagues would still wave them under my nose and offer me one, even though they knew about my Coeliac diagnosis. How I so wanted to be able to accept one...! Difficult was an understatement!😢 At times it felt so unfair.

Six months after diagnosis, I was still struggling with the emotional aspect of being a Coeliac (I knew I had the diet well sorted). So I chose to seek formal counselling support from the NHS. It was so very helpful, as it meant that I could express what I was feeling away from my friends and family.

In hindsight it allowed me to go through a grieving process for all the foods I could never eat again; and for all the social events that I could no longer partake ‘normally’ in.

It was the best thing I ever did! I would encourage you to go down this path if necessary, especially as many work places also have decent access to counselling services.

R. B. x

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My concern is that you are asking the question when the wheat is clearly shown on the ingredients list. Seems to also have barley highlighted a few times. If there is wheat, barley, rye - it's not suitable for coeliac. Crisps I have found, generally, are a poor option for cross-contamination so you need to stick to the ones that are labelled gluten free. Even those may be tricky if you are sensitive to the yeast extract (which may contain low level gluten, but within codex level). This is the reality of coeliac - you can not have all the foods you used to have, but there are reasonable substitutes and it will take time to readjust.