Oats Expedition (unrelated to Antarctic exploration)

[philaustin]

I finally managed to track down some Pure Oats today.

I need them so that I can go for my second antibody blood test to check if oats are okay in my diet.

Bedford is a two shop town. Sainsbury or Tesco.

I took my (possibly) contaminated oats back to Sainsbury hoping to get a replacement, but they have removed them from their shelve. There were no alternatives so I got a refund.

Today I tried Tesco. It looks like they're clearing out their stocks of GF food. There was little left on the shelves, and no pure oats.

I drove 16 miles to Rushden, where there is a Waitrose. Expensive shop, I know, but I need the oats. They a space in their shelf where they had removed a (possibly) contaminated stock of oats.

But they did have three alternatives!

In fact, they had a huge choice of GF food products.

I got some "Nairns gluten free real porridge oats, 100% gluten free, suitable for coeliacs", 450g for the same price as Sainsbury's 'Free From' (ahem, possibly) oats.

Result, Second blood test here I come!

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I read on another coeliac forum about a cafe that catered for coach trips in the Lake district and they catered for coeliac in a small way and they sold flap jacks labelled as gf. A coeliac asked whether they used 'pure' oats and the reply was no because of the cost but we tell coeliac this and have never had a complaint and many coeliac buy them again. Some coeliac eat chip shop chips and have no apparent ill effects regardless of the contamination issue.

If you read the link I pot a blog up about oats you need a biopsy to show gut inflamation because of the low levels of oat gluten (avenin's) in oats. So this might be worth mentioning to your gut specialist when you have your blood test.

I am not trying to put you off eating oats I just believe that we the consumer, coeliac or not, should be as aware as possible of what we are really eating.

And good luck with your blood test.

[beckyf]

Nairns oats are fantastic - the only GF oats I've found which are also nut-free (as one of my coeliac children also has an anaphylactic nut allergy.....)

Hope the blood test gives a definitive result one way or the other.