Gluten Free Diet

Whether this is your first gluten free Christmas or your 100th there is no need to miss out on all your favourite treats.

We have an excellent selection of gluten free Christmas cakes, gluten free Christmas puddings and gluten free mince pies.

If you prefer gluten free savoury products or are looking for food for a buffet or party and are not sure what to feed your guests there is an excellent selection of frozen products that can simply be cooked in the oven. Our best selling product is Sussex Larder's gluten free sausage rolls, they are hand-made and contain no hydrogenated fats unlike supermarket versions. They are definitely man-sized, one of them is a meal in itself! If you have problems with pastry then we have a good selection of gluten free quiches ready made or if you want to make your own save time by using our ready-to-roll gluten free pastry. I have never managed to make a gluten free filo pastry - but Butterfly Snacks have managed it with their gluten free samosas and spring rolls.

Even more delicious when washed down with gluten free beer! Now buy 3 cases of Ambar or Schnitzer Bräu and get 10% off!

All that leaves me to say is have a wonderful Gluten Free Christmas and New Year.

I am not a lager lout honest! When I was diagnosed with coeliac disease 6 years ago one of the things I missed was a cold lager on a hot day. At that time there was only one gluten free beer available in this country and that was Greens. I like their gluten free stout but their lager tasted more like a bitter.

A couple of years ago I tried Hambletons Ales at a gluten free food fair but again these were a bitter type beer rather than a lager.

Then last year at a gluten free presentation at the Finnish Embassy I had a gluten free lager from Finland which was the real McCoy but sadly that is not yet available in this country so my search resumed.

In July this year we had the luck to come across Schnitzer Bräu a gluten free Premium Pils from Germany. Yes and it actually tastes like Pils and I was so impressed I ordered a case for my birthday. The importer also asked me if we could sell it on our website so I happily agreed. In addition to the gluten free Premium Pils they also do a gluten free Pils with Lemon which is lighter and more like a lager shandy. If you can't make up your mind then we can also do a mixed case of gluten free lagers. These beers are also wheat free and suitable for vegetarians and vegans. All gluten free Pils is only £39.95 for a case of 24 including delivery.

More recently we have introduced Ambar Celiacos gluten free lager from Spain. This gluten free lager does contain barley malt but has been tested and contains less than 6ppm according to the National Centre For Technology and Food Safety in Spain.

Now we can enjoy summer all year round!

The Cynical Coeliac

Nearly 6 years since I was diagnosed with coeliac disease I find myself asking 'What's it all about?'

I left teaching nearly 4 years ago to focus on my business. At that time I blindly used to shop in Tesco's every week without a thought as to where my food came from. Even in the last 4 years Tesco has continued to grow and we now have 7 stores in our town. Such growth is unsustainable, probably a quarter of shops in Worthing are now empty. All the hype recently surrounding 'Genius' bread recently has been fascinating - another mass produced loaf shipped at great expense all over the country with mixed results.

I used to get gluten-free products on prescription every month. I am now a lot more aware of the effect of our diet on our health. Say that most cancers and other conditions such as heart disease and diabetes are caused by diet and can be cured by diet and most people think you are some kind of nutter, but doesn't it make sense when you think about it? And now there is talk of a coeliac vaccine or drugs that can apparently 'cure' the condition. We already know the cure, eat a healthy gluten free diet, what could be simpler than that? Because of our culture of eating too much highly processed food suddenly this becomes a minefield. As well as a change of diet in many cases (and mine included) what is needed is a shift in attitude. Look at the 'gluten free' products available on prescription - most are highly processed, especially those that contain 'codex' wheat starch. Many of these are just designed to replace the processed products we should be cutting out of our diet anyway, coeliac or not.

Yesterday morning the Coeliac UK Awareness Week edition of EXG arrived in my inbox. As a diagnosed coeliac I feel that any charity that purports to represent me should be ensuring better awareness amongst doctors, educating dietitians so they can help their patients follow a healthy gluten free diet and helping caterers source good quality gluten free food so we can eat out safely.

What do we get instead?

Juvela and Glutafin peddling their highly processed prescription products (I know how much it costs to advertise in EXG and it ain't cheap!) - so who are they profiting from?

A PR machine for Phil Vickery's cook book - there was an article in one of the tabloids last week where he was plugging his book with Fern Britton spouting on how a gluten free diet had helped her lose weight. Good work Phil, yes you may be exploiting any angle to promote your book but it doesn't help us coeliacs!

The Black Farmer promoting his sausages - I noticed he's been spamming a lot of the groups on Facebook recently too. I was pleased to see Charlotte on the gluten free message board questioning the welfare of his pigs. I personally stopped eating supermarket meat many years ago.

'Free for Tea' at Westminster and the Scottish Parliament. I went to one of these in Westminster a couple of years ago - very jolly it was too. A few MPs and reps from Coeliac UK drinking wine and eating gluten free canapés, not sure what it was all about really!

So the way forward - shop local when you can, it's cheaper and better for the environment. There are plenty of delivery schemes if you can't get to your farmers market every week or month. It is simply not sustainable to keep shipping food all over the country. Why do we need to buy the Black Farmer's sausages in Sainsburys when a lot of butchers do their own if you take the trouble to look.

I am currently re-evaluating my business, more to follow in the next few weeks. I welcome your comments and thoughts.

Plamil boldly proclaim on their website that their factory is now a 'no nut zone' - well good for them we are so fed up of this 'may contain' stuff - you can read their nut free declaration on their website. Accordingly we then marked their dairy free chocolate as 'nut free' on our website. So, not surprisingly, a customer with a nut allergy contacted us after having purchased a bar of their chocolate being very concerned that it said 'may contain traces of nuts' on the label. I then e-mailed Plamil with my concerns and this is their reply:

Dear Helen

Thank you for your recent e-mail.

The bar that your customer purchased was made after our factory went to a 'no nuts used here' factory, but as stated clearly on our website there may still be some products made whilst the labelling is changing.

You may like to purchase from us directly therefore shortening the supply chain and getting the newer production, which would minimise problems like this for yourselves.

Unfortunately in this instance we would not be able to fulfill your request of a refund of the £4.00 due to the statements we do make on our website.

I note from your mail that you have labelled our products as 'nut free' as per the Anaphylaxis campaign guidelines the expression 'nut free' is one that they would not recommend being used for any products. So we have adhered to this by labelling bars with the 'no nuts used here' or from our 'no nut factory' which may be an alternative also for yourselves.

A cop out or what? And how irresponsible just to cut corners they are still using the old packaging. And what of the other allergens, can we be sure that they are really dairy free and suitable for vegans? We would like to hear your feedback (especially if you or a family member have a nut allergy). We are reconsidering whether we should stock their products and if we have a concensus we shall discontinue them.

Thanks for sharing your opinions!

I had hoped to keep the blog up to date more often - the best laid plans of mice and men! However you can follow us on Twitter. We will keep you posted when new products are in, special offers and anything else we consider newsworthy! We have 3 new brands in this week: Lazy Day Foods fabulous gluten free, wheat free and dairy free cakes and biscuits with no additives and preservatives. Belgian Dark Chocolate Ginger Snaps, Millionaires Shortbread and gluten free shortbread plus a long awaited gluten free savoury biscuit. All are gluten free and dairy free and suitable for vegan diets too. Organic gluten free crispbreads from Le Pain des Fleurs (flower bread). In 3 varieties - buckwheat, chestnut and fair trade quinoa. 100% corn pasta in 7 different shapes including Conchiliette (little pasta shells). Also the most delicious Extra Virgin Corn Oil, we used this in the Brazilian Flavours Pizza Base Mix for a really fresh corn taste.

Sometimes there are not enough hours in the day, I love to cook but it is always great to have a stand-by in the freezer. Due to an unexpected event I unexpectedly had to cook dinner this evening. Not feeling in the mood I grabbed one of Sue's delicious Duck with Ginger, Lime and Honey. Delicious sliced duck breast in a tangy sauce with slices of lime peel and ginger - took about 6 minutes from frozen in the microwave and served with a few slices of Glutabye's
Multigrain High Fibre Loaf to soak up the sauce.

Finished off with fresh strawberries (from Kent and so sweet), figs and yogurt for dessert. It is important when you are on a restricted diet to focus on what you can eat rather than what you can't............

Duck with Ginger, Lime and Honey is made locally by the Intolerable Food Company and is on special offer at the moment, hurry because they are reducing their range. Blame Sue not me!

Yes really! Thanks to the new Pizza Base Mix from Brazilian Flavours. This mix was developed by Isabel Gordon in conjunction with Salvos Italian Restaurant in Leeds. We tried it for the first time last week, it was really easy to mix and what's more it stayed in one piece when we rolled it out. You can then pop it straight in the oven, no need to leave it to rise, for about 20 mins then add your topping and cook for another 5 minutes. We added an egg, but if you have an allergy to eggs you can always use the Orgran Natural Egg Replacer

For our topping we used Meridian Organic Tomato and Herb Pasta Sauce, a few olives, sliced tomato and grated cheese. Of course if you wanted to spice things up a bit you could use the Chilli Sauce instead!

Come and see us demonstrate how easy it is to use - and have a taste! Our open day is this Sunday (3rd August) 12-3pm with the cookery demo at 1pm. See you there!

Honeybuns Minis have arrived, 2 of them are gluten free - the Heathcliffe Chocolate and Orange Brownie and the Coppice Cake.

The chocolate in the Heathcliffe Brownie packs a mighty cocoa punch. Best suited to those who adore a dark intense chocolate. There is a very subtle hint of orange too, with a pure West Indian orange oil for a natural flavour.

The unusual Coppice Cake is not too sweet owing to the ground hazelnuts and tart cranberries that make up most of the mix. The dark chocolate buttons are stirred in at the last minute to prevent them from melting. It is based on a German hazelnut torte recipe.

Go ahead and treat yourself TODAY!

I have just returned from exhibiting at the Natural Trade Show in Brighton, the first time we have had a stand there. Well what an eye-opener into the 'Health' Trade!  Just as we get fed up of hearing 'are your products available in the supermarkets?' at consumer shows, today it was 'can we get your products from the wholesalers?'.  Just as a very large percentage of the retail outlet is controlled by a few supermarkets, so is the health trade by about 5 wholesalers. I would like to point out we are a wholesaler but we are independent. Interestingly, many independent health shop owners say that their coeliac customers are fed up of Trufree - and incidentally many of their products are full of hydrogenated fat and not at all nice to boot! This is due to a lack of specialist knowledge on the part of the 'health food' wholesalers. It would appear that their attitude is 'as long as it's gluten-free, we'll stock it' with no consideration about the quality of the products and whether we would actually want to eat it. In the catalogue of one of the health food wholesalers (who shall remain nameless) it even had rye flour listed as 'gluten free'. Not very helpful for small retailers who are trying to expand their gluten-free range.

Thank goodness help is at hand now! Helen Pengelly, who is a coeliac herself, at Johnson's Dietary Provisions, has personally selected all their products for their quality and taste and in response to customers' requests. And unlike other wholesalers there is no minimum order. We understand that it can be difficult with gluten-free products as they are necessarily more expensive so customers will be reluctant to try new products. We will let you try a few products in a mixed case so you can see which products sell before you order a full case.

Next month, if you are an independent retailer, you will be able to register for online ordering via our website. Please contact us if you would like us to keep you informed.