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.