One of my best friends is holding her hen party in Manchester in a few weeks time and we are going for the whole weekend. As part of the festivities we will be eating out multiple times and although we are staying in a hotel with cooking facilities I don’t want to live on jacket potatoes.

Currently the Coeliac Map has reviews for one good gluten free pizza restaurant, and notes on two chain restaurants (Bella Italia and Wagamamas) which from previous experience have always done GF well. However I would really love to know of other possible places to visit!!

Chief hen is starting to book tables for eating out and I need some good suggestions – Please add them to the Coeliac Map or leave a comment and I will report back.

Rants and ridiculous recipes

Over the past 12 months there are a number of things which have really driven me nuts:

• NHS cut backs which mean that some coeliac’s have lost access to their gluten free products on the NHS
• The increasing levels of salt in GF food – despite highlighting the range of deficiencies in a previous post 12 months on I am still searching for a decent gluten free breakfast cereal.
• The cost of GF products particularly in supermarkets.
• The lack of fast food outlets or decent restaurants which allow me to eat out with friends on a regular basis (improved by The Coeliac Map)
• The frequency with which I am told oh yes it’s gluten free, to discover the next day it’s really not!!
• What am I supposed to eat for lunch!
• What am I supposed to eat for dinner!
• Why is it that I only seem able to cook a bloody stir fry or possibly a fish pie without assistance.

All valid subjects of frustration which I will endeavour to answer over the coming few weeks. 

Any thoughts on other topics are greatly appreciated.

Food Reviews

While writing this blog, I received lots of comments from people who wanted to know about restaurants in Cardiff. I also received lots of hints about other places to eat in the UK and tips for shops that sold Gluten Free produce.

Before living in Wales, I lived in Hampshire, where I now work. I wanted to continue writing food reviews for restaurants, but felt I was too restricted to one city.

iCantEat.co.uk
I have an Android phone and a partner who is a software developer. He gets more frustrated than I do due to the lack of (or lack of information about) coeliac friendly places. Often we find that it can be pot luck. These two things combined made us create iCantEat.co.uk.

The site and app allow coeliacs and coeliac friendly venues to rate and list venues and share their experiences.

You can rate add a rating to each venue, and this is how I’d break them down.

4 – 5/5 – for me this would be a coeliac, knowledgeable and friendly staff. Or a specialist coeliac shop.
3 – 4/5  – Staff who are knowledgeable and can help pick out GF items with no fuss.
1.5 – 3/5  Staff don’t have knowledge of coeliac disease or requirements, but are happy to learn. Coeliac options may be very limited. Some cross contamination could be on the cards.
0 – 1.5/5 Very poor. No knowledge, few or no coeliac options. Unwilling or unable to adapt menu to help.

Web Version
As well as the android app, you can also view and add to the UK Coeliac Map on the web.

The UK Coeliac Map

You can zoom to the area of interest, click on existing marker and view address and contact details, other people’s reviews and photos.

If you right click on the map, you can add a venue at that location. If you enter the name of the venue, you can then click on “Lookup Address” to find the details for the venue.

Adding a new venue

Then optionally fill in a title for your review, some comments and your name. Don’t forget to set the rating stars!

The venue will be submitted and will be published to help other coeliacs share your knowledge!

Twitter

If you’re on twitter follow us: @CoeliacMap for updates.

Any comments on the software or restaurant reviews are very welcome. We’re still working on this, (while each holding down full time jobs) so it can take a little time for feedback to filter through.

Finally I would say that this is a review service, and that each person may have a very different experience of a particular restaurant. One of my food reviews in Southampton has lead to a restaurant improving its coeliac options and educating its staff. The reviews are a reflection of service and food on one particular day, they will vary e.g a fish and chip shop in Cowes on the Isle of Wight is only Coeliac friendly on Tuesday evenings.

As much as possible please be fair, accurate and as contemporaneous as possible. Spam will not be tolerated.

I have been test driving this for the past few weeks and it is very handy because using my Android phone, I can identify my location and find the nearest coeliac friendly place. Plus it has raised awareness because restauranteurs see immediately how good / bad I think they are for coeliacs.

The map shows a coloured star for each reastaurant with a colour scale showing how good the reviews are for each venue, which in general will be:

• Red dot : no coeliac menu, unhelpful / unknowledgable staff.
• Orange dot : no coeliac menu, a lack of knowledge amongst staff but helpful.
• Yellow dot: no coeliac menu, but knowledgeable and friendly staff.
• Green dot: advertises as a coeliac place, coeliac menu, very knowledgeable and helpful staff.

When you click on a star, you’ll be shown the details of the restaurant, with the address, contact details and website. You can also browse through the reviews that other people have left and any pictures they have submitted.

A Restaurant Review

This app is in its early stages so at the moment you can add a review of an existing venue straight from your phone, but you will need to email in the details of a new venue to get it onto the map – but we’re working on this!

If you want to place your local restaurants and coeliac friendly places on the map then please go to http://www.icanteat.co.uk/ There will also be a web / iphone friendly version soon. Right now we need more testers so please download it for free from the android market place if you have a compatible phone, or look at the website for more info. http://www.icanteat.co.uk You can also let me know if you have any feedback / reviews.

GF Oats are approved by Coeliac UK but they need to be introduced slowly.

Normal oats are often milled in the same place as wheat so they become contaminated with Gluten. Coeliac sometimes react to GF oats because they contain the protein Avenin which is very similar to gluten.

I have been trying them over the past weekend and have had some problems. However my symptoms are not as bad as when i eat gluten and after 2 bowls of porridge and some crumble topping with oats my body is adjusting.

It does seem to be the really high fibre content which my body is struggling with, although as ever I will monitor things over the coming few days.

Has anyone else tried GF oats yet and what have they experienced?

My mum normally cooks for us but this year I am not meeting my family until Christmas Day night.

Since I have some spare time on my hands this week I thought I would road test some different coeliac recipes for Christmas dinner.

So today I will be trying to make a Coeliac Gingerbread House. I have never had one of these and I am dubious of my cooking ability to make one but we shall just have to wait and see.

Any suggestions will be much appreciated.

The big coeliac questions

Personally I think most CUK bashing comes from too high expectations of what the charity should do. But I would be interested to know what the wider coeliac community feels. So here are my questions.

Is CUK worth the annual subscription fee?

What should be CUK role in the UK? – ie is it to champion the needs of coeliacs in the UK, should it focus on raising awareness, should it just provide a support service.

How can CUK become better and should it have to change?

My interaction with CUK

I had no interaction with CUK for about 11 years. This was due to the fact that my mum stopped finding them useful so she stopped paying our annual subscription.

We never went to any CUK events when I was a child, and although the CUK book was useful, Cross Grain came across as a boring repetitive magazine.

CUK bashing online

There has been some bloggers who have a rant against CUK for not being active enough in promoting the requirements of those who live with Coeliac Disease.

Personally I think they do a pretty good job, and it is often a lack of awareness amongst food manufacturers which causes coeliacs more problems.

CUK as a support network

For new coeliacs CUK is a really valuable resource of information and support. My best friend was diagnosed as a coeliac only 2 years ago and CUK were brilliant in helping her find useful information about her condition.

However coeliacs who I have met who have been coeliac for a long time are not always so positive about CUK. They still find Cross Grain a bit boring to read, with not enough new recipes or information about up coming regional CUK events.

In a strange way some coeliacs I have met seem to resent the CUK book because they would prefer to live in ignorance, and because it only comes out once a year. I think this is a bit of a silly view because CUK send out updates to the Food and Drink directory every month.

CUK regions
Also CUK regional support groups also take a lot of fire from ‘older coeliacs’ for not holding events often enough.

I have not been back with CUK long enough to really judge if their regional teams hold enough events. I missed the one when I first arrived in Cardiff and I have not yet heard of any more events.

When I was in Hampshire I was not part of CUK so I did not hear of any events. However the sausage seller in Southampton farmers market (where I met most coeliacs randomly after living for almost 5 years in Southampton) assured me that the local group did a wide variety of events.

I want this blog post to kick-start a debate about CUK, and what we can do to help this worthwhile organisation be most effective.

My solution for coping was to visit the best Coeliac cafe I have yet found in the UK.

The Pot on Crwys Road

This little coffee shop offers vegetarian, vegan, coeliac friendly alternatives on its menu. This means that my housemates can all eat with me and non of us can get stressed about a lack of options.

I had a goats cheese and sweet potato lasagna with 2 large cups of tea which really filled me up and tasted great. They also offer a range of GF cakes and other sweet options.

They had a separate menu to coeliacs and were very careful in ensuring there was no cross contamination.

The Pot Website

When we originally tested, the information sent stated that the gluten structure of Sharpham Park spelt makes it easier to digest than wheat. We understand that Sharpham Park’s packaging and website clearly states that ‘this product contains spelt gluten’. For more information about products that are gluten free, please contact the Coeliac Society, 0870 444 8804, coeliac.org.uk

Hello Hannah

Firstly, thank you for getting in touch. It is always good to hear from people who have heard about Sharpham Park, or tried our products .. even if the comments are negative!

Hannah, I am so very sorry that you, and very many others, have been misled by the article that appeared in the BBC Good Food Magazine

As you are well aware, spelt does contain gluten, which is why it makes such lovely bread! However, it is the molecular structure of the proteins in the gluten which are very different from that of wheat, and which makes spelt very much easier to digest than wheat. It is therefore suitable for many people who suffer from a wheat intolerance – such as IBS, bloating, etc.

I do hope this is helpful, but if you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to get back to me.

With sincere good wishes

Kate

FOR SHARPHAM PARK