‘Free From’ Cooking

A Free-From Family

I have a friend who has five children and both herself and her children are variously needing dairy free, gluten free and wheat free meals. Catering for them all is sometimes tricky. She always wants to cook from scratch rather than buy the ‘free from’ products in the supermarkets – partly because she like to know exactly what goes into the products, and partly because they tend to be quite expensive.

Having worked at producing meals for the family that fit the bill in terms of being nutritionally sound, and free from any ingredients that may cause trouble, as well as being tasty has at times been a challenge. But through hard work, trial and error she has succeeded many times and feels she has learnt a lot in her journey.

Passing On Gluten Free Experience

She now would like to pass on what she knows so others don’t have to go through the same processes, by sharing information and recipes on this website. I know sometimes she is frustrated that a recipe appears to be suitable for her family but then there will be just one ingredient that does not work so she has to think of a suitable substitute – or potentially leave it out altogether

Hidden Gluten

The other thing she is aware of is that things that are seemingly wheat free products that are not necessarily so since eg oats may have a fine dusting of wheat to help to keep the grains separate. There is often wheat flour in unspecified thickeners or sweeteners too and things like ‘modified starch’

Gluten Free Lists

So we are starting this project of a list of things that probably are not gluten free unless they actually say so.

It’s also easy to forget the more obvious things that contain wheat, too at times, like perhaps couscous.

So with apologies for lists of things – I think is worth listing some of her findings – I think it will be really useful to people.

Since there are also many people out there who will have their own experience, views, ideas. Comments and feedback are very welcome from other people who are traversing this journey of finding good healthy food whilst having to avoid certain ingredients.

Food labelling clearly does not make things easy and mistakes often result in people being unwell and miserable at best and extremely dangerous to helath at its worst

I need also to make a disclaimer here too that this is advice and findings from one person and should not in any way be a substitute for visiting a doctor or nutritionist. I think it may prove useful for raising awareness of hidden ingredients

For a Gluten Free Diet

Avoid

• Barley
• Brown Flour
• Bulgar Wheat
• Cous Cous
• Cracked Wheat
• Durum Wheat
• Einkorn
• Granary Flour
• Kamut
• Kibbled Wheat
• Oats
• Oatmeal
• Pearl Barley
• Porridge
• Rye
• Semolina
• Spelt
• Triticale
• Wheat
• Wheat Berries
• Wheat Bran
• Wheat Flakes
• Wheat Flour
• Wheatgerm
• Wheatgerm Oil
• Wheat Protein
• Wheat starch
• Wheatmeal
• Wholegrain wheat
• Wholemeal Flour

Things Made with Wheat

• Batter
• Bread
• Bicuits
• Cakes
• Chapatis
• Crackers
• Crumpets
• Doughnuts
• Muffins
• Nan Breads
• Noodles
• Pancakes
• Pasta
• Pate
• Pastry
• Pitta Bread
• Pizza
• Pretzels
• Quiches
• Scones
• Scotch Eggs
• Spaghetti
• Tortillas
• Waffles
• Wraps
• Yorkshire Puddings

Prepared Foods That May Contain gluten

• Fish Fingers
• Ham In Breadcrumbs
• Batter Coated Food
• Sausages and Burgers (often have rusk)
• Stuffings
• Oven Chips – Many use a wheat covering
• Barley Drinks
• Spelt Cereals
• Bran and Oat cereals
• Rye bread
• Crackers

Invisible, Sneaky Gluten

• Unspecified Flavourings, Sweetners and Spices often contain wheatflour
• Commercially made sauces and gravies use wheatflour as a thickener
• Baking Powder
• Beer
• Boullion
• Cake mixes
• Cereal
• Cereal Protein
• Custard Powder
• Food Starch
• Gravy Powder
• Ice creams
• Ice Lollies
• Lasagne
• Malt
• Malted Drinks
• Modified Starch
• Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
• Mustard Powder
• Rusk
• Salad Dressing
• Soups
• Soy Sauce
• Special Edible Starch
• Stock Cubes
• Suet
• Vegetable Protein
• Vinegar

And that is still not an exhaustive list!