Low-carb update: 5 months on

I am painfully aware how long it has been since my last post, but wanted to assure you that I have not gone anyway, I’ve simply been going through a rather eventful few months. But I suppose the main reason for my lack of updates is that I’ve been trying to work out how best to continue with this blog given the change in my eating patterns, that is now becoming a WOE (way of eating) more than any sort of temporary diet.

Let me give you some background: in addition to having coeliac disease, I was diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) in 2010. My periods had basically stopped, and after an ultrasound of my abdomen they were pretty confident that I had PCOS. I was essentially told I didn’t need to do anything apart from stay on the pill until I wanted to try for children, but because I wasn’t “fat, greasy or hairy” there really wasn’t any cause for concern. Okay then. The gist of the advice they gave me was to keep my weight down as much as I could (of course at this point I hadn’t yet been diagnosed with coeliac disease so that added another level of complication).

Fast forward 5 years and the weight had been creeping up and up, despite me trying everything I could to control it. I should point out, I still wasn’t overweight (by BMI standards anyway) but I was rather close to it and as someone who is reasonably short with a small frame I felt swamped by this extra body weight that I couldn’t shift. I took up strength training and gained quite a bit of muscle but lost very little fat. I tried intermittent fasting which worked somewhat, but once the temperature outside dropped I couldn’t continue – I was hungry, cold, headachey and it didn’t feel right to me. I was constantly on the lookout to include more veg in my food, less fat, be conscious of calories, eating as many gluten-free whole grains as I could… and yet my weight went up and up until I hit 66kg in March 2015. With my clothes on, I doubt many people really noticed, but it was enough for me to feel huge, bloated, flabby and not myself.

People with PCOS often have higher insulin levels and are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes (which runs in my family as well). This means that while weight loss is the best method to control symptoms, it is also virtually impossible to lose weight because the insulin makes your body hold on to fat.

Last year I came off the pill because I wanted to see what my body was doing before we started trying for children. I had a couple of periods like clockwork and then… nothing. I was frustrated and annoyed with my body and I felt like a failure. I couldn’t lose weight, I assumed I was probably going to have a really tough time conceiving and I was hungry ALL the time. I thought being hungry was a personal failing of mine – like I should just “stop” being such a little piggy.

I can’t remember exactly how I was introduced to the idea, but something somewhere convinced me to give the low-carb diet a try. I had this vague idea that carbs were fattening, but I also associated eating no carbs with constant hunger all the time. At this point, I felt like anything was worth a try, so I just did a bit of research and started one day. You can see my two week update here, to see exactly how I started eating this way.

It’s now been 5 months since I started eating low-carb/high-fat and aside from a couple of cheat days (these were intentional cheats for my 30th birthday, not impulsive binges) I have stuck to it completely. It’s been such an easy way of eating for me as well, for several reasons.

Hunger

The hunger I feel now is totally different from the hunger I used to feel. Throughout my life, when I’ve been “hangry”, I’ve got into arguments with people and basically freaked out when my food was delayed significantly.

Now, my hunger is not only milder, but of a different nature. It tells me “Hey Sam, you should probably think about eating soon, but you can totally finish what you’re doing first”. Sometimes I’ll make it an extended time without eating and start feeling a bit nauseous. Then I’ll remember I didn’t have lunch. Carb-eating Sam used to clockwatch from about 11am thinking, “Is it lunchtime yet, is it lunchtime yet?”

The times I feel terrible hunger are now usually only after cheat days. However, making sure I eat enough fat is a huge part of this also, so if I eat a lean piece of meat with veggies for dinner, I can be terribly hungry by bedtime. The solution is to make sure there’s fat at every meal. Creamy sauces, extra butter or coconut oil in stews, a piece of cheese, generous amount of extra virgin olive oil, or simply cooking the meal in lard.

Weight loss

I don’t want to dwell too much on the weight loss especially as I support beauty at all sizes, and strongly believe that people should be whatever size they are comfortable with. Having said that, I was not comfortable with my body, and had problems finding clothes, especially trousers that fit properly. I also didn’t feel healthy in myself.

I’ve lost 8kg (17.5lbs) since March. I’ve lost more than 20cm around my waist, hips and thighs. I’ve dropped a dress size and my clothes are falling off me.

I do feel more like myself, and if we’re talking purely superficially I am pretty happy being at this weight. I’d like to lose a bit more, but I think our bodies tend to know what weight is best for us to be at so I’m going to wait and see at what point it stops.

Periods

My periods haven’t yet restarted but I am beginning to think they are on their way – I’ve been getting monthly cramps (but no actual period) and even ovulation pain (um, yay for pain?)! It was a bit of a long shot, hoping to “fix” PCOS with diet, but I still think it’s possible to get them going again. I’m tracking as many symptoms as I can on my Clue app, which I love.

Mood/Mental health

It’s very difficult to attribute changes in mood or mental health to diet, especially when you are prone to periods of depression and anxiety anyway. I will say that the eating this way has stabilised my moods immensely. However, when I initially starting losing fat, it seemed like a lot of hormones were being released. My skin was awful – some days I had acne (which I have never had, even has a teen). This really messed with my head.

I have certainly suffered from a period of depression and anxiety this autumn, however in reflection I think my hormones were exacerbating the problem, rather than causing it. There has been a lot going on in my life, and I decided to go talk to a counsellor, which helped a great deal. Then one day I woke up, and the depression was gone. My brain just said, “right, enough of that, let’s go get some stuff done today”.

And I feel good now.

So what now for The Happy Coeliac?

I’ve been thinking about this for months now and still haven’t settled at a conclusion. I wanted to make sure I was committed to eating this way for life before I made any changes to this blog, but I’m still not sure exactly how I should progress.

I toyed with the idea of starting a new blog or changing my site name but these are things that would inevitably lose me readers and subscribers and set me back while I built up a new audience. So for now, I’m just going to carry on blogging here. I’ll be posting low-carb, high-fat and gluten-free recipes, ideas and tips. I’ll still talk about gluten-free issues in the news, or problems that coeliacs face. After all, I still can’t eat gluten. I’ll just be less keen to replace gluten with other grains or starches.

And then there is the fact that I’ve written a Christmas baking book that, while entirely gluten-free, is also packed with sugary, carby, recipes. I self-published and thus still have around 50 copies sitting at home (that I’d quite like to sell). I’ve been feeling increasingly conflicted about the fact that I have published 3 recipe books which go against my entire way of eating now (although, my BBQ book is reasonably low-carb) and I still haven’t come to a conclusion about in what capacity I will continue selling them.

But for now, no decisions need to be made. It’s nearly Christmas. I’ve finally written a blog post. I feel healthy and happy. It’s time to relax, spend time with family and friends, write in my journal, watch Netflix, read books, light candles, wrap presents, spread some Christmas cheer, and enjoy being alive.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2016!

Gnocchi are an Italian dish which look like dumplings but are technically a kind of pasta. They are most commonly made with potato, flour and egg, but there are many different types, which often vary by region. Chestnut gnocchi are generally found in the northern parts of Italy, where chestnuts are extremely popular.

Chestnut puree comes in a few different varieties – be sure to pick the kind which is made from just chestnuts and water. If this proves hard to find, whizz up some cooked whole chestnuts in a blender with a very small amount of water until a smooth paste is formed.

This dish is a hearty and wholesome vegetarian option, which can be adapted to be dairy-free by forgoing the butter and heating a few tbsp extra virgin olive oil with the sage (and leaving out the parmesan). You might think that it’s a bit of a faff making homemade gnocchi but the dough mixes up in no time at all, and the taste is more than worth it!

To get the “professional” ridged look, you’ll need a special device called a gnocchi board (affiliate link), but I’ve never had any problems using the back of a fork. After a few goes you’ll get into a rhythm and be done in no time.

As I wrote last week, being on a low-carb diet seems to be having a very positive effect on my quality of life. I’ve got more energy, my mood is better, and I’m easily losing fat that I haven’t been able to shift for years. I’m experiencing relatively few cravings for carbs, but sometimes it would be nice to have a bit of a dessert that isn’t just quark and berries.

When I’m looking for inspiration, sometimes it’s nice to search for something general in Pinterest, then just keep scrolling until something catches my eye and sparks an idea. (If you’re on Pinterest be sure to follow me!) That’s how I realised that cheesecake might be one of the easiest desserts to convert to low-carb, as long as you go for full fat cream cheese to give it a nice taste and texture.

It’s actually my first time using liquid sweetener, and I’m quite impressed. I needed about 16 drops to get the cheesecake mixture to what I would term as “sweet”. If you don’t like to use artificial sweeteners you could leave this out, but of course it will be quite a bit less like a “dessert” if you do

(Click here to read about my full diagnosis story)

Yep, I’ve been hungry basically my whole life, but a big appetite when you do more than an hour of exercise a day is not like a big appetite when you can’t motivate yourself to even get out of the house. No matter your natural metabolism, if you are hungry all the time, and don’t exercise like your neurotic perfectionist 15 year-old self used to do, you are going to put on weight. This kind of hunger can’t be ignored or placated with “hey, maybe you’re thirsty/bored” which seems to be the diet and fitness industry’s go-to advice for dealing with hunger pangs.

Ironically, my twenties were spent educating myself about food and nutrition, eating healthier, trying to “get in shape” while steadily putting on weight. It’s certainly not enough weight to be medically interesting, nor even for anyone to notice much, but for me it’s felt like a battle even to slow the weight gain as much as I’ve done. At my heaviest, I was still only 10kg (22lbs) more than I was as an active 18 year-old, but it felt massive. I didn’t seem to be the right shape for clothes any more and I lost interest in dressing myself well and taking care of my appearance.

Even though I had been eating gluten-free for 4 years now, that frantic hunger had not gone away, in fact it seemed to get worse and worse. Every attempt to diet or exercise the weight away has led to me feeling exhausted from the effort, or hungry and focussed so much on my next meal that I couldn’t concentrate on my work. I should point out that during these “attempts” at calorie restriction I probably never made it under 1500 calories a day, and even 1800 calories left me wanting more. I joined the Nerd Fitness academy, which is a fantastic community, but everyone’s tales of how great they feel just left me cold. Why wasn’t I feeling great? I tried lifting weights but I felt awful afterwards (and of course, it sent my appetite into overdrive). What was I doing wrong?

A few things happened to point me in the direction of a low-carb, high-fat diet. There were no big awakenings, or giant realisations, just a few interesting articles here and there along with the fact that my PCOS reared its head again and decided that it would be stopping periods indefinitely with no promises about if and when they would start up again. PCOS is linked to insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes (both on my father’s side), and the more research I did, the more I felt like it was worth a shot, at least. (NB: I have been tested for diabetes, which came back negative.)

What I ate

I think this diet takes some getting used to, so please don’t take this as dietary or nutrition advice. I’m not a dietician. I’m also not one to follow diet plans, so I focussed on building myself low-carb, high-fat, moderate-protein meals. I definitely overshot the protein on several occasions, but now that I am used to eating this way I intend to make sure I am getting appropriate nutrition in the long term.

I decided for the initial period I would concentrate my efforts on limiting the amount of carbs I ate to 50g a day. I started by weighing out every single thing I ate for a few days, which was enlightening but entirely unsustainable. It was enough for me to realise that 1) I would probably need a multivitamin (although I probably did anyway), and 2) as long as I stuck to a certain group of things and remained mindful of the sugar in fruit, I probably wouldn’t need to worry about counting out my blueberries. So I largely stopped counting, since I had cut out starchy vegetables and tubers, and mostly ate from the following list:

Meat/fish

• Bacon
• Chicken
• Turkey
• Steak
• Pork
• Herring
• Anchovies
• Prawns

Fruit

• Avocados
• Blueberries
• Raspberries
• Blackberries
• Tomatoes
• Melons
• Olives

Full-fat dairy

• Quark
• Mini Babybels
• Gouda
• Cottage cheese (I’d never tried this before – it’s gross  – won’t be eating that again!)

Nuts

• Walnuts
• Pecans
• Cashews
• Peanut butter (as close to 100% peanuts as you can get)
• Almond butter

Fats

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Butter
• Bacon fat
• Chicken fat

Veg

• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Broccoli
• Aubergine (eggplant)
• Courgette (zucchini)
• Cucumber
• Asparagus
• Peas
• Sugar snap peas

Alcohol

I reasoned since this is a lifestyle, not a quick-fix diet, I would have to make room for a bit of alcohol. I kept this to a couple of glasses of dry white wine and a couple of buckwheat beers (over the 2 weeks, not in one go!)

Other drinks

• Water, water, everywhere
• Green tea

What happened to my body

Hunger

The first few days I don’t think my body really knew what had hit it. I exceeded 2000 calories but didn’t feel too hungry or have any sort of carb cravings. The carb cravings hit the day after I cheated (argh!) and had one gluten-free bread roll. My body’s crazy response to the introduction of carbs seemed to reinforce my image of my stomach being some unsatiable kraken-type beast.

Credit to The Oatmeal for the drawing.

My body’s reaction to “cheating” was clear… NOPE. Besides, I was feeling like a new person. It was as big a difference in me as I felt when originally going gluten-free. My mood improved, my energy levels rocketed and – best of all – my hunger stabilised. I went out for a steak dinner and happily consumed steak and vegetables when it struck me – I hadn’t been greedily coveting my boyfriend’s potato wedges. Not at all. I just didn’t want them.

And when did courgettes start tasting so good?

Stats

Two weeks is a short amount of time and when you enter ketosis you do tend to lose some water weight, so take the weight loss with a pinch of salt.

Weight loss: 1.7kg (3.7lbs)

Waist: -0.5 inches (1.2cm)

Mid-waist (love handles): -2 inches (5cm)

Hips: -1 inch (2.5cm)

There is also noticeably less bloat in my face now. I’ve gone from two chins to one chin.

The downsides

Aside from it being the diet that I apparently can’t cheat on, there are some downsides to the low-carb lifestyle. Keto breath and keto pee is real, my friends. It does require quite an insane amount of checking packets and googling nutritional values when you first try to work out what you can eat, and I’ve eaten more packaged food and meat than I would have liked. (My fridge is small, there ain’t no room to be making loads of stuff from scratch when I could pick up some little packets of hummus and babaganoush from the supermarket!). But none of this is insurmountable. I’ll learn and improve and evolve and adapt.

Verdict

I honestly don’t feel like the last few weeks has been much of a challenge. My hunger has finally been reined in, and I’m able to do the exercise that I want to do to keep me healthy. I keep saying it, but it’s true – I feel like a new person.

I don’t like to recommend eating habits to other people as I think that everyone’s body responds differently to food. However, I wanted to share the start of my journey in case there are others out there, who like me, were constantly hungry and didn’t know what to do about it.

It’s likely that my blog will start to reflect this new lifestyle, but I still want to make some baked goods as I love tinkering around in the kitchen too much to stop! I am working on a massive site overhaul and redesign so I hope you’ll stick around or subscribe here to stay abreast of future plans.

The recipe does call for a lot of ingredients – but don’t worry, once you’ve got everything together it’s actually quite simple to prepare, and most of the work is done before you heat the BBQ. If you don’t fancy kebabs, you can leave the thighs whole. Galangal paste, tamarind paste and ketjap manis (Indonesian soy sauce) are becoming more and more widely available in mainstream supermarkets, but if you have trouble finding them, Asian supermarkets will almost certainly have them.

The peanut sauce is rich, spicy, and ever so moreish. During the recipe testing process, I even managed to convince my peanut butter-hating boyfriend to try this, and he ended up loving it. It will keep in the fridge for a few days if you have leftovers.

If catering for someone with a peanut allergy, sunflower butter makes a very respectable alternative to peanut butter.

As (bad) luck would have it I also caught a cold on the plane on this trip, but I still managed to get out and about (through sheer determination more than anything else), so I finally had some places to review!

Sushibarinn, Laugavegur 2, 101 Reykjavik

Sushibarinn is on one of the main streets of Reykjavik. It’s a tiny city – so there are only really 2 or 3 “main streets”. Barinn means “bar”, and this tiny takeaway place seats no more than 6 people. Fortunately they have an agreement with the adjoining cafe, Prikið, so after ordering they directed me next door where I ordered a liquorice and mint tea and waited for my sushi to be brought to me.

As far as understanding of gluten-free goes, I found it a little tricky communicating with them, but the message eventually got through and my chef’s special came with gluten-free soy sauce.

It was fantastic sushi – melt-in-your-mouth fresh, while being simple at the same time. Like any city on the coast, Reykjavik has an abundance of fresh fish, and you can see why sushi is so popular here!

It was 2750 ISK (about £13/€18), which I didn’t think was too bad for Reykjavik prices.

(If you want an evening meal, try Sakebarinn which is right round the corner, and state on their website they have options for the gluten intolerant. They weren’t open for lunch, unfortunately.)

Gló, Laugavegur 20b, 101 Reykjavík

This place is right next to a health food shop, Heilsuhúsið, which has an excellent variety of gluten-free items – and trust me, if you venture much outside of Reykjavik, you will NEED to stock up.

I actually ate food from Gló by accident – one of the days I was ill my friend brought me a box back as lunch. Although they call themselves a “healthy eating/vegetarian/raw food/juice bar” kind of place, they do actually serve meat, and they have several options each day that are gluten-free. My friend said the woman seemed very knowledgeable and knew exactly what I could have. I ended up with some sort of chicken salad, which was delicious.

It was fresh, tasty and ever so slightly sweet (I think it was mango chutney on top of the chicken). Highly recommended as a gluten-free stop for lunch. They also have amazing gluten-free desserts (think flourless brownies and the like!).

They are a chain and have 5 branches in the area.

Sægreifinn (Sea Baron), Tryggvagata, 101 Reykjavík

A building by the harbour which serves kebabed meat and soups, as well as some delicious dried fish, which you will see for sale throughout Iceland. We went there in 2012, and I had the whale kebabs as I was curious to try it, although I now have mixed feelings/opinions on eating it so I abstained this time.

Saffran, various locations in the Reykjavik area

The hallmark of this place seems to be the saffron chicken, which I had on my first night there (unfortunately didn’t get pictures of it!). Their menu lists allergens with symbols, so the gluten-free options were easy to see, although I got the impression they weren’t especially clued up on cross-contamination issues. Having said that, I didn’t get sick either time I ate there.

I guess I could compare it to a posh, healthy Nandos. The second time we went I had the lobster and garlic salad.

It was really tasty but could have been a bit more substantial. The chicken and rice combos were much better at belly filling. The saffron chicken was 1990 isk (about £9.40/€13.50) and the lobster salad was 1890 isk (£8.95/€12.80).

Out and about

Although Reykjavik has a great food scene, once you get out of the city your options start to dwindle. Bear in mind this is a country that basically has a single ring road around it, and you start to get an idea of just how unpopulated the place is. Tourism is booming though (especially in summer) which means that there seemed to be many hotels/restaurants under construction.

One day I took a 14 hour coach trip all the way down the South coast as far as Jökulsárlón, the ice lagoon. I brought a bag of food with me – including protein bars, beef jerky, mini Babybels, cookies, crackers and some sad sandwiches made with tiny Schär bread, but I was still hungry come dinner, and the place we stopped in the evening was busy and cafeteria-like. I was so tired I couldn’t face asking about gluten-free and quizzing them about their cross-contamination so I ended up getting a bag of crisps for my dinner. Be warned if you do a similar long trip, as you won’t have much choice about where you stop.

Having said that, I did find amazing sustenance on the road and throughout my stay in Iceland from eating copious amounts of skyr. This pseudo-yoghurt is technically a soft cheese, but could well be considered a superfood as it is very high in protein but low in fat and sugar. Tubs of Skyr can be found in almost every service stop (although if you need lactose-free Skyr, you’ll have to find a supermarket), and they are a great snack at around 100 calories a pot.

Oh, and they taste like the most creamy, delicious, sinful pudding you could imagine. If anyone knows where I can find this in the Netherlands, please let me know!!

Edit: Since posting I have discovered the Skyr is very similar to Quark, which is freely available throughout Europe. Win!

Other places to try

When I was researching eating gluten-free in Iceland, these other places came up (although I didn’t get to try them on this trip):

3 Frakkar Baldursgata 14, 101 Reykjavík (I e-mailed them in 2012, before I got sick, so I never got to go here, but they have a good awareness of gluten-free)

Sushi Samba, Þingholtsstræti 5, 101 Reykjaví­k (I was desperate to go here, but they only opened in the evenings so I couldn’t fit them into my lunch plans)

Madame Free From’s account of her stay in Iceland (2013)

The Hungry Boyfriend’s recommendations for Reykjavik (2013)

Gluten-free Traveller’s recommendations for Rekyjavik (2009)

Overall, Icelandic people are very friendly, with a great sense of humour and eager to help you. You shouldn’t find any raised eyebrows when you mention gluten-free – although you are unlikely to encounter specialist restaurants or products there should be plenty for you to eat, although you might need to get a bit creative at the roadside stops.

Even though I’ve been there twice now, I can’t wait to go back for a longer time and with a larger budget

Long time readers of my blog might have a sense of deja vu – I attended in 2014 and 2013, although I was helping out on a stand those years and therefore didn’t see half as much as I saw this time round.

It’s a huuuuge show, so all I can do is give you my personal highlights and recommendations. Brands with a star next to them (*) means this company provided me with freebies, but you should know by now my good opinion can’t be bought with free food.

Highly Commended

I must say, the organisers did a great job this year, and I’d like to extend a thanks to them for organising the show (incredibly they are only a small team!) and also for organising the bloggers meetup. I felt like they rejigged the space again this year – the aisles were wide and I didn’t get squished at all, despite it being plenty busy on all three days.

The Pastry Room – if I could only tell you about one new discovery I made at the show, this would be it. They had a small stand so you might have missed them, but they produce a range of gluten-free mixes (pastry, scones, cookies and sponge cake) that are stored in the freezer. So what’s special about that? Well, the fat has already been added, meaning that when you make your pastry, everything is as cold as possible, and you end up with a properly flaky gluten-free pastry! I know it’s a cliché at this point, but I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between their pastry and regular gluten-containing pastry. They also seem to have achieved a truly chewy gluten-free cookie.

Unfortunately they don’t currently deliver to Holland (waaaah) and I don’t think I’d even have space in my tiny freezer (double waaaah) but I may have dragged my mum over to this stand and forced her to order some for when I come to visit. Thanks mum!

Isabel’s Free From stand

They keep for 18 months in the freezer so if you have the space you can definitely order in bulk!

Green’s gluten free beers – these guys have recently undergone a fantastic rebrand and their new labels are looking good! Their beers are always very easy to drink and I particularly liked their blond beer. (I said the same thing last year, but it doesn’t stop being true!)

Isabel’s Free From* – no, it wouldn’t be an Allergy Show post without mentioning Isabel. She was celebrating her 10th anniversary at the show with a fully pimped out stand.

She’s storming ahead in the Free From world, so much so that she even had some celebratory cookies printed!

What can I say, I’m a sucker for a promotional cookie.

She’s got a few new products out – a baked doughnut mix and a pancake mix, but most exciting of all was the prospect of her upcoming gluten-free gravy granules, a corner of the market that seems to be rather lacking. I may be a “knit your own muesli” type, but you can guarantee that when cooking a big meal, I will always, always forget about the gravy until the last minute.

Romeo’s Gluten-free Bakery – I haven’t had the chance to visit these guys in Islington yet, so I treated myself to one of their loaves of bread. It was £5. Yes, that’s a lot of money. I don’t eat a lot of bread, so I treated myself to a seeded loaf after I tried all their samples – for research purposes! – and it was really, really nice bread. If you’ve got the money, definitely try these guys out. They were also absolutely lovely, which always helps.

Tesco Free From Chocolate Celebration Cake* – this one is a bit of a wild card, actually. When I lived in London I did occasionally eat Tesco’s Free From range, and the main benefit is that they are pretty inexpensive. Taste-wise, I’ve always thought of them as not bad. At the bloggers meetup, we were generously presented with goodie bags, and the rep from Tesco ended up giving me an entire FreeFrom celebration cake. I was quite overwhelmed with the freebies and couldn’t possibly eat everything before I was due to fly home on Monday so I thought about finding a local food bank to donate to – but it was a warm day and by the time I got home the cake had not fared well AT ALL. (This is not a criticism of the cake itself, I wasn’t able to carry it upright you see). So we put it in my mum’s fridge and thought we’d try a slice of the mush for dessert.

It was divine! It’s unfortunately not dairy-free, as it’s made with butter – real butter! Tesco have done a really good job with this gluten-free cake – it was fudgy and moist and chocolatey but not sickly sweet at all. I don’t know whether keeping it in the fridge perhaps improved it but I loved it, as did my mum, and we both hung our heads in shame for being supermarket snobs.

Lakritsfabriken – Swedish for “liquorice factory”, these guys were showcasing their premium gluten-free liquorice. For premium read = expensive. Still, I didn’t even like liquorice before – we went over to satisfy my Danish mother’s insatiable desire for decent liquorice. A few samples of their salted, chocolate covered offerings and I was a convert. It had nothing to do with the attractive Swedish man on the stand, NOTHING, I promise! I am still gutted that we bought a pack of these and then I forgot to eat them before I flew home. We were given a huge amount of liquorice toffee to sample with our purchase so at least I can console myself with toffee and the satisfaction that camaraderie between Scandinavian nations is not a thing of the past.

Commended

Well, this is starting to sound like a school ceremony, and we all remember dozing off at those, so I’ll make this part snappy…

Great Food – yummy little falafelly balls, with a variety of different flavours/veggie combos. I would eat these on a regular basis if I could get hold of them on the Netherlands, and I don’t eat a lot of premade foods.

Punjaban Curries – delicious authentic curry bases. A family run business based on family recipes.

Pana Chocolate – one of many raw chocolate offerings at the show. They have a variety of interesting flavours (fig and wild orange was my favourite) and although raw chocolate can be a bit weird when you first try it, even one square satisfies your chocolatey cravings (and I say this as strictly NOT a one square kind of gal!)

BFree – their bagels and wraps are just wonderful

Greenfrog Botanic body wash* – I was given a bottle of this as part of the bloggers goodie bags, and although I said to the guy I couldn’t promise to review it I thought I’d mention it as it smells really good. I don’t believe in Ayurvedic medicine, but the body wash is organic, biodegradable, and suitable for vegans and those with sensitive skin.

Udi’s Gluten-free Blueberry Breakfast Bars* – I’m on the fence about Udi’s as I find their products to be rather hit and miss. But these were actually pretty decent and reminded me of Nutrigrain bars.

And a quick shoutout to Moral Fibre for winners of the “Best Named Brand” category.

Room for improvement

Udi’s Chocolate Flavour Sandwich Cookies* – these Oreo rip-offs brought 60% less joy to my belly than other gluten-free Oreo substitutes. It’s weird because I’ve tried their other cookies in the past and actually really liked them.

The 1000s of Paleo snack products – if people thought the gluten-free “trend” was annoying, then Paleo must be insufferable. Many of these were promoting some of the most shameful pseudoscience I have ever come across. I feel like I should support Paleo brands as they are expanding the gluten-free marketplace, but I feel it’s a passing fad for most – those on a “serious” Paleo diet (if there is such a thing) are not consuming prepackaged snacks. They are loading up on steak and vegetables.

Every brand that uses the following phrases: “guilt-free”, “no naughties”, “no nasties”. Firstly, I hate the constant plastering of the concept of guilt all over food. No food is inherently good or bad, and the narrative created by these brands only serves to normalise disordered thinking about food. Also, “naughties” and “nasties”? What are we, three years old?

The end is nigh!

So thanks for making it to the bottom of a rather epic post, and I hope it has been useful, enlightening or entertaining.

For those who live far from London, fear not, there are several other shows!

Liverpool (Exhibition Centre) – October 2015

Glasgow (SECC) – March 2015

Berlin (STATION) – April 2016

Let me know your favourites from the show in the comments section below!

My experiences at barbecues post-diagnosis were very mixed. Sometimes a friend would go above and beyond making sure I was catered for, but other times I was told I could have the burger “without the bun”. Oh wait, no, oops, the burger contains wheat.

Summer should be a time everyone can enjoy, not just the gluten-eaters of this world! That’s why I wanted to create not only some scrumptious recipes that everyone would enjoy, but a guide to gluten-free grilling, including a section on how to avoid cross-contamination, cooking and marinating guidelines and some tips for making great kebabs.

Singapore Satay Chicken with Peanut Dipping Sauce

So I devised this cookbook on the following principles:

• There should be plenty of vegetarian and dairy-free options
• The recipes should be largely prepared beforehand, leaving you to enjoy your barbecue with friends or family with minimal stress
• The recipes should be simple enough for beginner cooks but uncompromising on taste

Portobello mushrooms stuffed with curried lentils and wild rice

So what can you expect to find in the book?

• Marinades and sauces
• Side dishes and starters
• Recipes for on the BBQ (50% veggie, 50% meat)
• And of course the ever important desserts!

This book has been a real labour of love so I hope that you are as excited to try the recipes as I am to share them with you! If you enjoy the book, please consider leaving a nice review on Amazon.

For those who don’t own a Kindle fear not! The ePub and PDF versions will be available to purchase on my site in the next couple of weeks so watch this space!

BUY IT NOW

Now, they are extending their gluten-free availability to 50 branches nationwide, including one right next to Amsterdam Centraal station! This is great news for coeliacs, especially as Amsterdam doesn’t have a lot of gluten-free friendly “grab and go” places.

McDonald’s have released this video explaining all about it (in Dutch, sorry) but the gist of the news is that:

• They are certified gluten-free by the Dutch Coeliac Association
• You can get the gluten-free bun as a hamburger, cheeseburger or quarter pounder
• They make them to order, adhering to strict cross-contamination controls
• Each branch that offers them has a crossed grain logo saying “Lekker Glutenvrij” on a sticker at the entrance
• You can order at the counter, drive-thru or at their Easy Order kiosks
• They put a helpful “zonder gluten” (without gluten) sticker on your order

To find your nearest branch, visit the restaurant locator and click on the crossed grain logo. For more information (in Dutch) read this summary by Miss Glutenvrij.

What do you think? Excited? Jealous? Skeptical? Let me know in the comments below…

Person: Want a piece?

Me: No thanks

Person: Oh go on!

Me: No thanks, really, I’m good.

Person: *offers to everyone else then returns to me*

Me: No thanks, I can’t eat that.

Person: You CAN’T eat it?

Me: *sighs* (Quickly decides whether or not it’s worth starting THAT conversation)

If you decide to talk with a stranger at a party about coeliac disease, you can guarantee that one of the two questions will come up:

1) “So what happens when you eat gluten?”

2) “So how sensitive are you?”

The first is sort-of-but-not-really a silly question and depending on the situation my answers can get quite dramatic, in the hopes that they will at least never ask that question again to a stranger. I have been known to use the phrase “waves of diarrhoea” when someone is not satisfied by my original answer of “gastrointestinal problems”, as if ingesting something that your body views as a foreign invader could ever result in anything BUT vomiting/nausea/diarrhoea.

The second question always baffles me somewhat, because I never know how to answer it. I have always known in theory that coeliacs could react to the slightest crumb, so I have been as careful as I can, especially after I was apparently glutened by pizza dust on a “gluten-free” pizza at Hell Pizza (since closed down, nothing to do with me, promise!).

Since us coeliacs tend to have very sensitive tummies anyway, it is always difficult, if not impossible, to know whether you have been glutened or whether you are just reacting a bit strangely to something you ate. That is, until last night when I got glutened by a glass.

Bars in Holland seem to have a relaxed attitude to washing their beer glasses, but normally soft drinks are served in slightly different glasses so it’s generally ok. I didn’t even think about this until I was two iced teas down and starting to experience “whirlwinds of gas” in my gut. Strange, I thought, and went up to order my third. I saw the woman behind the bar “wash” my glass in what can only be described as a hotbed of potential cross-contamination. I realised too late what had happened and drank my next drink straight from the bottle, while trying to surreptitiously conceal the sounds my gut was making.

By the time I got home I had a poorly stomach but thought to myself that such a small quantity can’t have any real effect beyond that can it? Well when my alarm went off I could barely open my eyes. I had intended to deliver some leftover food to my friend who lives down the street before 8am, but I found myself cancelling, drowning in fatigue. I slept in until 10:30 which is practically unheard of for a morning person like myself.

So to answer your question “Just how sensitive are you?”, I appear to be very sensitive. I am so sensitive that cross contamination from a badly washed beer glass caused me intense pain that night, and the next day I am fatigued, nauseous, sensitive to touch, and rather headachey. It annoys me because it sounds like I’m making it up, it sounds like I’m exaggerating. It also annoys me because I purposely didn’t drink in order to avoid a hangover, and now I have all the symptoms anyway. People can’t quite grasp that something they mindlessly consume many times a day can result in such a bad reaction from such a small amount.