It's really not that easy in the UK

[Onegiantcrunchie]

😂 Just a bit of a vent.

I wanted to order food today (as I was away visiting family and they had nothing I could eat) so I went onto Deliveroo, and JustEat. Turned on the 'gluten free' filter.

I swear, the only gluten free options available for delivery are the desserts or the junk foods. There is never a gluten free-labelled soup, or meat and potatoes, or chicken and rice, anything. There is never even an option to substitute a bun for a gluten-free bun or sub out regular pasta for potatoes/rice/gluten free pasta. Not only that, there doesn't even seem to be an option on these sites to send a note to the restaurant just saying 'I'm coeliac, please remove the [gluten item] from my order'.

All you can order is a gluten-free brownie or ice cream. This is not food. Why can't we order actual meals like everyone else? Why don't we get easy access to nutritious food?

There are a lot of meals that MAY be gluten free if you know how those meals are usually made but a lot of places randomly use wheat flour, or shove bread into the box on top of the food. It's not really something you can feel confident with.

Other things that add insult to injury:

• Minimum spending fee of £10+, meaning you'd need to order like 5 of those brownies. And then have 2000 calories worth of brownies, and still no meal.
• The options for vegans and vegetarians are ENDLESS, and those are not a medical condition, they're a choice.
• When you try and track down a phone number for the restaurant, they don't answer the phone.
• The other day I did order a load of ice cream and for the first time, out of nowhere, they'd stuck wafers all the way through it even though they've never done that before!

Long story short the only way to get a gluten free meal in the UK is to go out and get it yourself. In which case I wouldn't be ordering in the first place.

Rant over, can anyone relate? 😂

[knitty kitty]

@Onegiantcrunchie,

Sure can!  I asked Alexa to find a restaurant that offered gluten free Chinese food......The nearest one is one hundred nine miles away.... I hate cold take out food... If eaten there, by the time I got home I'd be hungry again.... lol

Local restaurant options include gluten-contaminated "gluten free" pizza (the company itself says it's contaminated in the oven and not safe for Celiacs) and that restaurant that serves gluten free buns with their chicken sandwich, but the buns are made with corn and corn doesn't agree with me.  

Heavy sigh! You're preaching to the choir, sister!

[Onegiantcrunchie]

2 hours ago, knitty kitty said:

@Onegiantcrunchie,

Sure can!  I asked Alexa to find a restaurant that offered gluten free Chinese food......The nearest one is one hundred nine miles away.... I hate cold take out food... If eaten there, by the time I got home I'd be hungry again.... lol

Local restaurant options include gluten-contaminated "gluten free" pizza (the company itself says it's contaminated in the oven and not safe for Celiacs) and that restaurant that serves gluten free buns with their chicken sandwich, but the buns are made with corn and corn doesn't agree with me.  

Heavy sigh! You're preaching to the choir, sister!

Thank you for your reply! That sounds like such a pain in the neck, the nearest option being 100 miles away! Re: chinese food, I don't understand why more places don't just use rice flour instead of the wheat flour, that way they'd get the coeliac customers too. And yeah, why should you have to travel all that way just to get what everyone else can get with a 10 min JustEat order?!

As for "gluten free" gluten contaminated foods, this is something that people just never understand. This dialogue:

Me: I can't eat there

Them: They do gluten free cake!

Me: It's sitting right next to the regular cake

Them: Is that a problem?

Me: YES

Them: ...oh *out of suggestions*

Is just so common 😂

I try not to get annoyed with people who push back and insist "I'm sure it'll be fine",  but it's the way they insist they know my body better than I do and they also seem to think they're a doctor in that moment too.

I hope you manage to find an easier Chinese food option! Chinese food is the best!

[knitty kitty]

Honey, when people say stuff like that to me, I ask them if they will hold my hair back while I throw up for the next seventeen hours.  

Their eyes get real big and they wave the waitress over to replace my salad for one without croutons.  

Yeah, I hate it when they say "no gluten free options on the menu? Oh, you can just have a salad."  

They don't understand.  

[Onegiantcrunchie]

1 hour ago, knitty kitty said:

Honey, when people say stuff like that to me, I ask them if they will hold my hair back while I throw up for the next seventeen hours.  

Their eyes get real big and they wave the waitress over to replace my salad for one without croutons.  

Yeah, I hate it when they say "no gluten free options on the menu? Oh, you can just have a salad."  

They don't understand.  

Hahaha I've never in my life just had a SALAD. I might as well just have ketchup! People really don't get it yep.