Being Gluten intolerant pisses me off

Over the last few years I have had problems with my stomach. Nothing sinister, just feeling bad and making me feel unwell. Gradually it was clear that there was a connection to particular foods that I was eating. Since I’ve cut cakes, pastry, biscuits and bread out of my diet I have felt tonnes better! Like unbelievably better! I am currently awaiting tests to find out if I am a coeliac or gluten intolerant or maybe if I have irritable bowel disease. Not ideal, but we’ll see what happens.

But over the last twelve months I have eaten more gluten free and free from foods and it’s time I had a rant about it.

Do you have any idea how bad gluten free food tastes?
Unless you have tried GF bread you will never know how bad it tastes. It is dry, hard to chew and tastes, simply disgusting. I never knew how much bread I ate until I gave it up. And now I’m stuck with GF crap. I tried a GF pork pie today. I was excited to eat it – my first pork pie in ages. Tasteless. So far, the best thing top eat has been GF cakes which apparently can be made to taste nice.
In terms of GF bread, the best bread is made by Warburtons but you are lucky if you can find it!

Do you have any idea how much gluten free food costs?
In my head, when you cut out ingredients and make something taste disgusting, you should be charged less for it, not more. But GF bread comes in loaves half the size of normal bread, and yet costs at least double the price. How can that be? I can buy a pack of Bourbon Creams for about 50p. For the GF equivalents you would pay three times that for about eight biscuits.

It is, frankly, disgusting, charging more just because people have no choice but to buy it.

Do you have any idea how frustrating it is when you call in at a cafe?
We called in at a cafe on Saturday for cake and hot chocolate. There was nothing I could eat. This has happened in other places. People just don’t cater for this market well.

Birthdays? Well, they are ruined.
No more cake! And people seem to think it’s funny that you can’t eat the cake. Yeah, hilarious!

You get pleasantly surprised easily!
Someone mentions that something is gluten free and you are instantly delighted if you hadn’t come across it before. Wow, something else I can eat!

Artisan markets are ruined.
Hi, these look lovely – are they gluten free? Nope.
Sure, they look awkward when they say no, but they actually don’t care.

Gluten Free cooking is hard
How hard can it be to bake GF scones? Well, we have attempted it several times and they look like dwarfed, hideous versions of actual scones. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

I am hopeful that I will only be intolerant but I worry about being totally gluten free and having to give up beer. I have my fingers crossed.

For more on this theme, please see this blog post.

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