An Auspicious Sign…
While doing my usual daily scan of the New York Times, I noticed this article on ‘The High Price of C(o)eliac Disease’ that looks at the US healthcare debate from the perspective of those whose diseases don’t require any prescription drugs but can be managed purely through dietary change.
An auspicious sign for the start of my blog!
It’s a good article and gives a fair synopsis of the coeliac condition but I feel it’s a little out of date relative to my experience, possibly because it is focused on the US. When I was diagnosed just over 10 years ago, it would certainly have been true to say that ‘(G)luten-free bread is more expensive than traditional bread and often less palatable. And that holds for many gluten-free items.’
My diet now, however, is easier to manage than it’s ever been. That’s one of the reasons that I decided to start this blog as there are now so many good gluten-free product ranges out there and most of them are available in mainstream supermarkets. Sainsbury’s, Tesco’s and Asda now all stock gluten-free products like Trufree, Doves Farm and the Tesco FreeFrom range. This makes gluten-free shopping a hell of a lot easier than it used to be. I can still remember going to the pharmacist to buy my first gluten-free loaf of bread, a loaf that bore a strong resemblance in texture to reinforced concrete and smelt horribly of some synthetic preservative.
Thank God those days are over and coeliac foodies are no longer locked in a dietary prison. The diet is still more expensive but not prohibitively so. I find that cutting down on meat has saved me more money than buying gluten-free could ever add to my bill.
