Gluten-free in UK
 

Coming to the UK in 2016 and am now on a gluten free diet. I'm hoping choices are available in the UK at most restaurants/cafes. Of course meats fruits and vegetables without sauces and breading is fine. Any grocery stores recommended that I could get a few things?

The largest percentage of people with Celiac disease have British or Irish/Celtic ancestry. A friend who is a Celiac found it easy to find gluten choices in the UK and guessed it was due to the many citizens there with Celiac disease.
She said it was easier than in the US to find gluten free foods.

More places are aware of the problem and many restaurants provide gluten free alternatives and provide this information on their menus. Smaller cafes, particularly the greasy spoon variety may not have gluten free alternatives. Most supermarkets will sell gluten free foods but you may need to ask a store assitant to help you find them...

Since the fad for gluten free for non Coeiliacs has spread to Europe too there are many more gluten free foods available.

Restaurants should be listing allergens on their menus due to an EU rule (though not all are), which makes life a bit easier. However you should make it clear when you book a restaurant, or arrive on chance, that you have to have gluten free, and check they can provide it.

Be careful of things like cornflakes - many use malt extract in them as a flavouring, which makes them non gluten free.

<< The largest percentage of people with Celiac disease have British or Irish/Celtic ancestry. >>

This must be based on US populations, and may be due to differential diagnosis. In Europe, both Spain and Italy have higher incidence of celiac disease than the UK does.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/807727_3

(See the map at the end of the article.)

I'm not coeliac, but I do take notice of restaurant menus and I would agree that there are far more gluten-free options cropping up on menus now. Often varied salads, meats and cheeses are available even if they are not specifically marked as being gluten free. Also a decent restaurant should be able to rustle something up, especially if given advance notice.

staying in an apartment would give you more choices I should think than a hotel or B&B.

"Any grocery stores recommended that I could get a few things? "

Generally you will find that most food is available in supermarkets which come in a range of sizes from what is considered "Hyper-" through "super" to "convenience" with maybe 4 x 40' aisles. Nearly all these will have a small gluten free section though the range will be large in the larger ones. The range is often smaller in non-plc stores.

You will also find a range of stores selling specialist foods and offer you the opportunity to pay 50% more for the things you can get in the supermarkets.

It should therefore be dead easy to find what you want but since ranges vary and the whole market is struggling with their ranges, what advice we offer now will have varied by mid 2016.

Some of the supermarket brands are geographically constrained so it does depend where you are going to be but the likes of Sainsburys, Tescos, Morrisons, Asda, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose are roughly everywhere in the south of England.

Thank you all so much for your help. It sounds very similar to U.S. so I should be okay (I'm relatively new to being gluten-free, so I'm learning.) I may take some of my favorite snacks though for those beautiful drives.

We are staying in quite a few B&Bs but I can work around anything by sticking with the basics without sauces and nothing fried. I will miss trying the battered fish and chips, however!!!

Thanks, again!

Chips should be fine, but the fish might be a problem unless you specify that it needs to be pan-fried without flour or bread-crumbed, or they could grill it of course. You're more likely to get that in a decent pub or restaurant but no need for you to go without some fish and chips, albeit not traditional ones.

Many fish & chip shops in the U.K. now offer the option of gluten-free batter.

Don't bring your own snacks Marks and Spencer has some wonderful gluten free snacks.

Plenty of potato chips (crisps) but they also make really good millionaire bites gluten free and cakes.

Waitrose sells great chocolate digestive biscuits that are gluten free (Nobbles)

I wouldn't bring along any snacks myself (except enough for the flight and maybe the first day). There are soooooooo many options available in the UK

Many fish & chip shops in the U.K. now offer the option of gluten-free batter.>>

ah, that would be the bit of the UK that doesn't include Cornwall then. I've never seen it here.

I don't think it has hit our neck of the woods either.

That's Cornwall, The East and Scotland that don't do gluten free batter.

Is it a South Ken thing?

There again the only chips you find in South Ken get cashed in at the end of the night.

The National Federation of Fish Fryers Handbook website at http://www.federationoffishfriers.co...-guide-761.htm has a link to their handbook listing good fish and chip shops, and identifies those who offer gluten-free batter. There is one in Launceston, for example.

Our local shops in the Bristol area certainly offer gluten-free batter, but it is possible areas like London have not caught on to the idea yet.

The problem with the chips is if they're fried in oil that's used to fry other foods battered with flour it taints them. So I avoid unless they'll fry in fresh oil. Hopefully I will find a place to accommodate. Wish I didn't have to worry about this while traveling, but it's my life now.

bouvier - that is certainly a problem that I had not thought of, in my somewhat flip response to what I know is a real problem for people who have it. Apologies.

Chartley - The Launceston Fryer - as my G'dad would have said "I'll go to the foot of our stairs". Launceston also boasts of the the best butchers for many a mile, so two good reasons for going there.