gluten-free on a budget

dearbarbie

hello! im about to embark on a gluten-free diet for health reasons and wondered if anyone had any recipes/tips/ideas to share with me to keep it cheap(ish?)

gonna start a blog to keep track of my ideas etc

Kimitatsu

Hi

Lots of ideas over on the old style money saving thread.......but a few to begin with!

Firstly cook as much yourself as you can - its miles cheaper than buying it from specialist food stores and tastes better in many cases! Approved food often do gf pasta, so when they have a delivery in, stock up - it works out at pennies a packet rather than pounds.

Rather than use flour use potato starch (99p from Tesco is the cheapest I have found), we use rice flour to cook with which is relatively cheap, but you can also use chick pea flour etc etc. Lakeland do a nice bread mix, which works out about £1.25 a loaf rather than £3 from the supermarkets, make things like jelly for desert from scratch, and check labels constantly, especially on own brand items, because recipes often change.

Have to dash out but will post some more later

dearbarbie

thanks so much! i used to do it years ago but there was nothing like the products there are today!

potato starch, interesting!

am i right in saying i can't have chocolate? this is prob a good thing...

thatguy1

Asda have Genius gluten free bread £2.48each or 3 for £2 http://groceries.asda.com/asda-estore/search/searchcontainer.jsp?trailSize=1&searchString=genius+bread&domainName=Products&headerVersion=v1&_requestid=31466

elfen

Most supermarkets have a god selection of free-from stuff, I rely mainly on rice cakes/salads - more salads as I'm going to low-carb again so bye bye rice cakes. I also eat a LOT of fruit and veg, currently therei s a bowl of fruit on my side and it gets eaten, well it's meant to!

haycorns

Check you aren't entitled to any products on prescription - you will be if you are coeliac. Register with all the GF manufacturers and you will get sent free samples. Go to holland and barratt soon as they have buy one get one half price on all goods at the moment including rice cakes ( the nice thin ones) and other Gf stuff.

Watch out for when Tesco GF sausages are on offer then stock up. Try and learn to make GF alternatives or change your menus to naturally gluten free food as prepared stuff is expensive ( eg make your own pizza, pastry etc). Batch bake and freeze cakes for treats. Doves farm flour is good and I can see from their website it can be bought in bulk.

Don't feed the rest of family GF for convenience as it will cost you - do two pans of pasta , one GF one ordinary.

ems2

Sign up to the coeliac society for free and they will send you a free pack which includes a book of all uk products that are gluten free. brokendown by supermarket and brand.
http://www.coeliac.org.uk/

they also have a great receipe selection too

pinkteapot

dearbarbie wrote: »

am i right in saying i can't have chocolate? this is prob a good thing...

You can have chocolate. My coeliac hubby would probably lose the will to live if he had to give up that as well.

Some chocolate manufacturers (Cadbury notably) say "May contain traces of..." wheat etc. All they mean by that is that gluten-containing grains are handled in the same factory so there may be a little cross-contamination.

Coeliacs vary in how much gluten they can tolerate. A lot of foods labelled gluten-free are not truly, 100% gluten-free. There is a maximum level of gluten they are allowed to contain (microscopic), above which they can't be called gluten-free. If you are trying to cut it out completely, 100%, I would just eat other foods (rather than specialist GF foods) that are naturally gluten-free. So potatoes and rice for your carbs... The tricky part is breakfast and lunch if you normally eat sandwiches.

If you are using GF products, Juvela Gluten-Free White Mix (http://www.juvela.co.uk/gluten-free-foods/flour-mixes) is excellent for home baking. Add warm water and a pinch of salt and it makes a loaf of crusty bread that is actually decent! You can also make pastry or batter with it (I've used it to make battered deep fried fish mmmmm). It's made of a mixture of lots of GF flours (rice flour, potato flour etc) and is far easier than buying them all separately.

For straight flour, Doves Farm Plain Flour is good and works in home baking. Xanthum Gum is your friend - use it in cakes and biscuits as it helps bind; performs a similar function to the gluten in regular flour.