"Free from" ranges

trolleyrun

Hi everyone,

Having recently discovered that I'm very intolerant to wheat/gluten (in addition to my lactose intolerance), I'm having to learn very quickly about what I can and can't eat. I've found that the "Free from" range in waitrose is quite good, but it's very expensive. Now, I don't expect any ranges to be cheap, but I'd like to know if anyone here have found any products that were reasonably priced and tasty. The supermarkets I have near here is asda, tesco, Aldi, waitrose, sainsbury's and Lidl.

Any help much appreciated, thank you

fatblackandwhite

If you are not adverse to buying (perfectly edible) food that is close to, or past its best before date then Approved Foods usually have a lot of gluten free/wheat free food on offer at (if you compare it to supermarket prices) quite cheap prices. They also currently have some lactose free milk/cream I think. HTH

gunsandbanjos

eep, good luck. I have a friend who is dairy and gluten intolerant, as well as egg, rice and nut allergies:eek:

I dont know if you are aware you can get some stuff on prescription, my mother in law is a coeliac and gets some items from her doctor.

linseyg

Yep I have just ordered 10 litres of soya milk and 24 vanilla soya puddings from approved food. Tesco free from stuff is good. I really like Alpro yogurts and Alpro chocolate desserts. You used to be able to get a nice free from ice cream from asda don't have one near me now, the strawberry and chocolate are really nice but not keen on the vanilla. My nicest thing I've ever had is flapjack from sainsburys that was made with coconut

Mrs_Toast

Hi trolleyrun. I think everything gluten and lactose free is expensive to be honest but I don't like to pay full price for anything

My local tesco has an excellent range of free from chilled food. Asda have quite a lot of gluten free frozen food including sausages. Sainsburys often give out till spits for their free from range which is useful. The best way I find to keep the cost down is buy gluten free flour and look for bread reduced at the end of the day and stock my freezer up.

Have a look at the printable coupon thread as I know there is a 50p coupon for Rice Dream at the moment. I got some a while ago for my Great Aunt and cost less than 90p. Don't know if you can freeze this but it's worth a try. Hth

julietiff

gunsandbanjos wrote: »

eep, good luck. I have a friend who is dairy and gluten intolerant, as well as egg, rice and nut allergies:eek:

I dont know if you are aware you can get some stuff on prescription, my mother in law is a coeliac and gets some items from her doctor.

Drs only give perscription item foods to diagnosed Coeliacs- unless you get
free perscriptions for low income, then you still have to pay perscription costs as usual- it is not free.- I was diagnosed with Coeliac in 2003. Have found Genius bread to be the best- not cheap though, £2.90 a loaf.

lemontart

You do pay premium for these ranges but a bit of patience and a lot of label reading and a fair bit of go-ogling will save the pennies and find lots of stuff that is fine for you,

Linda32

Hi,

Sainsburys, Asda and Tesco's all do the Free From range and are more than likely to be cheaper than Waitrose

As previously said, it is possible to buy just about everything which is actually free from lactose/milk in all forms in food without actually buying from the Free From range.

I followed a milk free diet due to various problems for well over a year and never felt that I went without anything. I havn't got a sweet tooth but as soon as I'm told I can't have chocolate I want it
Green and Blacks do quite a few which don't have milk in for instance.

Rice milk is much nicer than Soya IMO, funnily enough thats usually cheaper from the Free From shelves than the ones on the UHT shelfs along with powdered milk etc. (I still have this on cereal as I really don't fancy a bowl full of milk even today )

Have a look on the supermarkets website, they all have lists of their own brands which naturally don't have milk in :money: and are not special brands so therefore normally priced.

Also have a google for The Vegan Forum, I found this usefull for finding alternatives not using milk.

Can't help with wheat as I never had that problem.

HTH

I can't help with wheat as I never had that problem.

cherrykerry

I am vegan (also allergic to milk) and avoid gluten because of my IBS. To be honest I find it much tastier and far, far cheaper to make most things myself. I buy things like gluten free pasta, soya milk etc from the supermarket but with things like cakes, biscuits, meals etc I make them all from scratch. Can you tolerate spelt? Homemade spelt bread is lovely. I tend to frequent my local health food shop as they have far better range of products than you can find in the supermarket.

Taplledraw

If you can tolerate spelt check out local bakeries. The one in our village did some as an experiment and now does it 3 times a week if you havn't ordered it you have to be in pronto. Its worth asking as they may start doing things if they find there is a demand. Some health food shops do things that are cheaper than the supermarkets and can offer advice/alternatives. Watch out in charity shops as you can often get gluten free cookery books
Can you do goats milk and cheese they sometimes work. try farmers markets/ wholefood shops and some supermarkets
good luck its easy once you get used to it:)

franskies

Sainsburys free from is quite nice and you can often pick it up for reduced price on the day.
Asda often have the gluten free warburtons products reduced on the day as well