Category: How to be a coeliac

How to be a Coeliac – eating out
Once you’ve got the hang of eating at home, it can take time to build up confidence to eat away from home. You’ve learned all about how important it is to check the ingredients of everything and to avoid cross contamination. But how can you be sure other people would be as careful as you? How can you even begin to trust anybody else to cook for you? Where do you start?

In this post, I’ll talk about what I’ve discovered about eating out in cafes and restaurants, and also eating at friends’ and family members’ homes.

Eating out in restaurants and cafes:
- The good news is, Coeliac UK have an accreditation scheme that a variety of restaurants have signed up to. Accredited restaurants work with Coeliac UK to make sure they are meeting strict gluten free standards including training staff how to take orders, cook and serve gluten free food safely. I just did a search for accredited restaurants in Sheffield and it returned 26 results. Don’t get over excited as lots of these are chains with multiple venues: Browns and Pho in the city centre, eleven branches of Dominos, seven Pizza Huts, four Pizza Expresses and two Miller and Carters. Not all of their food is gluten free (although at Pho, it’s the vast majority) but they will all have a good selection.
- Very occasionally you’ll come across a fully GF restaurant or cafe. These tend to pop up where the owner/chef or a close relative is coeliac. There have been a couple of these in Sheffield that have come and gone, and only place I know of in Sheffield at the moment is the Sardinian restaurant Akentannos on Sharrow Vale Road. The owners also run a gluten free delicatessen on the same road called Nue (the arancini are amazing!). There’s also Darnton Coffee House in Barnsley, which isn’t a million miles away (but I’ve still not been). Obviously, you can totally relax in these places, as there is zero risk of cross contamination.
- There are quite a few cafes and restaurants that have a separate gluten free menu or have dishes that are gluten free marked on the menu. Some places do gluten free really well, e.g. at Wagamama, they only allow managers to take orders from gluten free customers and your food will be cooked by the head chef. Even so, they still have a disclaimer on their website saying they can’t guarantee 100% gluten free because of other ingredients present. So this is where you have to use your judgement. Personally, I’m satisfied that in this case they are taking adequate precautions (I also have gluten present in my own kitchen) and I’ve never had a problem eating there.
- But what if you’re not sure? Before you book, have a good look at menus online so you can get an idea of the menu options. When you arrive, it’s worth asking some questions to check how well they understand gluten free food. You can ask things like whether they have a separate preparation space for gluten free food? Or can they wipe down an area and use clean cooking utensils. An important question to ask for any fried food like chips is whether they have a dedicated fryer for chips or do they just bung them in with all the breaded items? Don’t make assumptions when it comes to chips – I’ve definitely been in places where they didn’t understand this.
- In cafes and restaurants where they have cakes on display, this often gives you an idea of how good they are at managing allergens. If they have all the gluten free items at the top of the display or in a separate cloche, and they have dedicated tongs to pick them up, that’s a good sign. If the gluten free cakes are sitting right next to regular cakes, I’d exercise extreme caution. It’s definitely worth asking if the gluten free items were prepared and stored separately and if they have any that haven’t been put out on the counter.
Food on the go:
- Food from street markets is very rarely ok for gluten free, in my experience, so food on the go tends to be more expensive because you can’t generally just grab a burger or sausage roll. You’re more likely to need to find a cafe or a supermarket where they have pre-packed sandwiches (M&S is usally reliable for a sandwich or wrap). Baked potato places are probably a good bet.
- Some of the supermarkets and coffee chains have pre-packed gluten free options, but these have decreased unfortunately, as the focus has shifted onto vegan food.
- In coffee shops, if you have a hot drink with steamed milk, ask them to wipe down the milk steamer because they tend to use the same one to heat oat milk, which generally contains gluten, so there is a cross contamination risk. Chain coffee shops usually have some pre-packaged cakes or flapjacks on the counter but you’re less likely to find savoury food, although I quite like the little egg bites in Starbucks for something a bit different.
- Takeaways can be tricky, although as we’ve seen from the Coeliac UK accreditation, there are quite a few pizza options. Gluten free Chinese options are fairly rare, although people do recommend Simply Chinese in Dronfield, if you’re over that way. Fish & chip shops sometimes serve GF, often on the day they change the oil in their fryers. Occasionally, you’ll find a chippy that has a dedicated fryer like Neptune’s on Ecclesall Road that calls itself a gluten free specialist. Again, it’s about researching in advance.
- Indian restaurants and takeaways generally have a few options, as they tend to use gram flour (from chickpeas) rather than wheat flour. You still need to ask some questions about cross contamination though, as all the breads and chapatis will contain gluten so they will probably still need to take extra care with preparing GF food. Poppadoms can be ok, but they generally need to be cooked in fresh oil so you do need to check.
- Some reliable resources for looking for places to eat are: Coeliac UK, local gluten free groups on Facebook, local gluten free bloggers. I don’t tend to find TripAdvisor that useful, as people tend to over use the keywords. You do need to check the dates on any reviews or recommendations though, as so many places change hands.
- For a more thorough search, I usually use Google maps to look for any cafes, pubs or restaurants then click through to their websites to look for menus – anywhere that has an online menu with a reasonable number GF items marked on makes it onto the shortlist.
Here are a few tips from a more personal point of view:
- I’ve found sometimes I just have to manage my expectations, especially if I’m not in charge of deciding where to eat (e.g. you’re out with work). Generally, you’ll be able to find something, it might just be a bit more plain that you’d like and there might be a choice of only a couple of things. The ubiquitous chocolate brownie is your friend…
- Brunch and Sunday roasts out are disappointing in my opinion. Brunches tend to be a gluten fest and with Sunday roasts, you miss out on the best bits like stuffing, Yorkies and cauliflower cheese. We tend to eat lunch or evening meals out instead.
- It’s not that easy to be spontaneous – you generally need to put in some research when eating out, and especially if you’re away from home.
- Eating out does become less stressful, but you never get far away from having to talk about gluten. Get used to talking about it – a lot.
Friends & family
- It’s important to make sure close family who you’ll be eating with understand about cross contamination, especially if you have a mixed kitchen or if you are eating at someone else’s house. It might take a while for people to get used to having different utensils for gluten free food and keeping crumbs out of the butter and jam. You’ll probably need to keep a close eye to begin with.
- I found some of my friends really rose to the challenge and made a lot of effort to accommodate me with food, keeping the odd gluten free snack in, checking ingredients and being careful about contamination. However, a few people were just worried about making me ill and didn’t feel comfortable inviting me round for food anymore – social invites definitely tailed off a bit. Don’t be offended if this happens.
- If you are eating at a buffet (e.g. a work function or a wedding), I recommend shamelessly getting to the front of the queue so you can serve yourself before people contaminate the gluten free options by waving bread rolls around and mixing up serving tongs.
- One thing I’ve found useful is reusable toaster bags – you can pop a slice of GF bread in and use your friend’s toaster that isn’t gluten free. These are very useful for self catering holidays as well.
- I often find if I’ve been to someone’s house, I end up leaving with a goodie bag of open packets of GF food, especially bread, biscuits or crackers, which I always find quite sweet. I’m unsure if it’s because I’ll get the benefit of it or they just don’t want to eat it – probably both!
I hope this series of articles is useful for people who are new to the Coeliac game. If you’ve found this one first, here are links to my other recent articles:
How to be a Coeliac – getting started
How to be a Coeliac – eating at home
How to be a Coeliac – food shopping

Would love to hear any other top tips – please feel free to add into the comments
June 29, 2025
How to be a coeliac – food shopping
Food shopping is definitely a challenge when you’re newly diagnosed. Gluten’s everywhere you look, in all of your favourite products, and it might feel like you’ll be restricted to shopping from the ‘free from’ aisle for ever…

I can’t lie, it is a bit of a frustrating experience when you realise you have to totally change how or where you shop, but it’s really manageable, once you get into the swing of it. Here are a few tips to get started.

We can categorise supermarkets into a few sections:

1. Unprepared food

This is the easiest bit. You can eat pretty much anything that has either no packaging or an ingredients list of one item – the fresh fruit and veg, and uncooked meat and fish sections are your friends – you can have the vast majority of products in those aisles.

2. The ‘free from’ aisle

Most British supermarkets have a free from aisle to make it easier to find things like gluten free pasta, bread, cereals, biscuits and cakes. All the supermarkets stock slightly varied product lines and even brands, so it’s worth exploring several shops and find out what’s where. There are loads of goodies to try.

One thing to bear in mind is while most of the free from items are gluten free, it also covers nut free, dairy free and other allergies, so don’t assume absolutely everything is GF. For example, something could be wheat free but not gluten free. Products in the free from aisle usually say if they’re gluten free on the front, so it’s easy to spot.

Free from ranges will be considerably more expensive than their regular counterparts – take a deep breath. Things like bread, biscuits and cakes can be two to three times more expensive, but some of the bigger supermarkets are starting to stock quite reasonably priced GF pasta and cereals.

Budget supermarkets don’t always have free from sections but you usually find one in your local shops like Co-ops, Sainsburys Local and Tesco Express.

Here are some of my go to free from items:
- Flour – I use Doves Farm plain, self raising, and oat flour. For cornflour I tend to use Brown & Polson
- Bread – M&S oaty loaf for sandwiches, Warburtons wraps, Warburtons tiger loaf, Genius spicy fruit loaf, Schar paninis
- Crackers – I usually have some Nairns seeded / wholegrain GF crackers, but I love M&S’s Made Without cheese crackers, which are so thin, crispy and salty.
- Cereals – Nestle GoFree rice pops and corn flakes. Freee Cinnamon Hoops and Maple Sunrise (for a bit more flavour, but also more sugar)
- Pasta – all supermarkets have decent GF pasta but my favourite is Garofalo fusili (spirals). For macaroni, I use Orgran
- Biscuits – Schar have loads of choice e.g. custard creams, bourbons
- Snacks – Schar also do great breadsticks & snacks like pretzels and taralli, which are like round breadsticks
- Snack bars – we usually have some Trek flapjacks and Nature Valley peanut and chocolate cereal bars in for packed lunches
3. Accidentally GF

You can eat some of the regular prepared foods that come in in tins, jars and packets, but this is where you need to put the effort in. You’ll find loads when you get your eye in, but they might not shout about being gluten free, so this means you’ll need to get good at reading the ingredients lists. There are a few simple rules to follow:

In the UK, allergens need to be highlighted in some way on the ingredients list e.g. bold font (we’re looking out for wheat, barley, rye and oats). So firstly, check for that. Secondly, look a little lower down for any ‘may contain’ statements e.g. ‘may contain gluten’ or ‘not suitable for coeliacs’. As coeliacs, we shouldn’t be eating food that could be cross contaminated. The reason for ‘may contain’, could be something like it’s made on the same production line as a wheat-containing product. Best to avoid.

In summary, if wheat, barley, rye, oats, or gluten are not mentioned on the packet and there is no ‘may contain’ statement, it’s safe to eat.

For an extra level of confidence, or it may be quicker for you, you can use Coeliac UK’s food checker. This is an app that’s free to download if you’re a member of Coeliac UK, and it has a barcode scanner and product search, so you can check items quickly.

Here are a few examples of accidentally GF foods that you might not expect to be able to eat: some flavours of Ben & Jerry / Haagen Daaz ice creams (e.g. Phish Food, Karamel Sutra), some Magnum ice creams, most jarred pesto, lots of own brand supermarket sausages, M&S / Sainsburys prawn crackers, Tyrells & Seabrook crisps, McCain oven chips, popcorn, cooking stock e.g Kallo and Knorr, Heinz beans and tomato ketchup, microwave rice. And best of all (in our opinion), Cadbury Mini Eggs & Creme Eggs are both accidentally gluten free.

On the subject of chocolate, there are obviously a lot of bars you can’t have, and some brands will have a few bars that you can amongst many that you can’t. It’s a bit of a confusing landscape and there are far too many for me to list here, but you’ll get used to which you can have after a bit of research. When it comes to Christmas and Easter, keep your eyes peeled online, as brilliant bloggers like Becky Excell will often create a comprehensive list of what is gluten free in all the supermarkets. You definitely don’t need to be restricted to the free from offerings at Christmas and Easter.

4. Gluten containing

Obviously, there are a lot of foods that do contain gluten – you might as well avoid the bakery aisle and the biscuit aisle – but that still leaves us with plenty of options.

A few brands I can think of where we need to avoid all their products are:
- Walkers
- Kelloggs
- Hotel Chocolat
- Terry’s chocolate
- Soreen
- Tonys Chocolonely
5. Drinks

When it comes to alcohol, beers and other fermented drinks are the main things to avoid, although there are now plenty of GF beers on the market – there are usually some in the free from aisle. But wine, port, cider, spirits and liqueurs are all gluten free. Distilling removes gluten so even drinks like whisky (which is made from barley) are gluten free. It’s worth checking the ingredients of pre-mixed cocktails or seltzers to make sure they are safe.

Most soft drinks and carbonated drinks are gluten free. The main thing to avoid there is squash that contains barley.

Basic tea bags and coffee (instant, beans, ground) tend to be gluten free. It’s worth checking the ingredients list for flavoured teas and coffees or syrups just in case of gluten containing ingredients or cross contamination.

Happy shopping!
June 8, 2025
How to be a coeliac – eating at home
Unless you’re loaded, you’ll probably do most of your eating at home, so getting to grips with buying food, what to cook, and eliminating cross contamination are essential. But getting started with the gluten free diet can feel daunting and baffling, as once you start to look for it, gluten seems to be literally everywhere and in most meals – Cereal at breakfast? Sandwich for lunch? Pasta for tea?

There are plenty of brilliant gluten free cook books and online resources available (my go-to GF authors would be Becky Excell, Phil Vickery, Deliciously Ella). But other than baking, most recipes for meals are adaptable – so there’s no need to throw your recipe books out. You’ll often find a few ingredient switches will make a recipe safe for the gluten free diet.

Some switches are obvious e.g. swap normal pasta for GF pasta, rice noodles instead of wheat noodles, use GF flour to thicken a sauce, and remember you’ll need to use GF oats)

However, some ingredients are a bit sneaky and you have to know if they contain gluten. A few examples are:
- Soy sauce – you can buy gluten free ‘tamari’ soy sauce
- Worcestershire sauce – use Sheffield’s Henderson’s Relish!
- Couscous – it’s basically tiny pasta but you can buy a similar corn gluten free version, or use quinoa
- Stock powder – make sure the brand you’re using is gluten free. I tend to use Kallo for meat stock and vegetable bouillon for veg stock.
- Miso – white miso is gluten free, so use that
- If you get adventurous and want to try Chinese cooking, use sherry instead of Shaoxing wine
Some ingredients are a bit confusing, such as malt vinegar and barley malt extract – the latter can be found in many breakfast cereals. Some people think they are ok for a gluten free diet because they have such a small amount of gluten in (due to the fermentation process) that they are under the critical safe level for gluten of 20 parts per million. But the advice has changed recently, so Coeliac UK is your definitive, up-to-date guide for these. And any other ingredients questions you have.

Another challenging ingredient can be dried pulses. These sometimes say they aren’t suitable for coeliacs, most likely due to cross contamination during the manufacturing process. My personal approach here is that I am happy to buy them and rinse and pick over them thoroughly to remove anything that shouldn’t be there.

When it comes to baking, it’s worth seeking out some reliable recipes that you can come back to. The cookery authors mentioned above might be a good start. Naturally flour-less cakes and sweet treats are great, but some things can’t be made without flour (pancakes, scones). Here are a few really easy recipes I like and make frequently:
- Pancakes – Doves Farm recipe using their flour
- Chocolate cake – Delia Smith’s squidgy chocolate cake – This gets made for most birthdays in my house. I don’t tend to make Delia’s chocolate filling, as I find it sets too hard and is very rich. I usually cheat and use some pre-made frosting, with whipped cream
- Cheese scones – Becky Excell’s recipe is excellent. I made them this weekend and accidentally put an egg into the mix with the milk (instead of saving it to be egg wash on top) and they turned into lovely little cheesy rolls instead – bonus!
- Banana pancakes – my own recipe – delicious with bacon and maple syrup for a weekend breakfast
- Flapjacks – BBC Good Food – these are plain but you can add fruit, dip in chocolate etc
- Breakfast waffles – these Cookie and Kate waffles are so much better than shop bought GF ones. I use my waffle maker a lot! Probably worth a post in itself!
- Yorkshire puddings – Coeliac Sanctuary’s recipe is great
And what about your kitchen? Once you start looking, it’s probably full of gluten – do you need to get rid of all ingredients with gluten in? It would be easier to eliminate the possibility of cross contamination and certainly worth doing if you live on your own – but with a family, it’s definitely more expensive for the whole household to live gluten free. It’s fine to have a mixed kitchen as long as everyone is prepared to follow a few important rules to avoid problems. In our house it’s things like using spoons for jam and a designated butter knife to prevent crumbs from migrating by double dipping knives – and that’s much nicer anyway! Or you could have your own designated GF butter and a separate one for everyone else.

When I was the only coeliac in the house and everyone else was eating gluten, I made sure I thoroughly cleaned the prep space before making gluten free food, and I’d use the grill to make toast instead of using the toaster (on a piece of foil, if in a rush). However, now there are two of us, we have much less gluten in the house and it’s the gluten eaters who have their own prep space and the toaster is only used for gluten free bread. (The old one is in a cupboard, so it can come out if needed.) Most of our food is totally gluten free, so the main thing in the house with gluten in is breakfast cereal, which is easy to manage.

If you do have a mixed kitchen, you might need some rules on things like use of utensils while cooking – for example if you’re cooking gluten-containing and gluten free pasta at the same time, it’s important to have separate utensils for each and not mix them up. This can take a while to get the hang of, but you’ll work out a system that suits you.

Another tip is that regular dish soap and water is fine for cleaning utensils, crockery and cookware that have come into contact with gluten. When washing up, I do tend to wash anything that’s come into contact with gluten last though (e.g. beer glasses), and give everything an extra good rinse.

There’s a lot to get to grips with! I’ll save food shopping for next time.
May 5, 2025