I'm a student staying in Lausanne for 6 months, and I'm a coeliac. Any advice on where to find the best/most affordable gf food?
Thanks!
Hi,
Not specific to Lausanne, but just in general: the cheapest way to cook gluten-free in Switzerland is to cook with mainstream ingredients which happen to be gluten-free. For example make all your favorite pasta sauces but serve them over rice, or sliced boiled potatoes. Much cheaper than buying special gluten-free pasta.
Other than that, check the labels. You will probably find you have more mainstream options in some areas than you're used to, fewer in others. For example, sausages are usually fine (in contrast to the UK); some brands of stock cubes are OK, others not.
Do a search here for "gluten free", I know there have been a couple of threads already on where to find specialty ingredients and what to look out for.
The search button directed me here:
I think you will have more choice if you find what is called in German a reformhaus, which I know sell gluten free foodstuffs, you can also go across the border to France and they will have a wider variety of products in the regular supermarkets. Good luck
Thanks heaps for your advice!
It's a shame that people have to just do without pasta and stuff here, because back in Australia there are heaps of gf options at most places.
I also went into a pharmacy (of all places!) and noticed there was a lot there. Thanks though, I'll check in those places.
Migros and COOP both have gluten-free pasta and baking brands.
In Migros it is "Aha" brand:
http://www.papillesetpupilles.fr/all...llergiques.jpg
In COOP it is "freefrom":
http://www.glanzmann-schoene.com/upl...eefrom_neu.jpg
However, as a person with Coeliac's you must know that sometimes the 'gluten-free' stuff causes a problem. I have had problems with the "Aha" baking mix. My best success has come from buying rice, tapioca, and sweet potato flour products at the Asian groceries, and mixing them with the finely ground nut preparations available in the groceries (e.g., in Migros you can buy finely ground almonds and hazelnuts). There is a very big Asian grocery and an Indian grocery with alternative flours near the Basel SBB. And Asian groceries near the Aarau and Zürich SBBs. You will likely find them near the train stations in any major city.
I live in Morges (about 10 min drive from Lausanne) and there is a good independent health food shop on the main High street (parallel to the pedestrian road) that runs through Morges that sells gluten free food.
If you're new here, you may not realise that Gluten-free stuff is, in Co-op notably, mixed up with the normal stuff ion shelves. There isn't a separate GF section.
So, GF pasta, for example, is on the same shelf as normal pasta.
Here's what they sell at Co-op (the bigger stores)
You're a long way from Germany but DM-markt there has the same stuff at half the price.
But as Mathnut says, the cheapest way is to buy food naturally not containing gluten.
We have just started down this route with my daughter and at first I thought it was going to be really difficult, but actually, once you know where to look and what to look for it's not so bad.
The 'Schär' range, which is available in all Coops, makes gluten free flour, pasta, breads, biscuits, cakes and even fahitas. They also make a 'ready bread' mix so you can bake your own bread at home.
Good luck!
My own, transient (i.e., 3 years) gluten sensitivities began with a couple months of broad-spectrum antibiotics. My personal hypothesis is that the antibiotics killed my gluten-digesting symbiotic bacteria. I found that I not only had trouble with gluten-containing products but the more widely available gluten-free products. My best relief came from Mathnut's suggestion, making my own.
I slowly worked my way back up to gluten by reintroducing it to my diet over the course of the last year.
Not sharing this to be pedantic, but to offer insight if your daughter is having trouble on GF. And, to offer her hope of eating sourdough again.
Thanks for the post Holly. As I said, we're a the very start of this new 'free from' diet, despite my daughter's symptoms beginning over 18 months ago with a severe gastric flu. She just never seemed to get over that and since then it's been endless rounds of Dr's visits, 'test' diets and even a hospital stay.
I appreciate any advise on this subject as I'm still learning about it myself.
Hmmmm...I could write a book! So, as I said keep in mind that a lot of people with gluten sensitivity also have sensitivities to other grains.
Post questions on this thread so others can benefit from them. Great place to start is 'Elana's Pantry' : http://www.elanaspantry.com
Oh, also, a lot of people go nut flour crazy at the beginning of GF but be mindful that eating lots of nuts is unhealthy and could also cause gastric distress in a little one. I think the most innocuous GF flour is tapioca/cassava/manioc/farina flour. These are readily available in the Asian, Indian, and African grocery stores.
Although not coeliac, some people would appear to develop a gluten-intolerance ) or a lactose intolerance) after suffering a viral or other illness.*
Sometimes this is short-lived (a few months) or never-ending.
Mine started about ten years ago after a bout of glandular fever.
I had many hospital visits too including the old camera down the throat but they decided it wasn't coeliac.
After much experimentation over the years including blind-tasting etc, I cam to the conclusion that it was gluten that was causing the symptoms which included enlarged lymph glands, total exhaustion, vomiting every morning and others less savory symptoms.
It's a complete pain to try and avoid gluten when you're out and about but better than the symptoms.
At home it's not a problem at all as there are so many ways to eat from all over the world that avoid gluten.
The last advice my doctor gave me was to keep up-to-date with research in case more is discovered about non-coeliac gluten intolerance.
*Physical symptoms (other than being underweight which is probably always there) of coeliac disease can also be brought on by illness, or even pregnancy.
Strangely enough, my pregnancy eased my symptoms which were mainly constipation, skin rashes, and bladder spasms.
I was talking about coeliac in this case. However, it's possible the pregnancy was a red-herring and the symptoms would have come anyway.
No, I had a long-standing gluten sensitivity. But my father has Coeliac's.
Definitely find a local Asian grocery store for rice foods - rice, rice noodles in many variations, sushi ingredients. You might also find Tamari (Japanese soy sauce) which often does not contain wheat (read labels). One advantage of Asian groceries is that they are often labelled in English as well as French and/or German. You can probably also get rice flour and tapioca flour more cheaply than the specialty health food stores.
As said, the coop and migros ranges are good and the schaer brand. The migros bread flour mix is rice/potato/corn which is a bit different to the schaer version which is normally maize/corn based.
For cheap options:
Rice, corn, rice noodles, and a lot of potatoes! Also, my son (coeliac) likes the plain corn chips and paprika chips. Do you have a 'denner' grocery? Their corn chips and a lot of other products do not contain gluten. Also as mathnut said, a lot of processed meat products which you would normally expect to contain wheat, do not. We can find hot dogs, sausages, salami, processed ham etc, that no not contain wheat.
Often (but not always) gluten or wheat will be declared on the allergy warning, but most things are not going to be specially labelled 'gluten free' so there is an art to reading labels.
My son gets quite obvious stomach symptoms if he is accidentally glutened, and he has been gluten-free for a long time (6 years). We do tend to take the risk if things are labelled 'may contain traces of' as it is not life threatening if he does accidentally get glutened. He does not 'cheat' and eat food that definitely contains gluten, as the symptoms a few hours later don't make it worth it.
Definitely check out the other threads about gluten free for lots more ideas. Also, if you want to splash out some time, there is an online store called 'mr&mrs gluten free' . They have a shop in Zurich, and seems I have a good variety of foods, but the prices will be very high...we definitely stock up on gluten free stuff if we go to Germany or the uk.
I am curious whether your daughter has had an endoscopy? Our son was diagnosed first with blood test for immune factors, which was positive, but the endoscopy is the only 'definitive' test for coeliac disease. In his case it was a 'textbook' case. So good, in fact, the gastroenterologist told us he would take the biopsy and endoscopy images to his university students to show them what a 'perfect' case looks like!
Migros has a labeled "wheat free" tamari.