Breaking bread comes at a cost

It’s been eight years since I was first told my gut didn’t like gluten.

Kindly passed on genetically from my dad, the intolerance news was a sad time for this bread-loving teen.

So much so, my mum took me that day to devour one last vanilla slice in secret.

The remaining years of high school were bland, my lunchbox consisting of just two key staples: cheese and corn-thins.

Delicious the first and maybe the second time, but that’s where I drew the line.

Fast-forward to now, I can’t deny that things for us coeliacs have gotten better.

Though, there is one thing that still bugs me: gluten-free bread.

We are hit with a double whammy: paying an inflated price for a less-delicious product.

I’m no bread connoisseur, but the shrunken version of their flour-filled counterpart often disappoints.

It just doesn’t seem fair, $7.99 for a loaf of bread that can’t even be eaten fresh. I mean you can try to if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Sure, there are good loaves out there, but they are pricey. My fellow glutenfree friend found the holy grail of “gf” bread, but at $17 a loaf vowed to never buy it again. For a toasted-cheese fiend like me, such a lavish lifestyle just wouldn’t be sustainable. The only other option is to bake my own bread like my self-sufficient dad. The quality is notably better, but becoming a kitchenwhiz and baking away isn’t a hobby I’m ready to take up. That’s one of the reasons I’m always out for breakfast, which brings me to my next point.

To add insult to injury we have to pay for this mediocre bread as an extra cost when we are out brunching.

The menu reads “glutenfree bread $2” under a list of extras, meanwhile those across from me enjoy generous slices of homemade crusty sourdough at no cost.

I vote that non-coeliacs should pay extra to eat their delicious, “normal” bread.

In doing so, they can subsidise the cost for the people having to pay extra for something not even half as delicious.

The taste of fresh, warm bread is and will remain all but a distant memory — so this is the least you can all do.