Why this new eating plan is so hard to digest

RECENTLY I got a small piece of dietary advice which turned out to have huge consequences. My GP told me I shouldn’t eat bread. Every bite of a sandwich, a cheese cob or some fancy focaccia would make me ill. I stopped listening after he said the word “coeliac” and googled it while he was talking.

What he meant was that, instead of all that lovely bread, I’d have to cultivate a taste for something which resembled cardboard.

I’ve suddenly developed coeliac disease which means a protein, a molecule in gluten, plays havoc with my digestion. The immune system goes into attack mode on my small intestine. The solution is to go glutenfree (GF).

Disappointingly,

I’ve suddenly become one of those people my mum and dad would have most disapproved of – a fussy eater. I now have long discussions with waiters about what

I can or can’t eat. An invitation to lunch used to fill me with joy. Not anymore, just a quiet resignation that I need to stay focused and develop a sixth sense about whether the café or restaurant is going to take me seriously, mark me down as a troublemaker, or not pay attention at all.

I face eye-rolling when I ask the waiting staff to pop into the kitchen to check the food is not being prepared anywhere near wheat, rye or barley. Luckily my friends have got used to my demands and fix their expression to patient with a hint of boredom. At first, I thought I could get away with a tiny amount of gluten. A dietician explained the harsh truth. She told me to take a slice of conventional toast and cut it into a million pieces. Maybe that much, she said.

The route to my diagnosis was fraught. I suddenly lost two stone and had intense stomach pain and bloating. Everything I ate went straight through me. I opted for the no-food diet most days and had to give up running my business.

I’m OK at home because I’m in control. Stepping outside my door, I keep GF cereal bars on me. I once went to a café and they had run out of GF bread and there was nothing else on the menu I could eat. There’s precious little for me at the once beloved Bird’s Bakery. Greggs? Only porridge. Staff at the lovely Hambleton’s Bakery in Bridgford just shake their heads. I can tuck into a curry but not a Chinese or Thai. I can eat tomato ketchup but not brown sauce. There are tiny bits of hope though. Nigella often publishes GF recipes on Insta. Good fish and chip shops offer GF batter. John Lewis’s café staff consult a ring binder the size of a single mattress listing ingredients.

I bought a GF loaf online the other day. It was the best cardboard I had ever tasted. Like me, you may gag at the £8.50 price – but scoff while you may, you lucky normal eaters.

If the UK grain harvest is going to be as bad as some fear, you’ll be paying close to that for your thin white sliced. Or eating actual cardboard.

I’ve suddenly become one of those people my mum and dad would have most disapproved of – a fussy eater