Gluten Free Travelling

From what I have read and heard so far during my time as a Coeliac, I discovered that many of my fellow Coeliacs are dissuaded from travelling abroad since receiving their Coeliac diagnosis. When I embarked on a trip through Europe earlier this summer with friends, I was also very nervous about how I would manage on the trip. It was my first time travelling abroad as a Coeliac and one of my favourite things about travelling previously had always been experiencing the local cuisine. I had visions of sitting there gazing hungrily on as my friends all indulged in eye-watering Austrian apple strudels or munching on a stale cracker as they all devoured Parisian pastries. Even worse, I was terrified of being ‘glutened’ and getting ill for the rest of the trip. I felt increased trepidation as I read through Coeliac UK’s (very helpful though they are) country guides – the Austria one explains, “flour and breadcrumbs are regularly used in cooking, even with vegetables”. Great, so I wouldn’t even be able to eat vegetables at a restaurant without being terrified that flour was evilly lurking inside!



Would this be my sole food companion for the duration of the trip?

However, my visions of surviving the trip gnawing on a lettuce leaf were quickly dissolved from the very first night we arrived in Zagreb, Croatia. As we travelled through six countries (Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and France) I found that I not only managed, but I actually ENJOYED meal times. In fact, the trip was the first time I truly began to enjoy eating again since my diagnosis in February.

Coeliac Disease may stop you eating certain foods, but I really believe that it shouldn’t stop you from doing anything else that you want to do, and so I thought I’d share my top 10 tips for those wishing to travel abroad based on my experiences.

Grace's Gluten-Free Globetrotting Top Ten Tips

1.       Travel Cards – my absolute top tip for anyone travelling to a non-English speaking country would be to ensure you have one of these handy travel cards stashed in your bag at all times: http://www.celiactravel.com/cards/ This fantastic website provides gluten-free cards in a variety of languages and I found them to be absolutely invaluable to my trip. Coeliac Disease is often not as well known in countries outside the UK but with these cards I found that even if staff had not heard of it, they were able to comprehend my dietary requirements.

2.       Coeliac UK Country Guides -  https://www.coeliac.org.uk/gluten-free-diet-and-lifestyle/holidays-and-travel/country-guides/ Coeliac UK produces these useful guides to give travellers a brief overview of a particular country’s approach to the gluten-free diet. The main thing I found handy about these was the recommendations of supermarkets that stocked gluten-free brands abroad as this avoided wasting time trawling endless supermarkets searching for gluten-free products.

3.       Take some emergency snacks – I think breakfast would have proved quite a tricky meal had I not crammed my bag full of my favourite gluten free muffins! It was also reassuring to know that if the worst came to the worst and I couldn’t find anything to eat I wouldn’t go hungry.

4.       Research restaurants and cafes – I think it is a really good idea to have a look on social media, blogs and TripAdvisor (search e.g. gluten free Paris) to find reviews of establishments in advance of your trip. The best people to recommend an establishment are those who have eaten there gluten free before and I found gluten-free travellers’ online reviews invaluable to my trip.

5.       Don’t be afraid of walking out if you’re not happy. I did this twice, once in Ljubljana in Slovenia when the chef slouched out of the kitchen to glare at my language card splattered with stains of multiple unidentifiable substances and looking like she hadn’t washed or changed her clothes in about a year (Coeliac or not, I wouldn’t want her preparing my food!) and once in Bern when despite working in a centrally located catering establishment and reading my German language card, the waiter had never actually heard of gluten as an ingredient and had no clue what it was.

6.       Show the waiter your language card and ask if they can accommodate you and what precisely they could prepare for you before you sit down.

7.       As you would in the UK, double check with your waiter or waitress that your food will be cooked separately and utensils will be cleaned – ensure to be polite of course and you will hopefully find that establishments try extremely hard to accommodate you.

8.       Make the most of local markets – the fruit in Europe really is excellent and it makes a healthy, tasty and cheap snack.

                                                 

 

Fruit Market in Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

 

9.       Although this is hard, try not to think about before-Coeliac – yes, before you could eat whatever you wanted and not give it a second’s thought, but this is the situation now and you can still eat lots of nice foods. Take the opportunity to try different things, e.g. before I was diagnosed I would always have picked a pasta option off the menu, but the options now available to me meant that I got to try lots of things I wouldn’t necessarily have picked as my first choice before but which I really enjoyed!

 

                                            

                                             Shared platter of Croatian cheeses and meats

10.   Try not to get too sad when there are things you can’t have – there were of course times when I couldn’t have a cake or an ice cream or some chocolate, but instead just think of other nice food you have enjoyed recently or other things you have been enjoying on your trip and try to remember that you will get to eat a nice treat again another time.

Unfortunately no Swiss chocolate from all the nice chocolate shops as they all seemed to contain barley, but there's always Toblerone which is gluten-free and always seemed to be available in the supermarkets.