Emily L BPS

Nadine asked me: What is gluten free? Here is my answer:  The foods that coeliacs’ are allergic to are wheat, rye, barley and oats. These foods can be replaced by corn, rice, nuts, fruit and vegetables. These foods are a blend of very good, nutrition. As you can probably see, a coeliac’s diet is pretty healthy! I hope that all of this answers your question, Nadine!   

If there is anything that you don’t understand about coeliac disease, please write a comment on this post. I will happily answer your comments in one of my posts that I will write later on. I will also make a link back to your blog on the post (if you have a blog).  

 Coeliacs have their very own motto - ‘if in doubt, leave it out’ - which means, if you’re not sure about something, don’t eat it. For example, if you were at a friends’ house and she offered you a lolly pop but it didn’t have the ingredients on it, going by our motto you wouldn’t eat it because you weren’t 100% sure that it was gluten free. Or say if you were given a bag of chips and it said ‘may contain traces of wheat’. You wouldn’t eat it in case there was even a crumb of gluten on the smallest chip, because eating one chip that has gluten in it makes just as much trouble as eating a room full of chips with gluten in them because the damage is done no matter how much gluten you eat (although the bigger the amount, the longer your stomach and other parts of your body will hurt.) So remember, if in doubt, leave it out!  

 Jordan asked me ‘what do dietitians do?’ Well, here’s my answer: Dietitians basically help people to keep healthily by keeping fit and active plus eating a healthy diet. This means that they help people plan out healthy meals for themselves and their family, they help people to control their weight plus other things necessary such as not putting so much sugar into their diet and exercising regularly. A dietitian who specializes in coeliac disease is a different story all together. A dietitian who specializes in coeliac disease helps people have a better understanding of the gluten free diet (wheat, rye, barley and oat free).

They also help their clients with what products are gluten free and what foods/drinks are not. One of the most important things that they do is help people to read and understand the labeling on a can or packet. This is a really important task as it is so easy to think that you’ve found something gluten free to eat but actually, you don’t know one of the terms for gluten and you eat it and then you’re sick. Dietitians that specialize in coeliac disease usually have a great understanding about coeliac disease and they can nearly always answer any of your questions that are troubling you. I hope that this post answers your question, Jordan!              

 In one of her comments, Katya asked me, ‘do you mind having to eat certain foods?’ Here is my answer: No, I don’t mind eating certain and different foods to others because it makes me individual and unique that I am different to others in this sort of way.I feel happy and proud the way I am and I don’t mid it when people think that I’m a bit different to others because I know that I am just the same as everyone else - all I have to do that makes me a bit different is eat gluten free food!

 Nadine asked me in one of her comments, how I came about choosing that I wanted to be dietitian specialising in coeliac disease. Well, here’s the answer:

After all of the difficulties of finding out that my dad, brother and I were all coeliacs, I thought that there wasn’t enough help around. So I made up my mind that I wanted to help people with the diet and help people with the difficulties they were having with either being a coeliac or having one around. I think that one of the purposes of life is to help people and that is what I want to do later on in my life. Being a dietitian will definitely help people who need it and I hope that they will benefit from the help that I give them due to background knowledge that I have .

Well, that is basically how I came about choosing that I want to be a dietitian specialising in coeliac disease and why. I hope that this answers your question, Nadine !

 In one of my most recent posts, I talked about going to camp at Lady Northcote Recreation Camp and how I was going to have to be served gluten free food every time I ate something. They were brilliant at this camp and everything I ate was 100% gluten free! The food was delicious and I loved it. I couldn’t believe that when we had to do survival challenge, we needed to make damper. As some of you may know, damper is made from water which I can eat and flour which I can’t eat. I had just started thinking who I should give my damper to when the instructor came up to me and said that she had some gluten free flour for me that I could use to make the damper!

 I was so happy that I could actually eat the damper that there was a smile on my face for the whole time I was making the it (except when I was coughing when the smoke got in my eyes)! I was really happy how they had put so much effort into making my diet gluten free as well as making it taste nice! The went shopping just for me and they they bought me nice things like lamingtons, donuts, bread, rolls and pasta. All of the food tasted sensational and I am really happy that I had a really enjoyable time at Lady Northcote Camp!   

Coeliac Disease impacts on people’s lives by alot of different things. Here are some:

• What food coeliacs can eat
• The symptoms they can get
• How some people may think that they shouldn’t be with someone who has coeliac disease because they might catch it (even though you can’t catch coeliac disease)
• How some people may not want you to come over as their mum may think that she wouldn’t be able to handle the diet
•  Or over seas, you have to have the labeling on food that coeliacs are about to eat translated to make sure they are gluten free

          plus many more.

 This week, from Wednesday to Friday, the senior unit are going on camp to Lady Northcote where we will be doing lots of fun activities such as mountain biking, canoeing the flying fox, the giant swing and much more. Because I am a coeliac, like every other time I have been to camp, I need special foods that are completely gluten free and have no cross - contamination. I am really excited about camp and I am sure that the food will be really nice .