Cllr. Gavin Ayling

I bought the towel pictured below on my jollies, but guess where it’s made…

It’s made in China! Thank goodness for globalisation and thank goodness the EU didn’t stymie this import!

I know which towel I’ll be taking with me when I next hitch a lift on an infinite improbability drive powered spaceship.

For those of my readers from the Brighton area, the following is interesting:

I have coeliac disease which is an intolerance to the gluten found in wheat and many other cereals. It is surprising how many foods contain wheat flour!

First though, about me… I was diagnosed when I was around 18 months old so I have no memory of what wheat-containing foods taste like and, because I was always aware of the intolerance (CoeliacUK hates the word ‘allergy’), I have never considered wheat-containing foods as food.

I was looking at the blog directories for lists of blogs that mention gluten-free or coeliac disease and discovered that there is very little information available or that is updated regularly. In England we are very lucky to have an excellent and well-funded charity that supports coeliacs and those with gluten intolerance superbly. Life would be almost impossible without the directory of foods that can be eaten that CoeliacUK provides. Many US websites and US celiacs seem completely unaware of basic information like that roquefort cheese is normally made using bread-mold (to make the blue veins) and so is unsuitable for inclusion in a gluten free diet.

Ingredients
At the moment the law on ingredients lists on foods says that any ingredient that constitutes more than 25% of an individual ingredient must be listed. This means that if a cake has a biscuit bottom then the ingredients can list ‘biscuit’ but not ‘wheat’ if the wheat is 24% or less of the biscuit. This is very dangerous for coeliacs as, unlike my example, wheat can be a constituent ingredient in less-obviously wheat-containing ingredients.

In an unusual departure from usual, the EU introduced a good law in this respect which means that any of the EU’s favourite allergens must be listed in a ‘Contains’ panel on the rear of all packaged foods sold in the EU from 25 November 2005. The so-called “25% rule” is also to be abolished from that date. It is a shame that the UK government could not have done that previously so that this rare compliment to the EU could have been avoided.

The following list from the EU’s guidelines shows the allergens affected currently:

• Cereals containing gluten ( i.e. wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut or their hybridised strains) and products thereof
• Crustaceans and products thereof
• Eggs and products thereof
• Fish and products thereof
• Peanuts and products thereof
• Soybeans and products thereof
• Milk and products thereof (including lactose)
• Nuts i.e. Almond (Amygdalus communis L.), Hazelnut (Corylus avellana), Walnut (Juglans regia), Cashew (Anacardium occidentale), Pecan nut (Carya illinoiesis (Wangenh.) K. Koch), Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa), Pistachio nut (Pistacia vera), Macadamia nut and Queensland nut (Macadamia ternifolia) and products thereof
• Celery and products thereof
• Mustard and products thereof
• Sesame seeds and products thereof
• Sulphur dioxide and sulphites at concentrations of more than 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre expressed as SO2.

As a coeliac something that often affects people is a desire, especially amongst the English, not to make a fuss. My attitude in this circumstance is that ones health is paramount and I would rather an entire restaurant of people or more, thought I was ignorant or bolshy than I was compelled to regurgitate my food because of a lazy waiter/chef. If you doubt what a waiter is telling you, ask them to show you the ingredients on a constituent ingredient (such as mayonnaise for tuna jacket potatoes!) and do not be afraid of embarrassment.

Other info
Another god-send (atheistically speaking, of course) that is a recent discovery to me is the Dietary Alert Card. Get one before you go to a restaurant again.

Things have changed immeasurably for the better in England since I was diagnosed in 1980, but you will still encounter ignorance, both malicious and genuine. Stores like Sainsbury’s now include whether each and every one of their own-brand products is gluten free on the rear. Asda has started licensing the CoeliacUK logo (see above) which is great as this helps fund the charity. All the other major supermarkets now stock gluten free food in a separate section normally near the organic and kosher foods. Shops that still need to be singled out for apathy include Tesco not only for their poor in-store labelling, but especially because their online shopping site provides NO information at all about food contents - not even the nutritional information.

On this last point, I am generally against further regulation by government, but it seems daft to me to force companies to label their products but to allow them to sell them at a distance via the internet without making that information available.

Finally
If you’re from the UK I recommend you contact CoeliacUK in the first instance. I would love to hear from you though, in case I can help or give advice. If you’re from the neglected US or anywhere else, please get in touch!