10 Gluten Free Mistakes I’ve Made

My inspiration for sharing the 10 gluten free mistakes I’ve made since being diagnosed with coeliac disease: I get a lot of messages from people who have made mistakes with they’re beating themselves up about it. I thought this might help everyone to know that we all make mistakes, and I have done some very stupid things too haha 🙂 We live and learn, right?!

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(1) Squash.

Yup, didn’t even think about “barley squash” containing barley. Sounds embarrassingly obvious now!

(2) Coke.

Same thing, had no idea it could contain gluten. Coca Cola and Pepsi are fine but some supermarket own brands contain gluten. Co-op coke, you got me good!!

(3) The Steamer Incident.

In my first few weeks of being coeliac, my brother boiled some super noodles and I steamed my veg in a steamer ontop. CC nightmare. I had absolutely no idea.

(4) Spices.

I was buying world food aisle spices and hadn’t even looked at the packet. Most are fine, but just double check. I’m pretty sure Aldi/Lidl salt is a may contain… at the moment anyway, they change their ingredients every 5 seconds :(!

(5) Vegan Ice Cream.

I’m gluten & dairy free. Don’t ask me how but I managed to eat half a tub of vegan ice cream, thinking “oh this is amazing for dairy free” before I even considered its potential to contain gluten.

(6) Deliveroo.

There’s a couple of small restaurants near to me who mark their allergens on Deliveroo. I happily ordered myself a feast, scoffed the lot and 24 hrs later I was in a pickle. Turns out the “may contains” weren’t marked on the menu.

(7) Pick N Mix.

For months I was going to the cinema and helping myself to a big stash of pick n mix without even thinking about the cc risk. Judging by my DM’s, this is one of the common gluten free mistakes!

(8) Things you don’t even order.

The one that is top of mind is when I was offered some unwrapped boiled sweets when the bill came in a restaurant. I took them, popped one in my mouth, then had that horrible realisation it might not be gluten free and had nowhere to put it haha

(9) Confidence.

This was probably my biggest mistake in my early days. I was so nervous to ask questions in restaurants or at other peoples houses, I just said “is it gluten free?” and if they said yes, even in a totally vague, non-confident way, I just accepted it and moved on. Its still something I’m learning to cope with and it certainly doesn’t come easily but we’ll keep trying!!

(10) And finally… I didn’t ask enough questions.

I tried to learn it all myself, didn’t have a good dietitian/nutritionist teaching me how to read labels or what cross contamination was and I muddled my way through. Obviously, it was totally unnecessary and I wish I’d have know about all the resources on Coeliac UK and within the Instagram community sooner. Remember, you can always ask me 🙂 🙂 🙂 I might not have all the answers but I’ll do my very best!

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**Want some more hidden places to find gluten? Check out that blog post for 18 of them!!**