Welcome  to my blog! I'm obsessed with food, like a lot of people in the western world of obesity! Gladly I am not obese...I am sorry if you are...but I do have a disease called Coeliac's disease. This blog is aimed at those who have Coeliac's disease like myself or an intolerance to gluten and are travelling to the same countries I have been. I hope that it helps you gain just a little bit of an understanding as to what to expect in  different countries! Obviously I can't go to all of them but I think ....why not do as much as I can? I might help at least one person, and that's enough.

First things first - upon doing my own research online I have found the following useful sites (I will continue adding this as I come across them):


http://www.celiactravel.com/cards/
Great site with free downloadable cards explaining your situation in 51 different languages! Please do donate to them, how cool are they? I have one in both Spanish and Portugese which I have laminated, ready to take to restaraunts and homestays...they also have alot of other traveller's stories and tips! 

http://www.spanishdict.com/
This Spanish translator site that I am using, and other online translators, are invaluable for pre-trip preparation. You can work out the names of all your grains etc and be really familiar with them, ready for label-reading at your destination. Also you can use it to translate what information may be available on the web for Coeliacs disease for your chosen country/ies - I have been using it to translate the Coeliac society of Argentina's website..

(http://www.celiaco.org.ar/)
 Argentina is a country I have found that has a great awareness of the disease,but more about that later. Other countries may not be so aware, but no harm in searching! The society may be able to warn you of things to be careful of, such as food labelling standards, or lack of...

I have also been using the online translator for translating other people's blogs. Some people have gluten free recipes on their pages - handy if like me, you are travelling on a budget and intend on preparing your own food, as you know the ingredients in the recipe are going to be available locally.

Ahhh bless the internet!

And onto the country I know best...

HOME/NEW ZEALAND

http://www.coeliac.org.nz/

AWARENESS

New Zealand is so so great for gluten free food! I’ve known people visiting  from Europe and Australia to have made the comment it is the easiest place to be if gluten free! (Although I am finding Argentina to be spectular also!)
You’d be really hard pushed to find anyone in the food industry  here serving you that does not know what gluten it is. How much they know about it is another point…the  knowledge obviously varies from place to place and person to person. The general population mostly know what it is. All of my friends do, and are so so sweet in that they will often check their packaging while doing the weekly shop… just in case I might pop round for dinner :)
 

SHOPPING

Food labelling laws here are great. If anything in the ingredients list is derived from wheat, barley, malt, oats etc it MUST say it in bold in the ingredients list. This is along with any of the other most common allergies such as egg, dairy and shellfish etc. So it’s super easy to find food that is OK for you in stores.  In most supermarkets there are sections for those with allergies (usually with the organic food and/or international food)  and while shopping in this part makes it easy, it also makes it pricey and quite often I think not as healthy as this section mainly seems to supply alternatives to processed foods. Nothing beats the fresh fruit and vegetables section and all the other unprocessed food at the supermarket, and the baking you have made yourself from friendly grains. But there are those times when you want these processed foods of course, for convcenience and craving!
I have also realised that I can find cheaper alternatives that do not contain gluten amongst the general shelves. For example, there may be 30 different kinds of pasta sauce in the sauce isle of different brands and flavours, and by checking the ingredients list I might find half of these to be gluten free. After a  few years of label reading I have quite an extensive knowledge of gluten free food products in my brain and find shopping as easy as anyone else without allergies. This of course takes a while of staying in one place to build up! I still CHECK the product EVERY time before I buy, as sometimes recipes for products here will change not all food companies make it obvious. So it pays to still check.