Chefs urged to provide more gluten-free options on menus

26th April 2010, 11:17am

Coeliac UK, the national charity for people with coeliac disease, is calling on chefs across the country to provide more gluten-free options on their menus which would enable thousands of people to eat out.

Research of more than 3,000 people with coeliac disease found that nearly one third of respondents said that they never eat out, or eat out less than once every other month. Nearly a quarter said they have travelled for an hour or longer in order to find a restaurant that provides a gluten-free meal. 

However, 30% of the respondents stated that they would eat out once a week if they could be confident of a safe gluten-free menu option. The survey also highlighted that there is a potential £100 million market amongst those diagnosed with the condition and the friends and family they eat out with.

At least 1 in 100 – 600,000 people in the UK has coeliac disease which is an autoimmune disease caused by intolerance to gluten. Damage to the gut lining occurs when gluten is eaten; there is no cure or medication for the condition and the only treatment is a strict gluten-free diet for life. 

Chef Phil Vickery, Coeliac UK's Food Ambassador, said: 'I'm passionate about improving understanding in the food industry on the need for more gluten-free cooking as more and more people are diagnosed. Currently, eating out is a lottery for people with coeliac disease. 

"According to the Allegra Strategies consumer research, on average, one in nine meals are eaten out of the home every week, equivalent to an estimated 148 million meals in 2009. People with coeliac disease do not have the luxury of choice or availability on their doorstep and the idea of having to travel over an hour just to find somewhere safe to eat is unthinkable for most people."

Related Articles:

• 06 Jul 2010 - Celebrity chef Phil Vickery campaigns for chefs to enter the 2010 Gluten Free Chef of the Year Competition
• 05 Mar 2010 - Phil Vickery revealed as Coeliac UK food ambassador
• 29 May 2009 - Are top restaurants doing enough for coeliac sufferers?

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Mark

06 May 2010 at 10:15am

Many restaurant menus are extremely unbalanced with almost every dish containing wheat in some form or another. Imagine if every dish contained artichokes! We often hear pleas for "balanced" and "varied" diets and yet many people eat wheat every day (for some at every meal) and don't have the choice to eat something different if they eat out. Such is society's obsession with wheat that unfortunately Coeliac UK strongly support the use of "wheat mimics" for coeliacs - replacement products for normal bread, pasta and biscuits that look, feel and taste like their wheat equivalents. I think this is a mistake because it does not force people to consider the hundreds or perhaps thousands of other edible plant species. Restaurant chefs need to stop using wheat and use their imaginations!

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