High cost of celiac diets? Rice is like 50 cents a pound. There are whole cultures that do not base their diets on wheat.

I'm going in for a celiac blood test next week, so I am well aware of cost for gluten-free food.

It's easy to say "oh just eat rice" but gluten is in much more than the obvious baked goods... every sauce in my refrigerator right now would have to be pitched and I'd have to find new versions if I go gluten-free. And it's really jerky to say to someone who has eaten bread and baked goods throughout life to just suck it up and eat rice. How insensitive.

I will be getting a gluten-free baking mix and making my own food. I have always made my own baked goods anyway, so it won't be much of a change. The hardest part will be eating out. My boyfriend takes me out to eat a lot. He knows I am getting the test soon so we are both looking at restaurants with gluten-free options, just to be on the safe side (I'm pretty sure I have celiac, even before the blood test).

Thankfully, my parents got chickens and they should be laying in the next few weeks, so breakfast will be covered as I will have a virtually unlimited source of eggs from free-range, humanely raised chickens! Yay omelets!

Plus, many gluten-free foods like rice and oats are actually processed in facilities that also process wheat, so even "safe" foods have to be purchased in pricier gluten-free versions and packaging. I have several friends with celiac, and it's been an eye-opener to see how many things, as shabadeux said, do contain wheat.

When you are diagnosed with Celiacs, you have to go through and pitch every kitchen item that has any plastic or wood due to cross-contamination issues (plastic and wood both leach and can get you sick for many months to come). I had to replace my food processor, mini-prep, all spatulas, silpat, my wooden spoons, wooden salad bowl, blender parts (the lid was plastic as were the rubber pieces near the blade), storage containers, etc. Not to mention major appliances like ice cream machines (had held cookie dough at points), waffle irons and bread machines. This was incredibly expensive and still have not replaced all of our previous utensils.

We need to institute the idea of Celiac showers-parties for the newly diagnosed where we help individuals replace their kitchen appliances and staple pantry items! This would certainly help with some of the initial financial burden, also a time when we are throwing out all of our seasonings and pantry items. The beginning is certainly the most expensive, but the ongoing cost is also high.

Uh. I've lived with multiple celiacs people through my life (Didn't develop it myself THANK GOD) and we used the same kitchen and the same equipment for everything.

Unless you have a crazy extreme strain, you're really fine as long as you clean things carefully. My mom has the sort that results in easily identifiable horrible pain if a smidge of gluten gets in her food, and she never had to get rid of appliances or anything like that. And she would have KNOWN if there was a problem with cross contamination because of the very strong effects any trace amounts had. Didn't stop her from baking us cookies and making completely non-celiac-friendly food for the kids.

I think it would be pretty keen if the government decided to help her out buying gluten free goodies, but we were poor artists and ate just fine on celiac friendly food. Celiac diets are only crazy expensive if you want to run out and buy all premade or specialty foods. If you cook most of your own food from scratch (like my parents) then it's much easier to eat gluten free for cheap.

To this day a lot of my main meals that I cook for myself are gluten free, long after I've moved out, just because that's what I grew up eating and cooking.

Yeah, you really don't have to replace all of your kitchenware when diagnosed. My brother has celiac but we also prepared foods with gluten in the same kitchen, using the same appliances/utensils and he was never sick because of it. You just have to make sure you wash everything well and wipe down the counters. When baking with wheat flours, make sure to keep it contained and put all gluten-free foods away so there is no cross-contamination. The best small advice for a family/couple that eats both gluten and gluten-free is to never use the same utensil twice with butter/mayo/etc. so that crumbs do not linger. And make sure to clean out your toasters. Just making sure you have a clean kitchen can prevent a lot of cross contamination. It's definitely something to get used to, but I think it's a good practice.

Good luck shabadeux! Luckily there has been a huge rise in awareness in the last decade, so there are more high quality foods and recipes available. I definitely reccomend looking at european imports, since they are much more advanced when it comes to this.

I do feel that it is very possible to eat healthier (and possibly cheaper) on a celiac diet so long as you change your eating lifestyle. You may not be able to eat muffins, bread, cake, and pasta, but there are plenty of other delicious things to eat.
I have a wheat, dairy, and corn intolerance (although not gluten) which manifests itself in extreme bowel pain, rash and itchy skin, and susceptibility to respiratory infections, but I haven't really had too much of a problem either transitioning or paying for a wheat/dairy/corn-free diet. You have to give up certain foods, but in retrospect all the heavy carb and sugar foods weren't that healthy for me anyway.

shabadeux, if you are new to the food sensitivity lifestyle, I'm sure it's quite a shock. If you are like me and grew up with multiple allergies, "suck it up and eat ______ instead" is a fact of life. It's a surprisingly small deal once you are used to it.

Until this round of budget cuts, Minnesota allotted extra funds to people receiving one of our welfare grants based on special need diets. Gluten free diets got one of the highest extra amounts if I remember correctly. It is not insane to think that someone who has to buy special food should get a little extra to go toward that.

For those of you that do not get sick from shared wood or plastic kitchen utensils previously contaminated by gluten: great! However, some of us do get sick from this. And for those of us that do, replacing everything is outrageously expensive. Those that do adhere to a gluten free diet and still find themselves feeling ill from time to time should consider chucking their plastic and wood from their former gluten-full life. Neither glass nor metals leach (unless they have a teflon coating-but you shouldn't be using those anyway!) and so those do not have to be replaced.

I was misdiagnosed as a celiac, and went into a gluten free fanatic mode. (I actually have Graves, but the symptoms were the same, and hard to diagnose because I didn't have the normal eye complications.) I never cheated, and I was crazy to avoid gluten to keep the GI pain away.

My husband was gracious enough to go gluten free with me, and we spent 18 months doing it. It was exorbitantly expensive. We spent $600 a month on groceries, sometimes $550 a month, if I didn't need anything big on my basics list.

That cost included my being at home (because I was too sick to work) and cooking everything from scratch. Baking was so much more expensive because the costs of rice flour, tapioca flour, xanthum gum, and bean flours were way more than just a loaf of bread, or cake.

Hell, I couldn't eat oats because they are so cross contaminated in the US, that I had to pay $10 for 2.5 pounds of specially grown and processed gluten free oats.

I gave up on eating out. Even places with a gluten free menu had no idea what was up. That meant we ate at home, unless I went for sushi. It's hard to screw up rice and fish, as long as you stay away from fake crab.

When I got my Graves Disease under control we did more testing, and found I didn't have Celiac after all. My grocery bills dropped to $400 to $450 a month, which includes my eating out, and household slush fund for the month. I probably spend about $300 for the two of us per month just on groceries if I was to guess. I still cook completely from scratch, but use far higher grade ingredients because even expensive stuff seems cheap in comparison to the overpriced stuff that gets labeled gluten free.

I was diagnosed with Coeliac disease two years ago and didn't find it too hard at first - I certainly didn't replace any of my kitchen equipment - nobody even mentioned the need for this! - and I've had no problems so far even though I use both plastic and wooden implements that have been used for gluten-containing foods.

I find the hardest aspect of being coeliac is eating snacks when you are out - restaurants are generally OK - you can usually find something on the menu that is naturally gluten-free like a chicken caesar salad or steak and chips - but when you want to pop out for coffee and a cake with a friend there are simply no options for coeliacs - you try finding a cake shop that sells something made from rice rather than wheat!!

As for the expense, its not expensive if you stick to naturally gluten-free foods like rice - but if you try to eat like a regular person it can be extortionate - my husband can buy a regular loaf of bread for about 80p or a really cheap budget brand for about 20p - I am currently eating Genius bread (the most "realistic" type of gluten-free bread I've found so far) and the loaves are half the size of regular loaves and cost £2.49 - thats three times the price of a regular loaf or 12 times the price of a budget loaf!! - so yes, it is expensive.

In the UK all diagnosed coeliacs can get gluten-free foods on prescription but this is only useful if you get free prescriptions for some reason - being coeliac does not automatically entitle you to free prescriptions so if you have to pay the regular prescription charge of £7.50(ish) (and thats one fee for each TYPE of product so if you want bread and flour then you'd pay £15!) its sometimes easier to buy stuff as you need it at the supermarket - the only thing I get on prescription is flour as the prescription stuff is better than the supermarket stuff and I make most of my baked goods with that.

I guess a lot depends on what you're used to eating for meals - if you eat regular meat, potatoes and two vegetables meals then you wont have to change much to go gluten-free and your weekly foodbills wont change that much - but if your diet is heavily pastry- or bread-based then its going to make a much bigger difference to you.

I am not a celiac, but I do cook for one. I found the whole process of learning to cook gluten free confusing and frustrating, not to mention expensive. Compare the price of xanthum gum to the price of flour and then add in the extra money you spend on rice flour, tapioca starch, sorghum flour, etc... But if I think about the health of the man I love versus the cost? Or his health versus the extra time needed? I am happy to do what I have to do....

Once I got over the initial hump, I have been amazed at how easily most of my standard recipes translate to gluten free. How naturally I now turn to rice flour to brown a piece of meat, or chicken. I am constantly amazed these days at the awareness in restaurants. You still have to be careful, but at least most of them get the concept now. There are good products being put out by major brands (try Betty Crocker gf cookie mix when you are in a pinch) My local grocery store has half an aisle dedicated to gluten free products.

Do I still eat gluten? Yes, occasionally, when I go out without him. Do I miss it? No. Am I happy living a gluten free lifestyle? Yes, very! .

A gluten free diet is only expensive if your reaction to gluten is extremely severe, or if you insist on eating gluten-free bread, pasta, other grain products and processed junk food. There are gazillions of naturally gluten free foods, like just about all vegetables, fruits, legumes and meats, then theres also rice, eggs etc. Most of those are not outrageously expensive.

I may have celiac and even before I knew anything about it I ate mostly gluten free, for example steamed mixed veggies with brown rice, red lentils and minced beef or chicken strips, with some sea salt and spices such as curry, paprika, black pepper and so on. Tastes awesome, is cheap and gluten-free.