Beat The WheatMay 2012

News pills from Ger-many and Portugal!

Travel tales from Nor-way and Malta!

Where to eat in: Spain!

Spanish ac-tress, Maria Valverde is a coeliac!www.tonycoccaro.com

EditorialSmall surprisesA discussion in a café at Riga airport:- a coeliac: “I would like to buy these chips, but could you please translate the ingredients for me? They are only in Latvian... I cannot eat wheat”- the waitress: “Oh, do you have the gluten allergy? Let me see the package… These chips contain no wheat. And hey, we also have a glu-ten-free brownie for you!”

You know the feeling? When you recognize the waitress knows what you are talking about, she knows coeliac disease. When you don’t ex-pect it, you get totally surprised and cannot stop smiling!

The café was Costa Coffee. When you google “Costa Coffee gluten-free”, you find discussions about this gluten-free brownie. There were complaints about the unclear package with (gluten-free) wheat starch and warning for wheat. There are comments about the ppm levels and worries about thesafety. Several people have sent questions about the product to the company. The last posting from Lynda (3/2012) is saying the product is now safe, actually the recipe has been changed into wheat-free.

This is raising awareness! We want to thank you all for the precious raising awareness work, which you do all the time, sometimes not even noticing it. You ask questions,give suggestions, even con-tact companies. Your actions make the compa-nies to improve their gluten-free selection.

There is a growing number of places, where you get this insightful I-know-glu-ten-free –answer, alone 15 men-tioned in this bulletin,but far too many where it’s not possible yet. Let’s keep up the good work!

We would also like to thank you all for your participation! Send-ing texts, reading or sharing it, you have contributed to this bul-letin.

The first issue had great success. We shall keep improving, so you should let loose your imagina-tion and send us your ideas, texts and pictures to our email address:editors.beat.the.wheat@goog-lemail.com!

We would like to ask all the authors to send us their age and country information when sending texts!

This bulletin is what you make of it!

Hanna Koponen, Lana Pavkov

Comic Strip

News pillsLiving gluten free as a young Portuguese coeliac In Portugal, coeliac disease is not very well known. The Portuguese Coeliacs Association (APC) has only very few voluntary workers who give their time to take part in APC’s activities. That’s the reason why a great part of our work has to do with directly helping our «mother organization». So we work every day to spread the word, trying to achieve better conditions for coeliacs and more awareness for the public.

Summer camp and other activities APC Jovem – our youth group – was created in 2008 with the intent to reach the younger generation, but as the time passed our goals changed and nowadays our focus is broader. Besides maintaining our blog – Sem Espiga (which means something like «no grain») – we organize what we call «green meals» (participants have the green light to eat anything they want!), informal gatherings, and last year we organized our first summer camp. That was our most ambitious project so far: during three days, 10 young coeliacs (7 Portuguese and 3 Spanish) had the opportunity to (re)discover Lisbon and to make new friends. For this September, we are organizing our second sum-mer camp, this time in Sintra, a beautiful traditional city close to Lisbon. The camp is located near the beach and participation is open to children and

youngsters from ages 8 to 18; they will be divided by age for the various activities.We also take part in organizing APC’s national gatherings, which happen twice a year in different areas of the country.

Gluten free baking trial In May, we celebrate “Coeliac Month” and we are preparing a special activity for May 27th, Coeliac’s Day, in Pavilhão do Conhecimento (Pavilion of Knowledge), an interactive museum dedicated to science, where the children will take part in ex-periences with bread, trying to identify the role of gluten. This will be one of the activities with quite a lot of publicity, so we are expecting good results from it. As there are not many restaurants, cafes and stores with gluten free products in Portugal, we work to inform them about coeliac disease and indeed there has been a great improvement in the last few years. Now more commercial and distribution brands care about this target group and offer gluten free products.

Vanessa Domingos

Portugal

The German Youth Board is part of the German Celiac Society and has seven Delegates from all over Germany. We meet at least four times a year and during these meetings we discuss and organize a lot of different things.

For example, we organize dif-ferent camps for youngsters between the age of 12 and 28. This year we have a city weekend in Bremen for those between 16 and 28, a Summer camp for those aged 12 to 15 years and a sailing trip on the Ijsselmeer in the Netherlands for celiacs be-tween 16 and 28. All in all we have seven camps this year. Other projects we work on are a special magazine for youngsters called “Zottel” and a “youth hostel guide”. In this guide you can find a lot of youth hostels

Germany in Germany with information about whether they offer gluten free bread or meals and if so, how much notice they need to know your special need before your arrival. So before planning a trip you can check if the youth hostel you chose offers a gluten free diet. A special event this year is the election of a new youth board in October. Therefore, we also have to think about whether we want to run for the next youth board or not. Elections take place every three years and you have to be between 16 and 28 years to run for one of the seven places on the board.

I hope you now have a bit of an idea what we do in Germany. Of course there is a lot more but these are the most interesting points for someone not working on the Youth Board. Hannah Mensch

Travel Tale

My name is Christina and I am from Cyprus. I recently visited Malta where I had a wonderful time and I enjoyed tasty gluten free meals! I was very impressed by the gluten free options that many restaurantsand cafes in Malta had to offer, especially in the town of Sliema.Most of the restaurants show the gluten free options clearly on their menu, and some of them also note in the brochure that they could prepare some spe-cific meals, like pasta or pizza, by order.Mint is where I had lunch every day during my stay in Malta. It is a small cafe with a fantastic selection of both sa-

voury and sweet gluten free dishes. Each day the cafe has 4 or 5 savoury dishes on offer with a salad and dressing which they confirmed was gluten free.

They also had delicious desserts, 2 or 3 different gluten free options each day, which all looked amazing.Fresco’s is a restaurant which we visited on our last day in Sliema. Their menu had a few gluten free options that sound-ed good. Their menu also stated that they can prepare their pasta dishes gluten free and it costs 1 euro extra and takes 20 minutes. Now, if you’re looking for a good Italian meal - pizza, pasta, salads, etc., La Cuccagna is a great place to go. They have very nice gluten free pizza,

which was fantastic, because it is something that I can’t easily find, as well as traditional Maltese plates, friendly staff and a reasonably quick service.

Christina Andreou

Malta

During the last year, I spent three weeks in Bergen, Norway. Lots of people

can´t imagine how beautiful this city is, they only know the capital, Oslo. Believe me, I have proved it: Bergen is the nicer one. The beautiful landscape, “Bryggen”the

warehouse district which is a UNESCO world cultural heritage site and, last but not least, the unique music scene all fascinated me. I have never been to a city before where you can attend so many great concerts, the majority of which are free. The audiences are always peaceful and the atmosphere always amazing.In spite of it all, my best and most spectacular experience was my gluten-free experi-ence! If you travel to Norway you can´t miss “Pepe´s Pizza”, as it´s everywhere you go. I was totally surprised, because in Germany I have never seen “Pepe´s Pizza” be-fore and here in Bergen you can assume nobody could survive without it. There, on Mondays you can eat as much as you can for 99 NOK (it´s about €12/13). The fact that you can order this arrangement as well as it being gluten-free just tops the bill!

I couldn´t believe it. Since my coeliac diagnosis in 1999 I have not eaten pizza in a “normal” restaurant, it was such a pleasant situation for me, just sitting with my friends and feasting without any fears. Without having to explain and discuss what´s possible for a coeliac to eat, I passed a real relaxed and delicious evening at “Pepe´s”.

Another shop I can recommend is called “Deli de Luca”, where you can buy gluten-free muffins, which are not a miniature of normal ones and which taste heavenly! I found a huge one with apple-cheesecake taste....great! So fluffy and juicy...mmmhhh..... Apart from my two highlights however, Bergen does have negative features for coeliacs: the supermarkets were great disappointments. Scandinavia is known for high prices, but I was still shocked after checking the gluten-free range available. Mostly, I went to KIWI or REMA 1000, these are the “cheaper” supermarkets. But I realized, cheap is relative.... I always thought twice before I bought a package of little breads or crispbread. Luckily for me, I had a lot of food supplies with me and so I didn´t have to buy too much.

Norway- an expensive paradise

In Norway the best alternative is to ask in usual bakeries for gluten-free products and in most cases you are successful. Once, I entered a bak-ery that had an appealing appearance and so I took my courage in both hands and just took my chance. “Excuse me, do you have anything without

gluten?” “Oh, of course we have, these brownies and cupcakes you can enjoy!” Was I dreaming? No, I wasn´t.... there were beautiful little brown-ies in front of me, figured like brownies you can usually consider in backbenchers or prospects... but in real? I was sceptic....stayed sceptic for a few seconds...felt unbridled pleasure...”Yes, I would like to buy...a brownie...and two cupcakes....ehm...oh, I think I’ll take two brownies.”

Finally, I came out of the bakery with such a big grin in my face, I was unbelievably happy.My lucky streak in Norway still wasn´t over. One evening, my friend and I wanted to have a great dinner with valuable food and good drinks. We wanted it until we saw the prices! So, in the end

we found ourselves at McDonalds. “Great”, I thought, “I don´t want to eat salad with french-fried potatoes as always...boring!” But I remembered the wise words and so I asked the staff for a gluten-free burger. “No problem, which one do you want?” Did I hear wrongly? WHICH ONE? I heard right, I could choose between all of-fered burgers without coating and to arrive at a decision I took the cheapest one My cheese-

burger was wonderful! The bread wasn´t hard or chewy, instead fresh and crispy like it should be. The sole negative aspect was my greed for more! One burger was definitely not enough! Norway is not only a great country for trekking, skiing or fishing,the mountains, fjords and rustic villages are unbelievable and definitely

worth a visit. For coeliacs, especially, it´s a country where you can pass easygoing days, without being shy, unsure or afraid because of your diet. Most Norwegian people know a lot about the coeliac disease and you will always find a conclusive gluten-free alternative...actually “alterna-tive” is wrongly worded. I must tell you all that my friend was very confused after tasting my gluten-free burger. It was absolutely the better one

Yvonne Martin

Where to eat inLogroño (Spain) Firstly , I must say that La Rioja -the region where I live- has been nominated “the capital of gastronomy” in 2012, and luckily we have plenty of places where we can eat gluten-free. Of course, the most well-known, and envied by many other cities is Laurel Street, where there are more than 50 bars. The way to eat in this area is a small savoury brochete, more commonly known as “pintxos”. There are several bars controlled by ACERI, the association of celiac disease in La Rioja, serving gluten-free “pintxos”:

*Black and White: they serve small snacks made with delicious pepper and anchovies (called marriage), or you can opt for a slice of raspberry cheese-cake.*Jubera: its specialty are wild potatoes (fried potatoes with spicy sauce). Of course they have gluten-free bread.*Donosti: they have many gluten-free snacks served on a slice of toast. The “pintxos” are more glamorous.*Pata Negra: where you can taste the best cured ham in the area, in some delicious crispy sandwiches of ham and cheese, and at a great price!*Soriano: famous for its rich grilled mushrooms. The secret is the sauce…scrumptious...

Juan Carlos Garcia

I tell my storySpain My first experience with FACE Young (coe-liac youth organization of Spain) was in winter 2008, when I received a letter with information about a national residential weekend in Aragon, where we would practice skiing and snowboarding. Although I had always been very shy, I took the chance and joined the trip. I did not know any other coeliacs yet so the experience was great, being able to eat the same as others, not having to worry about cross contamination, bite others’ sandwiches ... Of course, every meal was gluten-free on the trip.

It seemed we were among friends, almost familiar, even knowing that the residential week-end lasted only three days. But I will always keep in touch with the friends I made there.

We skied on Saturday and Sunday, and, one night, we went out to dinner in the village of Jaca. We went to gluten-free bars with snacks organized, and then we went to have a drink at a pub.

From my point of view it was an unforgetta-ble weekend. After that residential weekend, I swore I would never miss anymore, and so far I have ac-complished this!

Juan Carlos Garcia

Italy I think all of us on an almost daily basis have to deal with many small problems, being in a pub or in a piz-zeria with friends, and not being able to obtain gluten-free food and finding it rather annoying. For this reason many young people may not always adhere to the diet for varying periods of time. I have always adhered to the diet. However I still had a time when people were not always able to fully ac-cept this move from the diet and the national association for example, providing a different reading of coeliac dis-ease! The coeliac condition, if lived in a conscious way, can help everyone move towards greater autonomy, per-sonal independence and dietary management and possibly to become excellent cooks! Above all we need to stress that people should ad-here to the diet and not put their health at risk. Contact with other coeliacs, real improvements in services, res-taurants and general public awareness are very important and should cross national borders by creating a network of European contacts in an increasingly globalised world. This will offer the possibility of new experiences outside the country of origin promoting and sharing knowledge of coeliac disease throughout the entire community. In short I am convinced that the common goal of improving the quality of life for all people with coeliac dis-ease can be achieved through the combination of the very real commitment and the common interest of all including CYE.

Gianfranco Bianco

“We managed it!” If you asked me how Coeliac disease had changed my life, I would probably answer “In no way”. However, for my parents it must have been quite a big change. I´m 18 years old now and doctors diagnosed C.D. when I was 13 months old. My parents were desper-ate because I had had problems for 5 months. I lost weight as is common for C.D. Those 5 months were very drain-ing for the body of a toddler. Firstly, doctors thought that my problems were nervous in origin. Fortunately, they found out in time that the problems were caused by C.D. Although my health got better, it was hard for my parents because they had not heard about CD before. But they informed family and friends, so that for example, I could have a lunch with classmates in kindergarten and at school. We managed to travel wherever I wanted and gluten free food gradually became part of our lives. Of course, for me as a small child it was hard to get used to all this when I saw my class-mates eating everything, but it worked out just fine. However, as I got older I started getting indigestion. I did not know how it was possible because I strictly ob-served the rules of the gluten free diet. Indigestion was caused by Crohn dis-ease, that is an inflammatory bowel dis-

ease. Firstly, I had a nervous break-down, but that is the worst thing for managing this disease. So, I had to start fighting, and I did. Luckily I had strictly observed the rules of the gluten free diet because if I had not observed them, I would have had worse problems than I had. Overall, Coeliac disease has helped me to manage my other dis-ease, to get used to a stricter diet and to live without problems. Although I take some pills every day and I can’t eat everything I want, I manage. If you met me and you did not know about my diseases, you would not discover it. My doctor always says that I look healthier than people who are not as ill as I am. They are right, because de-spite my diseases I volunteer in the hospital. I realized I am strong and healthy enough to help others. I can give advice on how to manage dis-eases like these. If your close friends and family support you, if you are psychologically balanced and if you are enthusiastic, everything is sim-ple. I, and you who read this now, can scream to the world that we managed it. I hope that you all live with Coeliac disease as an ordinary part of your life. Furthermore, pub-lishing of this bulletin is a success and shows that we are strong.

KristýnaBubeníková

Czech Republic

Bits ‘n’ BitesDoughnutsAll you need for about 20 doughnuts is:

3dl (300gr) milk or water25gr yeast1tbsp cardamom1/2dl (50gr) sugar1/4tsp salt2 eggs7 dl (700gr) gluten free flour

For frying: oilFor covering: sugar (or melted chocolate, nonpareils, cinnamon... whatever you like!)

1. Add yeast to warm milk/water

2. Add everything else and beat them in with a food mixer for 3 minutes

3. Stand in a warm place until dough is doubled in size.

4. Take pieces of dough and form them into... well, doughnuts. Alter-natively, you can form little balls.

5. Heat the oil in a pan and try the temperature with a small piece of dough. The oil is warm enough when the dough bakes in about 1 minute (about 180 degrees). Then fry the doughnuts.

6. Drain the ready doughnuts on a piece of kitch-en paper and roll them in sugar while they are still warm.

7. Eat them all! If you want to freeze some of them, don’t coat them.

Doughnuts are something Finns love to eat. Usually they are covered with sugar or filled with jam. Especially, they are a fa-vourite at Vappu on May 1st, which is a national holiday in Finland.

Riina Siikanen

Ingredients (for 4 people)- 1 kilo of crumbling potatoes- 500 grams of raw endive- 250 grams of bacon strips- 1-2 smoked sausages- 50 grams of butter- Sip of milk- Pepper/salt

Preparation

1.Peel the potatoes and cut them into four parts. Put all the potatoes in a large pan with water and a bit of salt. Bring the water to the boil. After 20 minutes of cooking the potatoes will be ready. Strain off all the water.

2.In the mean time, boil the smoked sausage in a pan with water for 15 minutes. This pan must be on low heat, because the water cannot be boil-ing. If the water does boil, the sausage will brake up and all the taste will be gone.

3.Fry the bacon strips in a pan until they are a nice and crisp.

4.Put the potatoes and raw endive in a large pan together with a sip of milk, 50 grams of butter and a bit of pepper. Mix these ingredients to-gether with a masher.

5.Now put the bacon strips in and stir all of the ingredients.

The smoked sausage can be served on the side together with some gravy.

This is a typical Dutch dish that we eat in wintertime!

Laura Schriver

Stampot rauwe andijvie

Portrait of a famous coeliacAn actress, Maria Valverde writes:

“Yes, I am of those people who can’t eat gluten”. Disease? I prefer to call it intolerance. When I was a baby, I didn’t flourish on pu-reed food. After being sick for several weeks, the doctor diagnosed me with gastroenteritis. But as it got worse as my parents visited the emergency de-partment, where the staff finally performed a biopsy and I was diagnosed with the disease.

When I was 3 years old I had another biopsy to make sure everything was correct. That day was “The Elephant day”, a game that my parents invent-ed to make me laugh in order to make me forget the tubes that I had from my mouth to my stomach. That same day I got my first skates. That day could have been horrible for a child, but thanks to my par-ents it was one of the most beautiful days.

I was always the special one of my family, al-ways had a different dish on the table, and I liked that.

I remember my childhood very affectionately, especially those days when my mother made me cook-

ies. The kitchen smelled like a charm and I really had a tremendous desire to eat. On the other hand my grand-mother was accustomed to preparing the best rice pud-

ding I’ve ever eaten. On other children’s birthdays, my mother pre-pared my own lunch and at the end I was the envy of everybody else, although I would have loved to eat a piece of those chocolate cakes...

Being a coeliac has taught me a lot about nutri-tion, I like to look after my diet and what better way than to have to watch what I eat. Sometimes there are people who believe that the gluten-free diet is a diet that is just about losing weight or something like that. In my profession as an actress, I’ve had problems of this type. I remem-ber one of my first days of shooting the film “The Weakness of the Bolshevik”. After having worked all morning it was time for lunch and I found I could not eat anything that was provided. Then, with tears of helplessness that I felt, I told them I would go home and eat later when the cameras had finished rolling. It was then when they realized that I was not talking about anything foolish, but a serious issue.

The trick is to always carry food in your bag or suitcase, it is better to be safe, you never know what can happen. ( Infallible advice of my mother.)

Juan Carlos Garcia

“Always carry some bread in your suitcase – It is better to be safe”

Various

How many of you have wondered how many restaurants or shops have gluten free products? I personally do all the time.

Nowadays, with all the technology we have, why has no one thought about creating one of these apps for smartphones? We have apps for near-ly everything but still have to use other ways in order to find restaurants with a gluten free menu or shops where you can buy specific products. There are some apps that can read products’ barcodes to detect if they contain glu-ten, and others that have lists with gluten free products. However how about creating one which can detect your location and list places where you can buy gluten free products or eat in a restaurant with a gluten free menu?

There has been an increase in specific coeliac products and restaurants where we can find gluten free food, and we coealics are extremely grateful for this. However, the fact that there are so many places where we can find gluten free products (compared to a few years ago) has also created confusion on where to find these places. Not every place has gluten free products, in fact, there are many more places where we cannot find spe-cific products for us. Therefore, if there were an app that could facilitate this information, our life quality would increase exponentially. I wish to appeal to all app crea-tors to create a life-changing app for this coeliac group.

Angela Gallastegui

Celiapps please!

Photo Section

As you can see in these pictures, Christina had lots of fun in Malta!

XristiaSimilidou

Homemade birthday cake and pizzaI will never forget my trip to Budapest, Hungary! The picture shows a moment of true happiness. I bit into the very first hamburger in my life. I ordered it at a small fast-food counter called “free from gluten” and waited. It seemed like an eternity. And then, a man behind the counter handed me a steaming bun. Melting cheese and mayo were mouthwatering. My ffiirst hamburger was yummy!

Tereza Laskova

Medical CuriosityWHY DO NON-COELIAC PATIENTS HAVE GI SYMPTOMS WHEN EATING WHEAT?

Non-coeliac gluten sensitivity is nowadays on the crest of a wave. It sounds somewhat new and modern, at least in the last year; however, this topic was already known in 1981. In fact, a short article by the University of Minnesota published in The New England Journal of Medicine - one of the most quoted medical journals - explained why non-coeliac patients have GI symptoms when eating wheat. The subjects of this study were healthy vol-unteers who, after an overnight fast, subsequently ate a test meal. This meal consisted of 100 grams of carbohydrates in the following forms: 1) sucrose; 2) white wheat bread; 3) macaroni; 4) low-gluten white bread and 5) rice bread. Then breath samples were obtained hourly to quantify the content of breath hydrogen. An increase in breath hydrogen after the ingestion of the meal indicated incomplete absorption of carbohydrate itself. This increase was observed in all the healthy subjects after the ingestion of macaroni and white wheat bread. Researchers speculated that, trapping carbs in its “net”, gluten could be the cause of malabsorption and that this could lead to gas-trointestinal symptoms in non-coeliac susceptible subjects. This happened about 30 years ago, before the modern term Gluten Sensitivity was introduced. So, wheat could be a very strange “animal” for more than just coeliac people! It is very difficult to deal with it, no matter if you are coeliac or just “gluten-sensitive”. Anyhow, only coeliacs need to be on a strictly gluten-free diet, while “gluten-sensitives” can choose to pay the price of having discom-forts on a wheat-containing diet.

Stefania Leoni, MDPediatric Gastroenterology and Liver Unit

Sapienza University of Rome

Did you know that?

Editor’s box Board boxMirjam Eiswirth21, GermanyEditor in Chief

Hanna Koponen27, FinlandCYE General Coordinator

Special thanks to::*Tony Coccaro, Italycover, page 2* Michaela Edmunds, United Kingdomskethces on page 11 and 12http://literally-is-aswel.blogspot.co.uk/*Ana Godfrey for proofreading.

Jonas Rengman21, SweedenCo-editor

Lana Pavkov20, SerbiaLayout, comic strip

Francesco Valittuti 26,ItalyCYE Project Manager

Alexander Schmidt22, SweedenFinancial Manager of CYE