And We Shall Eat The Bread Of Crumbliness

Earlier this year a very nice doctor stuck lots of needles into me for blood tests. She had to work through the following questions -

Does this patient have hobbit DNA? Yes

Is she anaemic? No more than usual

What is her platelet count? Patient is rubbish at maths. Her platelets can't count.

Is she an orang-utan? Probably

Is she in early stage of coeliac disease? Might be

They still don't know if I'm in the early stages of coeliac or not, because, if I am, it's early stages, so they still don't know... coeliac isn't a problem, it just means that you can't eat wheat or anything else with gluten in it. At present I'm halfway through six weeks of being gluten-free to see if anything happens. Up to now I haven't exploded or grown wings, but I have learned a few things about a gluten free diet. (If you're already coeliac you know this stuff better than I do.)

The pasta tastes just the same as ordinary pasta. This saves a lot of problems.

There are coeliacs out there who would kill for a gluten-free Yorkshire pudding.

There are some amazingly yummy gluten free cakes. Six weeks is too short.

You start reading labels on everything.


And then there's the bread. Oh, what a joy. Gluten free bread is shockingly expensive and I could save money by eating polystyrene, which has the same consistency. GF bread is also sweetish, which is no good in a cheese sandwich. When I come off this I am going to eat my body weight in toasties. I couldn't do toast this morning because the bread fell apart in my hands, so whatever we eat this evening, it'll have a breadcrumb topping. I could feed it to the birds, but I imagine their little beaks drooping in disappointment at the first peck, and I can't bear to do that to them. Oh well. At least I have bread.