Managing Coeliac Disease During Covid-19 – a personal message

Written By:   Kath Megaw, Clinical Paediatric Dietician
BSc Dietetics Hons, Diploma Paediatric Dietetics
Kath is a Coeliac Disease sufferer too

Lockdown has brought some challenges on many fronts. Not the least managing chronic diseases like coeliac during this time. Access to gluten free products is critical to those of us managing our coeliac disease on a gluten free diet.

So little is known about Covid-19 and even less about the impact of Covid-19 on coeliac disease. As time goes on, we will be able to look back and see the emerging patterns. It appears that a person well controlled on the gluten free diet is no more at risk than their disease free counterpart.

So during this time, we would not want to veer off our diet in any way. Over the years it has become quite trendy to be gluten free and this is often frustrating as it feels it takes away the severity of the true coeliac reality. However, on the flip side, it has brought about a much larger commercial market of gluten free products.

A lot of us have come to rely on gluten free products as a large part of our diets. However due to certain lockdown parameters, some of our good old faithful’s may not be as easily available or worse not available at the moment.  So what staples should you keep in your house to ensure a healthy balanced diet?

Foods such as meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, rice, and potatoes (without additives or seasonings) do not contain gluten and are part of a well-balanced diet. If you are not able to find gluten free baked products as easily as the past, you might want to try your hand at baking. Try using all-purpose gluten free flour or potato, rice, soy, amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat or bean flour instead of wheat flour.

Three basic recipes to conquer include: baked gluten free bread, pasta and muffins. There are abundant recipes online but keep it simple.

When shopping continue to:

Read food labels especially on canned, frozen, and processed foods for ingredients that contain gluten. Identify foods labelled “gluten-free” by law, these foods must contain less than 20 parts per million, well below the threshold to cause problems in the great majority of patients with coeliac disease.  Foods labeled gluten-free tend to cost more than the same foods that have gluten. Use this time to find that naturally gluten-free foods as they are less expensive.

Now is the time to stay healthy and strong and keep to a strict gluten free diet, avoiding gluten at all cost.

Join Kath Megaw every week for a complimentary live webinar and Q&A session…right in the comfort of your home.

Kath will be sharing her expert knowledge on managing coeliac disease by following a gluten free diet.

Date: Saturday 23^rd May 2020
Time: 13:00pm – 14:00pm
Topic: Coeliac Disease & Gluten Free Diet

To register:

Send your name, email address and telephone number to info@nutripaeds.co.za.
For more information, visit our website www.nutripaeds.co.za or Facebook @nutripaeds