If you have more than one intolerance / allergy, please read the ingredients before purchasing. These meals and soups will suit a gluten free diet, yet they may contain other allergens such as dairy, yeast, nuts.

The pack, which includes 5 meals and 3 soups, usually retails at £18 + delivery.  Being a Fussy Foodie reader, you can order the pack for just £9 + delivery, giving you a 50% saving!

All you need to do is log on to the Look What We Found website and enter the code ‘fussy1‘ on the payment page of the checkout (just above where you would need to enter your card details). Then click on Confirm to take you to the confirmation page, here you need to check that you have confirmation that the code has been accepted and discount applied, before clicking the final ‘Confirm Order’ button to complete the sale.

This is a great offer from Look What We Found, if you’re looking to try something tasty and new I would highly recommend making use of this great discount opportunity.  Shop til you drop, then re-fuel with some tasty gluten free goodness!

It’s A Free World range of allergen free sauces and ready meals are made by the team at Look What We Found.  There are currently 2 ready meals and 2 cook in sauces within the range (with plans for future expansion)

• Fragrant Thai Chicken Curry with Red Chilli Coconut & Rice
• Moroccon Spiced Chickpea Tagine with Fruit & Harissa
• Indian Korma Sauce with Cumin, Cardamon & Rich Coconut Cream
• Indian Tikka Masala Sauce with Creamed Coconut and Indian Herbs and Spices

All of these products are available at Tescos as well as online through Look What We Found online store. 

To find out more about the It’s A Free World products and keep up to date with new product developments, visit their website at www.itsafreeworld.co.uk.

Ranging from Beef & Basil Meatballs in Tomato Sauce to Fragrant Thai Chicken Curry and Wild Mushroom Soup with a dash of Sherry, Look What We Found products cater for all tastes. The website does make products that do contain gluten however they have a Gluten Free tab to make finding the gluten free products easier.

If you have multiple intolerances you will still need to double check the ingredients to make sure they satisfy all your requirements as some dishes contain other allergens, this is no big deal though as if you’re anything like me this already comes as second nature.

I found my Look What We Found Gluten Free Cured Ham in Delicious Pea Soup at Waitrose in the tinned soups section.  You can also buy their products from Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Co-Op, Morrisons & Asdas in the North East and Booths in the North West.  Look What We Can Find also have an online shop, visit their website at www.lookwhatwefound.co.uk.

Since the food intolerance test results arrived, I’ve been working to adjust my diet accordingly.  I was already avoiding cow’s milk but excluding wheat and eggs is a new challenge (especially as I love mayonnaise!)

I’m really glad that I took the York Test .  I was a bit worried when I first got the results as I thought that it was going to make things a lot more difficult.   However,  it’s turned out that knowing exactly what I need to avoid has made living with the food intolerances and sticking to an exclusion diet easier than it was before.  I’m already feeling a lot better by not eating dairy and I’m looking forward to seeing what other changes come from excluding these extra items!

Having food intolerance’s can be difficult to recognise and diagnose and like me people affected can suffer for long periods with misdiagnoses and little support. According to the charity Food Intolerance Awareness, common symptoms that food intolerance can contribute to include:

• Abdominal pains
• Aches and pains
• Bloating
• Constipation
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Depression
• Diarrhoea
• Dizziness
• Eczema
• Fatigue
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
• Itching
• Fluid retention
• Headaches
• Hyperactivity
• Loss of Appetite
• Migraine
• Nausea
• Rashes
• Respiratory Symptoms
• Restless Leg Syndrome
• Rhinitis
• Sinusitis
• Stomach cramps
• Tension
• Urticaria
• Weight loss
• Wheezing

So as you can see its a bit of a mixed bag and you can see how hard it is to put all of these symptoms down to a food intolerance.

So if like me you were looking for help for what felt like a life time then the YORKTEST; Food intolerance test and gut test are worth checking out as since then I have not looked back. At last something that helped me physically confirm what my issues were and what to do to sort them out, it has really helped me get on the right track.

Taking a proper food intolerance test is the start of feeling healthy again and if you find you have a positive result then don’t worry because we have lots of advice and help, so get in touch and let us know your food intolerance test results and we can give you some top tips to get you started. Finidng out you cant have those pleasures of bread, sugar, dairy etc is a bit of a blow but there are some fanatstic foods and products out there that not only taste great but make you feel healthier and happier too.

After excluding various foods from my diet I have worked out that dairy is one of the main things that I need to avoid. I also seem to have a problem with refined sugar – I get headaches after eating it – so I’m also trying to reduce my consumption of that as much as possible.

As I’m not entirely sure if there is anything else that I should be aware of, I have decided to have a Food Intolerance Test done. As YORKTEST have 50% off their First Step test, I decided to try that. The result of that came back positive which means that I can now upgrade to their Foodscan 113 test to find out exactly which foods I should be eliminating.

Although changing my diet so radically has been difficult at times, I’ve also found it to have many positives. Apart from the obvious improvement in my health, I’ve also found that I really enjoy finding and cooking recipes that both taste good and make me feel better than I’ve felt in a very long time!

I am really intrigued to get my full food intolerance test results and writing more on Fussy Foodie.

However daunting I am open to reintroducing foods, especially those that make up the main food groups that if I was not intolerant too would otherwise be healthy.

So the last few weeks I have been on a mission introducing a few things to see the reaction.

• Rye bread with yeast
• Natural sugar squash (high concentrated fruit juice)
• A few cheeky Gin cocktails

For more info on my food intolerance’s: Food intolerance test results

Well I have had a few mixed reactions from my reintroducing food tests. The most apparent result has been with the yeast, I have been eating ryvita (the normal ones that have yeast in). This has been good psychologically as I eat the pumpkin seed ryvita ones normally which are yeast free so I pretty much forgot I was eating yeast.

I have been eating the ryvita for about a week and ever since I have been very bloated and my tummy just feels generally sore. So YEAST is out. Not too fussed about that one but good to know that cutting out foods has been making me feel better.

I had a bit of  cold last week and was finding I was not drinking enough fluids, so I had a few glasses of Rocks Squash, which although has no additives has sugar and very high concentrate fruit sugars, so not great for my anti candida diet. However at the time tasted great – just really refreshing. The main issue from this is that as I have no sugar in my diet it really coats my teeth and I find I get a sugar rush almost immediately. Also it reacts with my tongue and causes my candida to start regrowth. Very annoying but just something I think I will need to stick to until I can really knock my candida over growth on the head.

I have also been trying some potato, not something I advocate for an anti candida diet, as potato is know to encourage candida growth. However I am currently treating another issue as a result of  my gut test and then will be back on a focused anti candida diet in 6 weeks. I have tried a few chips (boy were they tasty) and some boiled potatoes. At first these were really hard to digest but I have persisted a bit with potato and it seems to settle a lot better in my stomach now which is great.

Well now the good news, it seems a cheeky Bombay Gin goes down a treat. I have no wine or beer in my diet and haven’t for a long time, but it seems gin does officially go down very nicely including a warm after feeling. So it seems that Gin is now on my treats list – a big  plus from my reintroducing food attempts.

I would love to know about others attempts to Reintroducing Food, so get in touch.

Am I just the only one that finds myself pacing up and down the kitchen sometimes wondering what I can eat? For me that’s a bad day of living with food intolerance’s and these moments of madness are fairly rare these days and namely thats because I try to always:

1. plan what I am going to eat
2. have enough of the right foods in so I don’t get hungry and feel nourished
3. make sure I have some treats in place so that I don’t get tempted.

Believe me I am not angel and although I stick to my food intolerance eating regime pretty rigorously there are times when I get tempted, normally on those lovely pre-menstral days which I am sure affect lots of women out there. Infact this week having had a cold and feeling a little low I had a couple of slip ups - drank a few glasses of fruit squash (sugar) and also some 85% chocolate (again sugar). Felt rubbish afterwards but both tasted good at the time so will put that one down to a small slip up.

Living with my food intolerance's

Fussy Foodie really helps in the challenge of living with food intolerance’s, it gives me a space to share and gain new ideas and really enjoy the wonders of food again that I can eat. If you have recently found out you have food intolerance’s and need some help get in touch. Also if you have recipes, support or ideas to share with other Fussy Foodies we are always looking for new contributor’s.

Believe me it’s tricky but food intolerance should not take over one’s life, and in the vast majority of cases it doesn’t. However, it is a sad fact that in some cases restricted diets and eating disorders can go hand in hand. I am not saying that food intolerance’s cause eating disorders or vice versa but perhaps it’s worth considering how, in certain circumstances, the two could be linked.

The typical person suffering from food intolerances may sometimes feel fed up when symptoms get them down or frustrated by a lack of diagnosis or understanding of their condition. However, on the whole a healthy attitude to nutrition and food remains and we don’t let dietary restrictions get the better of us.

An eating disorder is to eat, or avoid eating, to the point where it negatively affects physical and mental health. A distorted body image develops and an obsession with what has or hasn’t been eaten becomes all encompassing, taking over every day life, affecting relationships and activities and posing serious health risks.

Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the most common and medically recognised eating disorders but others include binge eating disorder, orthorexia (an obsession with only eating healthy foods), and selective eating disorder (preventing the consumption of certain foods or food groups).

Are eating disorders and food intolerance linked?

Some might argue that there is a fine line between restricting diet to maintain health and well being and developing a relationship with food that is obsessional, and detrimental to mental and physical health. Here are four examples of how the two could be linked:

1. In serious food allergy or medical conditions dietary restriction can be vital and lifelong. Fear of anaphylaxis or the memory of trauma caused by eating certain foods could take over and the constant need to check labels combined with the feeling of being ‘different’ to everyone else could turn into disordered eating. For example, people with diabetes have a higher likelihood of eating disorders than the general population and some develop a disorder known as ‘diabulemia’ – restricting insulin injections to lose weight, despite potentially devastating costs to health.
2. Using food intolerance as an excuse or ‘get out clause’ in eating disorders. Anorexia can really take over the mind and body of those suffering with it, to the point where the person with the disorder will go to great extremes to restrict or avoid eating. Food intolerances (or vegetarianism for that matter) provide ‘accepted’ reasons to get out of eating what everyone else is having. Intolerances that develop after the onset of disordered eating and that tend to involve high calorie fattening foods may be questionable.
3. Food intolerances can alter the way one thinks about food. Discovering that food intolerance is the cause of debilitating health problems can often be a breakthrough, especially if symptomatic relief is achieved. But for some it can really take away their enjoyment of foods. Unless motivation and effort are put into finding suitable alternatives to the foods excluded, weight loss and nutritional deficiencies are inevitable.
   On the other hand, a new obsession with food could ensue, and an initial unintentional weight loss may develop into a preoccupation with controlling calorie intake as well as managing the food intolerances. A sign of this would be a reluctance to replace restricted foods with nutritious and essential healthy fats (e.g. nuts, oils, seeds).
4. Irregular eating patterns can play havoc with the digestive system and could be falsely interpreted as food intolerances. Yo-yo or ‘faddy’ diets or more serious problems such as bulimia, binge eating or selective eating disorders could be the root of altered bowel habits, bloating, tiredness or headaches. In these cases it would be sensible to address any disordered eating and try to work towards a structured, healthy, balanced diet before introducing any kind of restrictions.

Do you consider your foodie attitude a healthy one? If you agree with most of the following then YES, it probably is!

• I have to check labels for ingredients but am not too worried about calorie or fat contents
• I only cut out the foods that I know I need to because of my medical condition or symptoms
• Wherever I have cut out foods or food groups I have tried to replace them with suitable nutritious alternatives
• I don’t avoid social situations just because of my dietary restrictions
• If I know that there will be nothing I can eat at a party I take my own food or make sure I have a meal before / afterwards
• I don’t usually feel too deprived or depressed about my restrictions as there are plenty of things that I know I can have
• Despite my restrictions I manage to maintain a healthy and fairly stable weight
• I work around my restrictions and still enjoy eating

Changing and restricting your eating habits can be hard but with the right support and a community of Fussy Foodie friends – food can be fun and tasty again!

Lactose intolerance is the inability to efficiently fully digest the type of sugar found in milk (of ALL animal types).  This is due to a deficiency of the enzyme that breaks lactose down (lactase), which may be an inherited deficiency or an acquired deficiency after any kind of condition that damages the intestines, such as gastroenteritis (this type usually resolves when the gut recovers).

The IBS-type symptoms of lactose intolerance make it difficult to distinguish from conditions such as coeliac disease, crohn’s disease and parasitic disease and if symptoms improve when milk is removed from the diet it could easily be mixed up with Cows Milk allergy.  Milk allergy is an allergic response to the PROTEIN in milk and babies who react when weaned onto milk should be tested.

Diagnosing Lactose Intolerance

Two formal tests are commonly used:

1. The lactose tolerance test measures blood glucose after ingesting lactose (healthy people will bring the blood sugar back down when lactase gets to work but the blood sugar of lactase-deficient people will remain raised for longer).
2. In the Hydrogen breath test the presence of hydrogen in the breath after ingesting lactose shows that undigested lactose has been fermented in the colon (which is not normal).

Lactose Intolerant Diet

An entirely lactose-free diet is rarely necessary but individual tolerance needs to be established by gradually reintroducing small amounts of lactose once symptomatic relief is achieved. The main dietary source of lactose is milk of all animal types (lactose content 8-10g/200mL), followed by cream, ice cream, yoghurts (3g per small pot), cottage/cream cheese and fromage frais. Lactose-free,  soya or other non-dairy alternatives should be substituted but ensure that they are fortified with calcium.

Most cheeses have very little or no lactose (less than 0.1g per 100g) and can be safely tolerated. A simple way of checking is to look for carbohydrates (of which sugars) on the label – there shoudn’t be any sugar other than lactose in most cheese so here is where you will find it.

Lactose may also be found in food where milk ingredients are added. These have to be declared on labels but common sources include bread and baked goods, some breakfast cereals, instant potato, margarine, milk chocolate.

If you think you may be lactose intolerance try to get tested using one of the proper scientifc tests mentioned. Careful dietary management can relieve debilitating symptoms and if needed Lactase supplements can be used to enhance lactose digestion. Calcium and Vitamin D supplements may also be needed if dietary intake is compromised.