Just a note to remind you to enter your gluten free flour mix recipe at Gluten Free Cooking School‘s blog event …
Regular readers will know that I’m from the UK, and so I usually use one of the ready-made mixes for my daughter which are available on prescription. Because she’s under 19, this is free (or rather, paid for my our taxes) … I like the Wellfoods one, but the full list is available on my UK prescription page.
I’m therefore not really qualified to enter a mix of my own. I’ve tried the Carol Fenster mixes, with some success, and also some of the mixes used by other bloggers – most recently the gingerbread mix from Only Sometimes Clever. I’d definitely like to extend my range.
What I’d really like to find is a good mix for gluten free croissants.
So I’m going to be very interested in the results of Mary’s event – if you’ve got your own mix, do enter it before 23 January. (Especially if it works for croissants!) You might win a Bette Hagman book.
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I’ve written a book summarising what we’ve learnt over 20 years of dealing with the gluten free diet, and it might be just what you’re looking for. It packs the lessons we’ve learned into what I hope is a helpful and straightforward guidebook. It’s available on Amazon, as a paperback or for your Kindle… |
Do I understand the prescription part correctly, that a doctor can prescribe gluten free breads and so on and this would be covered under an insurance plan?
Hi Lea. Yes, that’s pretty much it, except that the insurance plan element is the National Health Service.
The way it works at the moment is that a doctor can prescribe a range of basic gluten free foods (pasta, bread, crackers, sweet biscuits, pizza bases, flour) from a list of approved suppliers. This is one reason why it is good to get a ‘proper’ diagnosis of CD, at least here in the UK. (You can also buy gluten free food from supermarkets and so on).
We take the prescriptions to the pharmacist, who swops the paper for the goods.
Some groups of people don’t have to pay the pharmacist for the prescribed goods (including these gluten free things), and this includes children under 16 (under 19 if in fulltime education).
The bill for the prescribed goods is covered by central government, and is therefore paid for by the taxpayer.
So, once you have your diagnosis, it is possible to get a basic range of gluten free goods from the National Health Service. If you qualify, these will be free; otherwise it is worth buying a ‘season-ticket’ which will give you a discount on the cost.
The range of items a doctor can prescribe is limited, and doesn’t include anything fancy. There are suggested amounts to be prescribed depending on the person’s age. Sometimes we hear of doctors who are unwilling to prescribe – and there is a lot of discussion at the moment about how the NHS can continue to afford this. If it does prove to be 1 in 100 who are coeliac, this definitely isn’t going to be affordable for government to continue to cover these costs. The argument is, though, that keeping coeliacs healthy and complying with the gluten free diet will reduce future costs to the NHS.
For my daughter, we usually ask for bread rolls, pasta, pizza bases and flour.
Congrats on the award by the way! I just noticed it today. You do a great job on this blog. :)
That is really interesting. The best that we can do is get a portion of our purchases reimbursed from a flex plan. A flex plan is money that is taken out of our paychecks (pretax) and put into a special fund for medical and dependent care expenses. Of course we are getting reimbursed with our own money but it does help on taxes. Claims have to turned in and you can only get reimburses for the difference from what a gluten free products cost and a regular product.
Of course not all companies offer a flex plan. We are fortunate enough that my husband’s company offers this.
Thanks for all the wonderful information that you post. It is just so interesting how much different Celiac is handled all over the world.
My husband and I are planning a trip to France and Italy next year to visit family and I’m really not worried about eating. Everything is just so far ahead over there compared to here.
Thanks, Natalie!
Lea – is there a limit to how much you can claim on your flex plan? And if you were diagnosed before joining the plan, would celiac be excluded?
On a flex plan there is a $5,000 minumum that can be claimed. However, and I forgot this the other night, but the flex plan guidelines are goverened by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). We can also claim them on our income taxes every year however, that really isn’t worth it. It is based on percentages of differnt figures and it would take alot to more then what you would actually spend for it to be beneficial.
It will still cover if you are diagnosed prior to joining the plan. A “Letter of Medical Necessity” is needed from your doctor. In a way it is nice but I still feel that we have a really long way to go.
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Thanks,