Ingredients in Home Made Cakes

The Times published an editorial in which they thought it was wrong for all ingredients to be declared in cakes. And especially the home-made variety.

I was incensed as their editorial affects people who are coeliacs like me, who can't eat gluten, which is found in wheat or barley.

My letter to them follows :-

I am afraid that your editorial on the nation’s cakes is just plain wrong. And dangerous to some!

A few years ago, I would have agreed with you, but now after being diagnosed as a coeliac (at the age of 55 incidentally), it is absolutely important that I know what I am eating. I can’t eat any gluten, which is present in wheat and barley, so generally no bread, no cakes, no puddings, no pasta and no beer!

Luckily I am not a serious coeliac because if it was one delicious home-made cake could make me ill for a week. I usually get a day with an upset stomach.

But all is not gloom and doom!

Many restaurants and caterers know their allergies and cook accordingly. For instance on a GNER train, I asked if the sauce was gluten-free. The chef came and told me personally that it was and then checked again after the meal. That is service that everybody should expect and not just those who have allergy problems.

You quote Jill Dupliex. A few weeks ago, she gave a recipe for Strawberries Romanoff. This is a decadent pudding if ever there was one. And its gluten-free! We need more of these, so that we can die happy!

Some more enlightened companies; Tesco, Pizza Express, Kelloggs, Heinz, Sainsbury, Cadbury to name six from many are more than happy to disclose if products contain any sort of allergen. Others do not, so I avoid their products.

Incidentally, as I write this I have a letter on my desk from Walkers telling me which of their snacks I can eat.

Why? Because I suspect it means a lot more sales.

You say that it cramps a nation’s creativity! It doesn’t! It enhances it! Being of the wrong sex I have no need for the gluten-free HRT cake seen in a health food shop in North London! That’s creativity!

So to me and lots of others the contents of what we are eating must never be left unsaid!

Yours faithfully (but I feel something more vitriolic would be better!)