celiac

[maggie23]

I am coming to Spain next year. Is there a good variety of gluten free foods and restaurants that have gluten free menus. Thanks.

Maggie

[Chica56]

Whereabouts are you going to be Maggie? You can get gluten free foods in large supermarketd like Alcampo, Carrefourvetc but restaurants may be more of a challenge!

[maggie23]

Chica55 I'm looking at Costa del sol region. I don't know where yet. Side trips to Seville Granada and Malaga as well. Probably Nerja or that reguon on the sea. I thought most served Mediterraneancuisine which to me would be gluten free. Never had a problem in Ireland or Scotland.

[Manchesteral]

It's quite easy these days to obtain Gluten free products in most of the major supermarket chains, I'm not sure what you actually mean when you say that the Mediterranean diet is gluten free.
Most of the better restaurants theses days usually mark on their menus if it's glutenfree (GF) or if it's lactose free (LF) etc.
Most of the restaurants I use in Spain have decent menus to suit all diners, I'm type 2 diabetic so I also have to watch what i eat.
There are loads of places serving fresh fish and meats, salads veggies etc so I imagine you'll not have much trouble, beware though, in many Spanish restaurants Bread will be delivered to your table without you requesting it, (it's not a scam, it's just a Spanish thing) and you can tell them to take it away if you don't want it, if you do eat it though it will almost certainly be made with wheat flour, one other thing you'd be wise to check wether certain sauces contain wheatflour, hope this helps, happy eating.

[dingobingo]

I'm gluten intolerant too.

Good news - if you like to eat fresh whole foods, the supermarkets here are great and there's plenty of good value and good quality natural foods.

Bad news - the range of gluten free products (i.e. products that would normally have gluten in them) is very limited.

For me this isn't an issue as gluten free snacks / breads etc are unhealthy anyway, but for someone who does a lot of their shopping in the free-from aisles in the UK supermarket will struggle.

You can buy rice cakes in most super markets though.

One thing Spain is good for is labelling food as gluten or dairy free even when normally that product wouldn't contain any. Restaurants are pretty good at understanding 'sin gluten' however this doesn't always translate to actually gluten free. I ate fried potatoes in a Cordoba bar that I asked where gluten free. Found out months later (and several episode of being ill) that they were coated with wheat flour. As in the UK - if in doubt, skip it.

My favourite dish oxtail is made with wheat thickened gravy - sob sob.