In my experience, having a gluten allergy means that you are likely to end up spending more money on your weekly grocery shopping trip than you have in the past (before you discovered that you had this allergy). There are some ways to cut down on this expense, and make eating gluten-free a little easier on your budget.
If you, or a family member, needs to start eating a gluten-free diet, this is going to change how you plan meals and shop for groceries. In general, shopping for foods that you can be certain are gluten-free can be expensive. There are many reasons why this is true.
The most obvious reason is that you, (or one of your family members), is now eating foods that the rest of your family will not be eating. This means planning, and buying, ingredients for twice as many meals than you would normally have to in a given week. Fresh fruits and vegetables are gluten-free, but also tend to cost more than packaged foods will cost.
Some of the foods that are located in the gluten-free section are a bit expensive. That package of Oreos is going to cost less than a gluten-free package of cookies will, (and you get much more Oreo cookies in that package than the amount of cookies you will typically find in a gluten-free version).
There are some ways to cut down on these “extra” expenses. Is there a Farmers’ Market near you? You can get fresh, in season, fruits and vegetables at your local Farmers’ Market. You can select exactly the amount you want to get, and will pay less for them than you would at the grocery store.
Rudi’s Gluten-Free bakery has a coupon that will save you $1.00 off one of their gluten-free products. This coupon is from Coupons.com, so you will need to have their software on your computer before you can print it out.
Lundberg Rice Cakes will give you a coupon that will save you $0.75 off a package of their wheat free, gluten-free, rice cakes. Just fill in your name and address on the form provided, in order to gain access to the coupon.
Think Products will give you 15% off any purchase of their thinkThin Bars. You can purchase them through the Think Products website. Use the code THINKCELIAC when you are ready to check out.
Pamela’s Products is doing something that could be fun. They are having the “Pamela’s 2011 Gluten-Free Recipe Contest”. The theme this year is: convenience. Create your own quick and easy gluten-free original recipe using any Pamela’s Product brand item. You could win a $200.00 gift certificate that you can use on Pamela’s Products, (and have your recipe published). This might be a fun reason to start learning how to bake gluten-free.
Speaking of baking, there are a lot of gluten-free “flours” out there (that do not contain wheat). In the long run, it will cost less money to buy some gluten-free flour, and learn how to make your own bread, cookies, or cakes, than it will if you continually buy packaged gluten-free products. Another advantage of baking things yourself is that you have complete control over what ingredients you use. This is a great way to make “safe” food that avoids all of your other food allergies.
Image by Ken Teegardin on Flickr