In my early coeliac days I was determined that I wouldn’t spend my life in pursuit of the perfect bread that reminds me of old times and instead embrace all sorts of naturally gluten free delights- if not ‘knitting my own yogurt’ then at least making my snacks from scratch. After a couple of disasters with quinoa, the acquisition of a bread maker and a brief stint working abroad I started to appreciate the need for gluten free convenience products.

Sometimes I try a new product and don’t have a lot to say about it – it just tastes like the gluteny version I remember! It’s been 3 years gluten free now, so I usually employ the GEH as my control group to confirm. (“yes dear, very much like a biscuit”). I don’t feel quite like a B when I have nothing to say, so thought I’d round up my favourite products that are ‘just like the real thing’ and are regular purchases in the B household.

In no particular order the products that have me saying ‘NO. Those are MINE! Cease and desist with your snack thievery, evil gluter* I am SPECIAL’.

	1. Sainsbury’s Free From Fish Fingers GEH has been known to snaffle these even when I’m not in to make a cheeky fish finger sandwich. (link)
	2. Nairn’s Gluten Free Oatcakes They taste like oatcakes because, well, they are oatcakes, just without the contamination. They’ve been reducing the amount of celery I eat with cheese boards since sometime last year and a suitcase full kept me sane in Singapore for a week. (GEH would like me to point out that they are not proper oatcakes as proper oatcakes are the Staffordshire kind– which I may try to make for him at some point – now there’s a test to see if he reads the blog!) (link)
	3. Salute Pasta There are a lot of mushy pastas in the shops- Waitrose and Ocado stock my now-staple which cooks to a lovely al dente texture. (link)
	4. Trufree Custard Creams In fact most Trufree products are pretty faithful replicas and come in handy snack packs which stop me eating too many at a time. (link)
	5. Estrella Daura Waaaaaaah! At last a proper lager! I’ve never been a big beer drinker, but this is my favouritest friend on a Friday night with a takeaway when I can forget about being a fusspot. We’ve even fed them to guests when we’ve run out of gluter lagers with no complaints. (Although they are pretty pricey so I wouldn’t recommend it). (link)
	6. Fria Bread I reviewed this all by itself. I’m still treating this bread a little reverentially- carefully defrosting it and handling it like I can’t quite believe it’s real, before putting too much butter on and inhaling it furtively like a contraband. (link)
	7. Dietary Specials Lasagne Sheets Literally no difference. I usually burn my tongue on the result in the race to scoff, but have discovered that if you can wait, letting your lasagne relax a bit after cooking makes it infinitely better. If you’re too lazy to make a lasagne – try a little house. (link)
	8. Genius Mince Pies Ok, so these only make an appearance at Christmas, but oh my- buttery (om) crumbly (nom) sweety (nom). What do you mean I ate 4?! (link)
	9. Doves Farm Fibre Flakes Ok, there’s nothing sexy about a bowl of bran flakes, is there? – but these are a good start to the day! (link)

Several biscuits were harmed in the making of this post.

*’gluter’ is a word stolen with pride from on-the-mark cartoon Howard the Celeriac