by Tim Marsh May 9, 2011 0

Gluten-free and Special Needs Eating in France

This time, my lovely girlfriend (hi Kate!) is coming to France and Spain (yay!), and she has a pretty specific diet – no dairy, no wheat, no gluten, no yeast. So, no delicious Alhambra 1925 beer, no French or Spanish cheese, no croissants. Quelle horreure!

Anyway, she's not the only one who has some special dietary requirements, so I sent off a couple of emails to Bruno from Cyclomundo and Sue from Lou Recantou asking them for advice.

Here's what Bruno said.

A limited choice of gluten-free products are available from supermarkets. For a greater variety, your best bet is the organic shops which are unequally located throughout France (in the region where we are located, they are plenty). Soy milk is now widely available (supermarket and even small grocery shops).

More and more restaurants are aware of gluten-free diets—more so in touristy places. We have a few coeliac clients who had difficulties in the Pyrenees, but traveling in Provence and the Alps was fairly easy.

Susan gave us a lot of handy info!

As you might imagine, finding gluten-free foods in France isn't especially easy, but with some planning and a few small detours, it can be done. I don't know how much you're already aware of this, but there are more and more health-food stores in France, all (from what I've seen) with the word Bio in their name. Even smaller towns have them now. There's actually a large chain of quite large stores (322 of them) with a good selection, called Biocoop. Here's their website: http://biocoop.fr/ The nearest one to us is in Narbonne, so you'll never be too far away from one. They all have lots of gluten-free products, including fresh bread, as well as other products for people with food allergies and sensitivities.

There may be boulangeries selling gluten-free bread, but I'd bet they're only in larger cities. Gluten in French is “le gluten”.

Soy milk and other alternatives to dairy milk, seems to be easily available in supermarchés now; she shouldn't have a problem with that.

I think that, in addition to saying “Je suis/elle est allergique à/aux” [ed: “I am/she is allergic to…”, you could also simply say, Je ne peux/elle ne peut pas manger ___, etc. [ed: “I can't/she can't eat” – “pain” for bread, “Ca” for “that”, “produits laitiers” for “dairy products”.

Here are a few more words and translations for you. If you need more, use Google translate (also available as iPhone app).

dairy products = produits laitiers
gluten = gluten
milk = le lait
wheat = de blé
yeast = levure
vegeterian = (je suis) vegeterian (I am vegetarian), or, je ne peux pas de la viande (I can't eat meat)
Do you have soy milk? = Avez-vous le lait de soja? (I'd also say, “Je voudrais un cafe avec du lait de soja” – I'd like a cafe with soy milk). If you hear something like “Il n'a pas de soja” or “Desolee” or “Nous n'avons pas….” you'll know they don't have any soy.

There's also a bunch of info on this page, which is good for coeliacs.

If you have any specific foods you want translated, or have any handy hints, drop me a line below.

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