Gluten Free Guerrillas

The Disney Channel mocks a Gluten Free Child Character!

Guerrillas, 

Yes you read that correctly. We were shocked when a post by @glutendude on Twitter caught our eye this afternoon on this. Really? Surely not we thought. But we respect Gluten Dude’s frank blogs and we delved deeper.

We watched the snippet from the childrens programme that Disney makes called ‘Jessie’.  We really couldn’t believe what we were hearing and seeing. But sure enough characters within the show (adults even) all mock and bully a kid called Stuart. Yes we get that Stuart is meant to be an annoying nerd. But maybe Disney aren’t aware that mocking an auto-immune disease just isn’t funny. I mean where is the comedy angle there? ‘Ha you have Hashimotos Thyroid disease, I’ll steal your Thyroxine and swap it with Aspirin’. Odd. ‘Ha you’re a Coeliac or Gluten intolerant so we’ll throw pancakes in your face’ Odd again. Yet this is what the show actually consists of, we kid you not! It is basically like a bad episode of The Teenage Apprentice set in a family setting. 

Perhaps the writers for the show aren’t very well trained or were running low on coffee the day they came up with the idea to make this annoying kid (Stuart) in the show even more annoying (?) by making him Gluten Free as well.  Err really?  Why oh why would any kids TV show want to feature a character who has a health problem and use that as an angle for comedy? I mean can you think of any disease that is in someway funny? Nope neither could we. It’s a really odd take isn’t it?  ’Wheezy asthma child’ ? No not funny. ‘Blind child’? No not funny. ‘Child allergic to nuts’ ? No not funny. ‘Gluten Free child’? Errmmmm - no we still don’t find this funny? So how did the writers and producers at the Disney Channel? We started to think that maybe they were a bit high or hungover when they devised the idea of the show…

Or perhaps there was serious case of group think the day they came up with that script idea! Did the lead producer hate a Gluten Free kid when he was at school? Who knows. Who cares. Either way the programme is wrong on so many levels. 

What can you do?

So as always Guerrillas we believe in positive pester power. We urge you to view the original blog post & video snippet of the show on Gluten Free Dude’s blog here. After all don’t just take our word for it..check it out yourself. 

Then we’d love you to follow in our footsteps and just take a minute to sign the Change.org petition to get the attention of the Disney team. This afternoon the numbers were just at 100s of signatures. Now as we write this they’ve just hit 1000!  C’mon Guerrillas let’s help make it 2000!

The irony is that Disney have aired the show in the middle of Celiac Awareness Month in the USA & Coeliac Awareness Week in the UK. Talk about very bad timing! Not that there would be a good time - but you know what we mean peeps. 

Show the Disney Channel team that Coeliacs aren’t to be bullied or laughed at. We’re normal people with a lifelong disease that isn’t a topic for comedy. Try harder Disney Channel. Get some real creative writers in. Oh and try and remember that a kids show is educating the youth of today for tomorrow. So you know make it a bit more friendly. You could try reading some Mr Men and Roald Dahl books to see how kids stories are done well! 

How about starting with this one, 

And don’t forget to share this on Twitter & Facebook tweeps or reblog this. Let’s get Disney to hear the voice of all Coeliacs & Celiacs. Being an adult Coeliac is hard enough. Imagine if your Coeliac child watched this. What would they think?

Sign the petition, click here. 

Gluten Free thanks to Ocado!

We often get approached by newbie Guerrillas offline and online asking for advice on where to source great gluten free products and how to make sense of their diagnosis. After diagnosis it’s easy to focus on what you can’t eat rather than what you can.

So we wanted to share a ‘Coeliac Positive’ with you this week. We recently entered Ocado’s competition to create your ‘Perfect Christmas’ on Pinterest and stand a chance of winning a free shop with them.

As we are social media addicts we seized the opportunity to create our ideal ‘Gluten Free’ Christmas with both paws. We trawled their online supermarket for the best gluten free products we could find. We even added some great up and coming gluten free products like Celia Lager, Sweet Mandarin’s cooking sauces, Daas Beer, Fria bread, Yorkshire Pantry and Perkier Foods. We sprinkled the board with Christmas glitz, lights, baubles and wrapped it up before sending our entry link over to Ocado. 

Our entry board above

This morning we discovered that Ocado had picked us as the lucky winners of their competition! We’re dead excited and look forward to placing our Christmas shop with Ocado soon. 

We’re also happy that: 

• we discovered new gluten free products that we didn’t even know Ocado stocked
• our entry has shown us that Ocado is one of the most Coeliac friendly supermarkets around with a great selection of Gluten Free food and drink products (that often appear there, way ahead of them hitting the shelves of the top 4 UK supermarkets)
• we can easily direct friends and family to the board to we don’t get any duff ‘gluten riddled’ food gifts this year
• our board can provide some gluten free inspiration for newbie and Coeliac pros alike this Christmas

INSPIRATION: 

So if you’ve not managed to embrace the tingle of Christmas excitement yet and need some gluten free inspiration then check out our winning board on our Pinterest page here: 

• Pinterest/gfguerrillas/myperfectocadochristmas

And if you’ve not joined Pinterest yet - you really should. You’re missing out on a great visual bookmarking tool that can help you create mood boards or help you group your ideas and projects using a free and easy social media tool. 

PS Ocado (and other companies) often run social media competitions so keep your eyes peeled on their Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest sites for more fun competitions! Social media really can widen your gluten free choices and knowledge. 

Competition: Fancy winning some Gluten Free Beer?

Guerrillas, 

We have a weekend treat for you!  The lovely guys at Daas Belgian Beer are running a competition. You can win 6 bottles of their delicious Gluten Beer Daas Beer for Coeliacs !  

COMPETITION STEPS… Hurry enter now!
(The competition starts today, Friday 23 until Sunday 25th Midnight GMT)

1) Check that you’re over 18 yrs old? 

• Yes - then proceed to step 2
• No - sorry but wait a while and you can enter when you are older

2)  Check where you live, UK?

• UK - yay you can enter…
• Elsewhere - damn not this time folks..we’ll keep you posted on future competitions!

3) Get your thinking cap on, write 1-2 sentences on..

Why do you deserve to win some Daas Gluten Free Beer?

4) Send your creative answers to, 

• Email: glutenfreeguerrillas [at] gmail [dot] com
• Headed up: I wanna win some Daas beer now!

5) The nuts and bolts,

• We’ll share your details and answers with Daas Beer
• They’ll pick the winning answer
• The winner will be contacted next week (w/c 26 November) by email
• By entering the competition you’re confirming you’re over 18 yrs old and live in the UK 
• Daas will send 6 bottles of lovely Gluten Free beer to the winner
  
   

6) Cross your fingers 

• Hope that you’ve won
• Await the winning email

Good luck Guerrilas, may the Coeliac force be with you!

PS Show your love for the competition by ‘liking’ our Facebook page and post about this - as if you haven’t already!  Why not spread the word and tell your friends? After all if they win they may then share a bottle or two with you ; )

Pizza Hut UK launch a Gluten Free pizza..or do they?

Guerrillas, 

Do you have fond memories of eating at Pizza Hut before you were diagnosed a Coeliac? We do. We remember having a great 13th birthday party there and drinking lots of diet coke and delighting in ‘eating out’ and having pizza.

COELIAC UK CHARITY: 

So we were pleased to learn in the Coeliac UK e-newsletter that charity for coeliacs (which required paid membership) stated: 

Wow. Imagine - another chain that actually caters for coeliacs. What great news!  Also great for families and kids which are Pizza Hut’s target market. As it’s often hard to find gluten free places that are also family friendly. 

QUESTIONS: 

But then we got thinking..silly Guerrillas..sometimes we over-think, especially if we haven’t eaten enough bananas. We wondered..well if Coeliac UK have worked in partnership with Pizza Hut to get this right for Coeliac diners why is there no mention of how they’ll make it safe and suitable for us? Surely if you’d worked hard with a company you’d want to shout about it and encourage Coeliacs and their friends to try the new product?

Yet there was no mention in the Coeliac UK e-newsletter:

-  of how Pizza Hut will avoid cross contamination?

-  of how staff will be trained to ensure the GF pizza really is Gluten Free?

-  of the what Coeliac UK has done to help Pizza Hut take this product to market?

- of the price of the pizza?

- of how they trialled and perfected the base? 

Hmmm. Strange? Are we just overly cautious?

Well it seemed not as on Sunday night we started to see a lot of chatter on gluten free social media channels saying they thought the whole thing was a hoax. Obviously these were non-Coeliac UK members who hadn’t read the newsletter and had just seen the rumours on various Coeliac Facebook groups. What piqued our interest was that many had called Pizza Hut and they had allegedly denied all knowledge of the GF pizza launch. Odd we thought. 

PIZZA HUT UK: 

Website

So we reviewed the Pizza Hut website today expecting to see a nice new update on how they cater for Coeliacs. Instead we found this on their section for catering for allergies, intolerances and good old Coeliacs: 

Hmm. Odder and odder. It clearly states they have no plans to introduce the GF pizza. Yet why would the website state this yet Coeliac UK state they were?

Pizza Hut restaurants

We called three. Only one confirmed they knew of the launch and would be training staff this week about how to avoid cross contamination. They thought the GF pizzas would be the same prices as the ‘normal’ ones but couldn’t be sure yet.  

Sounds like there was no soft launch of the product - let’s hope that a week of training helps the staff understand the seriousness of avoiding cross contamination.

Customer Services

We called Pizza Hut UK customer services (08447 700 669). They were very polite and helpful. They explained there were:

‘No plans to launch a gluten free pizza or cater for Coeliacs at the moment. If there were any menu changes we always get two weeks notice and would know.’

Stranger and stranger…

Pizza Hut Head Office

So we asked their Customer Services for Pizza Hut’s Head Office number so we could talk to their Press Office. Except it seemed they don’t have a press office and we were given another number to call to talk to their external PR agency. 

Pizza Hut’s PR Agency

Here they confirmed the truth. Yes - at last!  We can confirm that Pizza Hut will indeed be launching a gluten free pizza on the 8th of October. But the PR agency had been left in the dark and hadn’t been made aware that Coeliac UK were publishing the story so soon. So that was why there seemed to be conflicting information. 

Here’s what The Grocer, the industry food mag says about the new pizza launch. The link is here and here’s a ‘food porn’ pic from their PR push:

*Note: Nice pic - but still no substance in the Grocer article on how they will ‘woo’ us and ensure we can eat safely without being contaminated with gluten. Maybe those details are still being decided or maybe they don’t consider that sexy copy for non-coeliac readers? 

To be continued…

So sadly we can’t tell you how much the pizza will be, how they’ll avoid cross contamination, what toppings you can have, whether it will be available via take-away as well (wouldn’t that be handy?!), whether they’re created in a separate section of their kitchens. But rest assured that as soon as we know - we’ll let you know!

As regular readers of our blog know we only share news once we’ve verified it and review products we’ve tried and loved. Otherwise - well - what would be the point? We’d just create confusion and you wouldn’t want to read our blogs would you? 

So Guerrillas - look out for our updates on this and keep your fingers crossed that on the 8th you can enjoy a truly gluten free pizza, suitable for coeliacs!

What do you think?

Do you welcome chains creating gluten free options? Do you trust they train their staff to avoid cross contamination? Or do you think such GF options are aimed at gluten intolerant people and ‘gym bunnies’ jumping on the GF ‘trend’?  

Do you believe that if a company is really serious about catering for the coeliac/ gluten free community that they’ll they do their best to engage with them and ensure their communication is joined up?

Would you love to eat a GF Pizza Hut pizza? Would your child? Let us know your thoughts..

Keep well and Gluten Free, 

The Guerrillas

PS for the latest news from Pizza Hut sign up to their newsletter ‘Want more offers?’ and claim a £5 off voucher on the website here: 

Our Health Poll Results!

Guerrillas,

The results of July’s Gluten Free Health Poll are in.  The emotional side effect of being a Coeliac is often not discussed. You told us in our recent poll that the two biggest challenges for you emotionally in dealing with Coeliac Disease were: 

• 32% - Fear of eating out (being of being glutened) e.g. due to incorrect labelling, lack of staff training, cross contamination with gluten foods
• 24% - Alienation and Loss (feeling the odd one out) e.g. especially at work and social occasions where food is involved

We thought these were really interesting findings and reflected what we had suspected. 

WHAT YOU CAN DO

So we recommend that more of you continue to ask and email companies to create more gluten free choices so that eating out gluten free becomes as normal as eating out as a vegetarian. Perhaps then the score on ‘alienation’ will also be lower.

GUERRILLA COMMENTS

Here’s a selection of comments from our Guerrilla Health Forum: 

YOUR VIEW

What do you think? Is there anything in our poll that surprised you? Do you relate to some of these comments more than others?

Newsflash: Zizzi Launch a Gluten Free Pizza Trial!

[Zizzi’s freshly made Gluten Free Fiorentina pizza at their Notting Hill Branch, London 

We’d rate the Gluten Free pizza as 7/10 - a great start!]

Guerrillas, 

Here’s a Newsflash we think you’ll love!  Zizzi the UK Italian restaurant chain have launched a Gluten Free pizza!  Obviously like any restaurant they can’t and won’t guarantee it’s a 100% Gluten Free - that’d be foolish as mistakes happen. Yet unlike Domino’s in USA they are doing their best to minimise any cross contamination with their normal gluten products and have put processes in place to try and avoid it. More on that shortly.  Now we know many of you are already big Zizzi fans. After all there’s still very few places you can pop into a high street restaurant in the UK and order a gluten free pasta with a great gluten free sauce.  We’ve long been fans of Zizzi’s Allergy menu and can often be found enjoying the Dove’s Farm pasta they serve in many of their restaurants. It’s a rare treat to be able to eat pasta in a restaurant which only fellow Coeliacs understand. 

So when we heard they were launching a gluten free pizza trial we were over the moon. And excited. Zizzi have worked hard to beat their competition by using fresh products, introducing creative recipes and increasing their social responsibility profile - see their new campaign with Gizzi and The Prince’s Trust. How would they fair making pizza for Coeliacs?  We had a LOT of questions. So we asked Zizzi HQ about how they were minimising the risk to coeliacs who wanted to try the freshly made Gluten Free pizza and we also insisted on trying it for ourselves before we wrote about it. See below for the full Q&A. As regular blog readers will know - we eat out regularly yet we only blog about products or brands we believe in and try ourselves. So you won’t find blogs on here about cakes and biscuits that companies have sent us. Instead we hunt down the unusual brands and companies that are doing their bit to embrace Coeliac customers. 

So this blog post focuses on: 

• What you need to know about the trial
• Our Q&A with Zizzi HQ about the new GF Pizza

Here’s what you need to know about the trial in a nutshell: 

There’s just 5 trial branches: 
Zizzi have chosen these on the basis that they get the most gluten free food orders..

• London, Notting Hill
  Notting Hill Gate (2 Notting Hill Gate, W11 3JE T: 0207 243 2888)
• London, Earls Court (great after the Allergy show!)
  Earls Court (194 Earls Court Road, SW5 9QF T: 0207 370 1999)
• Bluewater, Kent
  Bluewater (West Village, DA9 9SE T: 01322 387337)
• Farnham, Surrey
  Farnham, (68 Castle St,  Farnham, Surrey GU9 T: 01252 719 231)
  
• Newcastle, Grey Street
  42 Grey Street, (NE1 6AE T: 0191 261 8360)

• Use the hashtag #zizziglutenfree for news & feedback on the trial
• You can contact Zizzi on twitter @wearezizzi
• You can tweet us your feedback as well @gfguerrillas

Q&A with Zizzi HQ:

GFGs: We think a gluten free pizza is a great idea and we know many of our Guerrilla fans have emailed you asking for one. But what’s motivated you as a company to create a gluten free pizza trial and why now?

Zizzi: We want to be a restaurant chain where everybody can feel comfortable dinning with us, not only that but we feel that everybody should be able to have a pizza! We would love for gluten-free diners to know they definitely have a place at our restaurants and are not an inconvenience. We’ve had lots of requests for gluten free pizzas and we realised the best way to gain feedback was to launch a small trial. Our gluten free pasta has been very successful and we hope this will be too. So please do pass on your constructive feedback. 

GFGs: What are the gluten free ingredients in the pizza ?

Zizzi: Potato Starch, Corn Starch, Egg White Powder, Dextrose, Rice Starch Thickening Agents, Iodised Salt, Leavening Agents, Emulsifiers, Inulin, Burnt Sugar. 

GFGs: How is the gluten free pizza made?

Zizzi: The pizza is made to order, unlike most other restaurants which use frozen pre-made bases for their gluten-free choice.This is something that we want to adopt in the future and really want to get this right so gluten-free diners can feel comfortable coming to our restaurants knowing that they have plenty of options on our menu.

GFGs: How are you trying to avoid cross contamination with other gluten items in your kitchens?

Zizzi: The gluten free flour is mixed with water in a shaker and shaken (the shaker will only be used for this purpose, so no contamination).  It is then poured into a  tray (again the tray is just used for this). The tray is then put in the main pizza oven for several minutes and then flipped so the base won’t be soggy, after that sauce and toppings are added. 

GFGs: How will you avoid cross contamination between the normal pizza toppings & sauce & the new gluten free ones?

Zizzi: In terms of toppings only the meatballs contain gluten, so all other toppings should be safe and our staff will be washing their hands to make the gluten free pizzas. We are actually using a different sauce for these pizzas to avoid cross-contamination as the spoodle (spoon/ladle) will have touched our regular pizzas. Similarly garlic butter will not be used as the brush will have come in contact with gluten.

GFGs: Staff training is the key to safe gluten free dining for Coeliacs. How are you going to ensure there is consistency of gluten free pizza quality across your trial restaurants and that they are all following best practice processes to avoid cross contamination?

Zizzi: All of our staff at trail branches have received a launch pack with details of the trial, this includes everything to do with avoiding cross-contamination and making sure that all of our staff are up to date with what is involved with the trial. Included in this launch pack will be a questionnaire for gluten free pizza feedback. 

GFGs: How much will the pizza cost?

Zizzi: The price will be the same as for our regular pizzas.

[GFGs say..Great we’re not being charged more for GF. Nice change! Prices £9.95 + and you can add extra toppings]

GFGs: Which pizza can Coeliacs order?

Zizzi: Our normal classic round pizzas with any of the toppings apart from the meatballs as they contain gluten. 

GFGs: Is there also any gluten free garlic bread?

Zizzi: No not yet - we’re taking small steps. Maybe in future!

GFGs: How are you marketing the trial?

Zizzi: Via our normal channels, our website, Facebook page, Twitter feed. 

GFGs: Will the new gluten free pizza be included in your Allergen menu at the trial branches?

Zizzi: No - as this is just a trial we won’t be reprinting these. Instead customers can just ask the Manager and Waiters for the gluten free pizza. They’ll be given the normal menu with the Classic pizza options to chose from. 

GFGs: What about people who aren’t on Twitter or Facebook? Will you be advertising the gluten free trial on your boards outside your branches or on table toppers within the branch?

Zizzi: No as this is a specific trial we’re only promoting it via our normal online channels and hope that you’ll tell all your Gluten Free Guerrillas too. 

GFGs: How long will the trial last?

Zizzi: There’s no set time limit. Instead each trial branch has enough gluten free mix to make around 50 to 70 gluten free pizzas. 

GFGs: How will you assess if the gluten free pizza trial has been a success?

Zizzi: There will be a specific questionnaire which will be given to each person who has the gluten free pizza, that along with the feedback from the restaurants will be what determines whether this is a successful trial. 

Will you be trying the new gluten free pizza?

So tell us - will you be trying Zizzi’s new gluten free pizza? If so don’t forget to tweet us and let us know what you think. Also visit our Facebook page for tips on ordering in Zizzi. As always do ask about cross contamination and alert the Zizzi manager to any other intolerances or dietary requirements you have. 

Who knows - if the trial is a success maybe we’ll see gluten free pizza at every Zizzi?! That’s be a huge treat for Coeliacs. 

What do you think? Add a comment under the blog!

Great idea or fearful? When was the last time you ate a pizza? Before diagnosis or elsewhere GF?

Want to read other peoples comments?

Don’t forget to click on ‘notes’ under the blog post. If you’re on Tumblr you know the dealio if not then just click and enter your email address to post as you would on any other site. Looking forward to your thoughts!  

PS: We’d rate the Gluten Free pizza as 7/10 - a great start. Needs some tweaks (base can be very soft). Yet great fresh tasting toppings, staff answered questions well in branches.  So nice to actually order a pizza like in pre-coeliac days. The full low-down on our taster and mystery dining experience to follow in our next blog very soon!