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Getting gluten free food in Sweden, from a resident

Getting gluten free food in Sweden, from a resident - by Christian Kastö

In Sweden GF food is no problem. I am the father of an 11-year old girl who was diagnosed Gluten intolerant at 3, and even then it was not a big problem finding GF bread, pasta etc. But in the 8 years since, a lot has happened, and now you can find basic GF products, such as bread and macaroni even at small stores, and supermarkets have a big selection of cookies, cakes, flourmixes, bread, pasta etc. I wouldn't say any of them are significantly better - they sometimes carry different brands of GF products, but that's more a matter of taste - the variety and range is about the same, and usually the glutenfree products are in a shelf of their own, marked "glutenfritt" or maybe "glutenfria produkter".

Pretty much all fast food chains like McD & Burger King have gluten free bread at no extra cost, and routines not to get crumbs in GF burgers... Many smaller places, like both the pizzerias where I live (small country town, population 3,800) also offer GF, at an extra cost of about a dollar or two, but still. I know that in our neighboring countries - Norway and Finland, McDonald's and BurgerKing also have Gluten free bread, but I don't know about the range of GF in stores there.

Since gluten intolerance is, I've been told, genetically most common among people of scandinavian descent, and has been noticed more in later years, most producers here are pretty aware of it. Therefore things like hot dogs, sausages and the world famous swedish meatballs ;) are also usually free from gluten, and lactose. But such products are not found in the gluten free shelf, though, since they're not a gluten free variety of the product.

So feel welcome, all you celiaks! (lactose free is a little bit harder, but still better than in many other european countries, I'd say.)

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