Saving Money When Shopping Gluten Free
A common comment I get from people is how EXPENSIVE it must be to buy gluten free food. It’s true, our grocery budget is a lot higher than it used to be. There are ways, however, to save money even when shopping for gluten free food.
Most people look for coupons to save money on groceries, but that’s not easy when you must buy gluten free foods. These products generally cost more than traditional (gluten containing) products and the manufacturers don’t produce coupons for them. That makes it more difficult to save money, but it’s still possible.
Many grocery stores have weekly ads that contain products that are on sale or on clearance. When this happens, it’s a good idea to stock up on items that are on sale and gluten free. This will help you to save money now and not have to pay the hire price later. When shopping the sale shelf, it’s important to look at expiration dates and make sure you can use the item before it expires. You won’t save money if you throw things away.
Depending on your location and what types of newspapers you have, you may not be able to find good coupons for the gluten free foods you purchase. Searching for coupons online is an alternative to the traditional newspaper coupon-clipping. You can sometimes find coupons online that aren’t available elsewhere. Another option is to check the manufacturer’s website, or even email the manufacturer to ask if they have coupons available.
Keep track of prices for items you use regularly. Know the prices at various stores in your area, and stock up when you find a deal. You may need to regularly go to more than one grocery store if they each have better deals on different items.
Online shopping can be a nice alternative for non-perishable food items. We buy many items in bulk online and can get a much better deal that way. Even with shipping, the cost is sometimes reduced by buying in bulk.
Ask your local natural foods store or gluten free food store if they offer loyalty discount cards, or even a discount for buying in bulk. The Whole Foods Store near us offers a “case discount” on any item where you purchase twelve or more. That extra 10% off can be significant savings if purchasing things like a dozen gluten free, dairy free yogurt.
The bottom line is that there ARE ways to save money when shopping gluten free; you just have to look a little more closely than when doing ‘traditional’ grocery shopping.
What ways have you found to stretch your gluten free grocery budget? I’d love to hear them!
Eating Gluten Free – the First Big Decision
Another great post from my friend Anneke on their big decision … does one or everyone eat gluten free?
If we were all single, living alone and cooking for ourselves, eating gluten free (GF) would be so much easier – not cheaper, of course, but easier. No cross-contamination, no separate snacks and cookware, no eating the lonely GF cupcake while everyone else has Grandma’s family recipe double-chocolate cake. One of the first big decisions you need to make is whether you plan to continue cooking with gluten while also cooking GF.
At first glance, this might seem easy – GF is expensive and doesn’t taste as good (or so you think), so why make the rest of the family suffer? Believe me, I contemplated making two meals, boiling two types of pasta and having multiple kinds of bread and snacks. Partly, I think this decision is based on who in the family needs to eat GF and why. For those of us with celiac disease, the tiniest portion of gluten can bring on symptoms, while other people (on a GF diet but not celiac) may not react as strongly or as quickly to being “glutenized.” If the person on a GF diet is an adult, it seems easier to have separate meals, adults can handle being different, but if it is a child it is much harder to see others eating the “good stuff.”
My decision came down to who, how many, and ultimately, the size of my kitchen. I have celiac disease, I do the cooking, and I didn’t want to expose myself constantly to gluten while preparing meals. My daughter also has celiac, and when I went from cooking GF for one person to cooking for two, it started to make more sense to go all GF in our home. The final vote, however, came down to the space I have to use – my kitchen is small, has little storage space, and a very bad flow. Think about this – if you are cooking both GF and with gluten, you need to have two sets of the following cooking equipment:
• Colanders
• Utensils (especially if you cook with wood or bamboo)
• Any stoneware or cast iron
• Toasters
• Dish towels, cloths or sponges
• Cutting boards
We got into space issues very quickly in my kitchen (the toaster was for sure going to cause a big problem), and when you add the need to store GF products in a separate cabinet, or at least on a separate shelf, I was out of room before I even got started! I decided to cook gluten free for everyone, all the time. My exceptions were mostly self-contained foods, like packaged granola bars for lunch boxes; although with experience, I have learned to make my own snacks and those are mostly all GF now, too.
The important thing to remember here is that whatever decision you make, that decision is right for you and your family. Decisions can be changed, too, and as you learn to cook GF and find more resources to help you, you may find yourself ready to include more GF cooking for the whole family. You will adapt to this new lifestyle, and it will become easier with time.
I often wondered if going to all the trouble and expense of GF cooking for a family was worth it, until I had an “ah-ha” moment one day in my kitchen. I was cooking for a crowd of teenagers – pasta and bread, of course – and decided to use regular pasta and serve bread from the local bakery. The stress that I felt while keeping my dishes separate to be completely scoured of gluten later, and the number of times I washed gluten from my hands and counters told me that having gluten in my kitchen is just not worth it. That afternoon of cooking with gluten was enough to tell me that going GF all the way was the right choice for my family!
How about some nachos instead?
When you first hear the diagnosis of Celiac disease, and find out that you can no longer have gluten in any form, you feel totally overwhelmed.
We all know that gluten is in everything, and how on earth will we eat now? While people mean well, it is somewhat difficult to be constantly told that “there is so much more available now,” or “I just saw a whole line of great gluten free products.”
I know it is better than it ever was, I know there are more choices, I know people want to be supportive, I get it.
But . . .
Here’s the thing — I don’t want to buy food in a box. I don’t want to drive 30 miles round trip to get bakery cupcakes for my kid’s birthday party. I don’t want to throw a tiny frozen pizza in the oven on a busy weeknight when that pizza cost a fortune and tastes like cardboard. Initially we did that and, while we didn’t starve, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the inability to cook real food for my family.
I grew up in a household where we ate real food all the time. My parents had a large garden at our house, and rented another garden plot at a nearby arboretum. They visited several farmer’s markets to buy produce to freeze and can throughout the summer. My mother made every dessert from scratch and made 8 loaves of sandwich bread every weekend – this while working full time. We sat down – as a family — to a home-cooked, balanced meal every night. While my early years as a parent were not spent at as pristine a dinner table as the one I sat at growing up, I made a real effort to cook well for my family. The diagnosis of celiac was truly devastating for me as the chef and food provider in my home.
In the first two years of this new reality, I struggled. I converted recipes to GF with some success, but often with great failure. I wasted countless dollars worth of GF flour blends and I made more than one birthday cake a second time, late at night, after an initial disaster. I sat at my dining room table and watched as my family gamely tried the latest creation – but didn’t ask for seconds. Finally, about a year ago, I found a cookbook that helped me learn how to make GF yeast breads from scratch, with success! Since then, I have been able to make all of our breads – sandwich bread, burger buns, french bread, tortillas – not always on the first try, but eventually I manage to get it. For me, while I am spending much more time in the kitchen, I am also spending much less money at the grocery store, and that has been incredibly freeing.
Gluten free cooking and eating is still frustrating and expensive, but the excitement of the challenge has taken over my thinking, putting the overwhelming aspect of the job in the back seat most of the time. I find myself trying to work around the days I have no bread made by coming up with a different idea, instead of tossing up my hands in defeat. I have even gotten the family on board. Just this week, I was planning sandwiches for lunch, when I realized the day’s loaf of bread would not be ready in time. My husband, after looking at the exorbitant price of four GF bagels in the grocery store, looked at me and suggested that perhaps he could make us a batch of chicken nachos instead. I liked that idea – it meant he was on board with the plan, and I didn’t have to cook!
-Anneke