I've been reading the messages on this board for hours. Fascinating
stuff! Now at last I can join in!

Sam has lots of problems with CD, but a much better diet than many 5
year olds. He only eats premium sausages, home baked cakes, high
quality jam etc. At the Eden project a couple of weeks ago he
enjoyed a FREE meal of chicken and salad. For snacks, raisins,
fruit, cheese are OK. His favourite is cornthins with tomato puree
and grated cheese - we call them 'rice cake pizzas'.

Perhaps having several coeliac relatives has given me a less doom
and gloom approach, as long as I can remember family get-togethers
have included discussions of GF recipes.

Waitrose is the best supermarket for it's clear labelling, and
otherwise I stick to basic ingredients and cook everything from
scratch, cheating with knorr stock cubes, supermarket chilli beans
etc.

We are lucky to have an excellent health food shop in Malvern, the
Bran Tub, where I was advised to substitute 50:50 maize and rice
flour in vitoria sponge, it works perfectly. (I strongly recommend
Anne Sheasby's cook book for those unfamiliar with cooking.)

I rely totally on the coeliac UK list, and have a copy of their
cookbook borrowed from my Dad which is also execellent, with simple
and well tested recipes. Please please support them! Sam has not yet
had a biopsy, but I am a member.

I was so pleased to read that others share my scientific view of the
biopsy. It took a year to get Sam 'diagnosed' by blood test. He has
been on a gluten free diet since the blood test results. I was not
prepared to have him eat gluten for 3 months so they could do a
biopsy. The blood tests are about 90 to 95% foolproof, he gets ill
on gluten, so why the biopsy? The plan is that later in life he
could do a gluten challenge, when old enough to decide for himself.
But maybe medicine will have changed by then....