Foods you can eat if you are allergic to wheat

With time and a little practice, alternative staples to wheat can be found for just about everything, and ready-made products can be sourced such as wheat free pasta. For wheat free bread, oat, rye and cornflour breads offer plenty of options. Using whole ancient grains, such as quinoa, millet and buckwheat, will help replace the B vitamins and minerals usually found in wheat products.

For home baking, the many wheat free flours available have different properties to explore and make tasty biscuits, cakes and pastries. Finely crushed cornflakes make a good substitute for breadcrumbs, and cornflour or potato starch are alternatives to thicken sauces. Keep reading to learn more about wheat free eating.

Wheat can be found in bread, rolls, bakery products, pastry, pies, pizza, biscuits, cakes, breakfast cereals, muesli, granola, pasta, noodles, couscous, semolina, breaded meat and fish, wheat beer, and in many packaged and processed foods, sweets and sauces, often including soy sauce.

Wheat has many other varieties and forms, including bulgar wheat, durum wheat, einkorn, emmer, farola, freekah, kamut (khorasan wheat), wheat rusk, triticale, wheat bran, wheat germ and whole wheat.

Wheat is not naturally present in fruit, vegetables, nuts, meat, poultry, fish or dairy, but it is important to take care with additives in processed versions of any of these foods.

People with coeliac disease or who have gluten intolerance also avoid wheat flour, which contains gluten, as well as barley and rye. Barley, rye and oats are OK for a wheat free diet, although they can be mixed with wheat flour, so take care!

Here are some grains that are safe to eat if you have a wheat allergy:

• Rice
• Quinoa
• Oat (look for gluten free to be safe)
• Rice
• Sweetcorn/maize
• Buckwheat
• Amaranth
• Legumes
• Sorghum
• Tapioca
• Millet
• Teff
• Arrowroot

In the European Union, US and other countries, food producers are required to indicate the presence of wheat in their product labelling.

Although sourcing gluten free-labelled products may be a generally useful approach, it is still important to take care with ingredients as some gluten free products may contain certified gluten free wheat starch. Eating this may trigger a reaction in someone with wheat allergy. H2 How do I know if I am allergic to wheat? Wheat allergy is an allergic reaction to foods containing wheat, which, in some cases, can also be triggered by inhaling wheat flour.

It is most associated with small children, who often outgrow wheat allergy, but adults can also develop it. Around 0.3% of children under the age of five in Europe are allergic to wheat, with two-thirds likely to have outgrown their wheat allergy by the time they are 16.

Wheat allergy symptoms show up on the skin and in the respiratory tract, often directly after meals. Wheat allergy can also cause indigestion, which may occur some time after eating wheat.

Symptoms of wheat allergy include swelling, itching or irritation of the mouth or throat, hives, itchy rash or swelling of the skin, nasal congestion, headaches, difficulty breathing, cramps, nausea or vomiting, and diarrhoea.

In some cases, wheat allergy can cause a life-threatening reaction known as anaphylaxis with severe symptoms including chest pain, swelling or tightness in the throat, severe breathing difficulty, trouble swallowing and dizziness or fainting.

If you think you or your child has a wheat allergy, you should make a note of reactions and food eaten, and consult with a doctor to arrange for an allergy test.