Advisory centre for coeliacs is located in the Children and Adolescent Medicine Clinic VFN, Ke Karlovu 2, Prague 2. It is run by the Coeliacs’ Association of the Czech Republic. The advisory centre is open every Monday and Tuesday from 2pm. to 6pm. In addition, the Coeliacs’ Association holds regular meetings on the last Thursday of every month on the third floor of the Clinic. The meeting starts at 5 pm. and coeliacs or parents of children with coeliac disease exchange their practical experience. The advisory centre also organizes cooking and baking classes. I spoke to Blanka Rubínová, the chairperson of the Coeliacs’ Association of the Czech Republic and to Dagmar Skytová, the deputy chair, about shops selling gluten-free food, coeliac-friendly restaurants and other services.

Where in Prague can I buy gluten-free products?

Gluten-free products can be mostly found in health food shops. We prefer buying them in big chain stores, though. The food there is cheaper and fresher, on the other hand, the choice is not so big and it is often not possible to buy ready-made food. Other places that sell gluten-free products are pharmacies and the chain of chemist stores DM.

What sort of products do hypermarkets offer?

Mostly flours, baking mixtures and sometimes pasta. Durable stuff so that there is no risk for the store that the foodstuff will go bad within one week. Health food shops have a wider range of products, but the prices are higher.

Which extra products do health food shops offer?

Ready-made products. Bread, bakery and pastry, delicacies, condiments. In short, lots of stuff that is healthy and suitable for coeliacs.

How many specialised shops are there in Prague? 

Many. They sell a wide range of both home and foreign products. You can buy anything, but the prices are exorbitant. Half a kilo of bread will cost you 80 to 90 CZK. This is a big burden on families. It is not such a big problem to find gluten-free food, the problem is paying for it.

Could you give us a rough estimate of the difference in chain-store prices and health food prices?

Flour in a chain store costs from 60 to 90 CZK, in a health food shop the price will range between 80 and 120 CZK. But the differences vary according to different products.

What are the basic foodstuffs for a coeliac?

 The base products are baking mixtures, or flour, to be precise, a mixture of different types of flour. A lot of mothers do not have time to bake and cook at home, so they want ready-made products. The content of a shopping basket is closely related to the economic power of the family. If you have enough money, you can go and buy two rolls for 80 CZK. If you do not have so much money, you have to buy flour and make the rolls yourself. Which means that you need to invest your time and work in order to lower your expenses.

Shopping is not the only problem, though. Other problems occur when children go on school trips or stays in the country and even in regular schools, canteens do not offer meals for coeliacs. These problems have a snowball effect.

What other special foodstuffs do you buy?

Pasta, dairy products, but it is not easy, not all the products are ok, not all of them are gluten-free. So when somebody comes to see us in our advisory centre, we try to go through all eating habits and adjust them to proper a gluten-free diet. Gluten can be anywhere, in bread, cornflakes, dairy products, ketchups…And do you know why? Because it is the ideal carrier of taste and smell. It is added to many products for technological reasons, to make them last longer and look better.

How do you pass down information about gluten-free products? Only orally?

  No. Besides the publication of ‘Rukověť Celiaka’ (Coeliac’s Handbook), we also published quarterlies where readers can learn about gluten-tested products available in our market. All of those who visit us get these lists. And then people can come to us if they have any problems. We also give advice via the Internet, where we reply to e-mails, but it is still crucial for people to come here and get specific information straight from us.

Are there any coeliac-friendly restaurants in Prague? 

There are restaurants that claim that they have gluten-free meals on their menu. However, to make a truly gluten-free meal, the whole preparation process would have to be separate. None of these restaurants have such separate gluten-free sections. So it is not possible to say for 100 per cent that there are gluten-free restaurants. Yet, there are a few restaurants which we might recommend, bearing in mind that there is always some kind of risk.

Do you know these restaurants? Have you ever used their services?

It is difficult to answer such a question. Today, we can recommend a restaurant, but next week the cook may change and the situation can be completely different.

Still, could you give us some tips, if you have any?

We know that some restaurants have gluten-free meals on their menus but we wouldn’t vouch for them. Besides, a restaurant that would only have gluten-free meals, would soon go bankrupt. But we can still give two tips. There is Mexican restaurant Amigos in Vinohrady in Anny Letenské Street, where they only work with corn. So the risk of coming across some gluten is very low. Having said that, even corn can contain gluten, because you never know where it was packed and if it is pure. Even such small contamination can make the meal completely unfit for a coeliac.

It is a smaller restaurant, it may be possible to ask the cook to fry something quick for you on a clean frying pan and you can have it with e.g. potatoes. If you take a frying pan, where for instance meat in breadcrumbs was made before, your meal would be contaminated and you could not have it anymore.

How many restaurants offering gluten-free meals do you know of?

We only know of two. Biorestaurant Albio in Truhlářská Street and Koppernik Restaurant in the hotel Pyramida.

Have any tests been carried out on them?

No, because the tests are very expensive. We only try to test basic food, which is more helpful for coeliacs. Besides the results of a test carried out in a restaurant right now can be significantly different from a test carried out just one hour later.

In what way are the tests carried out?

We co-operate on a state project which is basically a test of approximately 600 foodstuffs a year and it is carried out by the Food Microbiology Research Institute in Hostivař. This project was started in 1998 and it is always planned five years ahead, which means that now we are in its second phase. At first, we had to develop a testing method, as there had never been anything like that before. Then, on the basis of this state project, food started to be tested in a more systematic way.

Apart from restaurants, are there any other services that could be used by coeliacs?

There is a pilot project that we have started in Hradec Králové. It has been running since last September. It is one kitchen which is located in the area with a lot of high schools and the university in the proximity of Hradec´s hospital. There is a canteen with trained personnel and special workplace and anyone can go there to have a gluten-free lunch. It is not only for students, anyone can come, a mother, retired person… and the prices are just regular lunch prices.

Are you considering something like that in Prague, too?

It is more complicated in Prague, because Prague is bigger. In Hradec Králové, almost all the institutions are located in one area, so it was all much easier to implement. The main merit goes to the regional autority of Hradec Králové Region, which has been supporting the project. We trained the personnel. They provided the premises and it was their initiative to prepare gluten-free meals. It´s all basically just about the good will of all those, who somehow contributed to it. It was necessary to earmark money, train people and let the inhabitants know that there is a new opportunity for them to come and have lunch in a proper gluten-free canteen.

Have you tried to contact Prague City Hall?

Not yet. The project in Hradec Králové only started last year, so we are waiting for its evaluation.

How many people go to the canteen?

At the end of the year, the number was about 150 people, which is good, considering that it is a pilot project. Still, there could be more because Hradec is a big town. But it is still quite early and we hope that with time, the number will increase. There is also this distrust amongst coeliacs for canteens. All the parents know where the possible sources of gluten are and their children have always been closely looked after, so that they would not have any contact with gluten. This means that not everyone in Hradec will take this opportunity. Besides, I am almost certain, that it is not the mothers with little children who use the canteen. It is more helpful for teenagers and students who live away from home because they study at a high school or university which is not close to their home. The thing is, if you are coeliac and you go somewhere to study, how will you feed yourself? You need to have an oven to bake your own bread. But a student can hardly go to a restaurant and tell the cook: Make me a steak but only on a clean frying pan. So students do, what they can. And my feeling is that the canteen in Hradec Králové is a big step forward for such students.

Last question. Can you tell me what can and what cannot contain food sutiable for coeliacs? 

It must not contain gluten

Which foodstuffs are one hundred per cent sure not to contain any gluten? 

We distinguish between prohibited and allowed foodstuffs (see the table). Everything in between is a problem. In our advisory centre we have small cards with a list of prohibited and allowed foodstuffs. The card fits into a handbag and it helps mothers who are still not used to shopping for coeliacs not to make any mistakes. The other side of the card lists additive substances – E tested for the content of gluten. All these substances must be stated on the packaging. If a mum finds out that the additive substance contains gluten, she will not buy the product.

In practice, you should choose foodstuffs with a very low content of gliadin. And, as usual, better quality products with lower content of gliadin are more expensive. Let’s take sausages. Giant special offer, one kilo of sausages for 40 CZK. But at the same time, try to answer the question what percentage is formed by meat and what percentage by some kind of substitutes. The rule is that the cheaper the product, the more substitutes it will contain.

So you would not be worried about the quality of ham?

No. But I would be afraid of smoked ham. But it always depends what kind of substitute there is. If it is wheat starch, it’s bad. It is corn starch, it’s ok.