Anyone here living with a gluten free diet in Kunming?
We'd like to visit the city for around 3 weeks, and have travelled in China before, but now my partner has coeliac disease which puts a whole different spin on things. We realise there is really no understanding of this kind of dietary requirement in China.
One strategy would be to prepare all our own meals (we will rent an apartment), but that misses the enjoyment of eating out, a big part of the cultural experience.
So would really appreciate hearing from anyone who's GF in Kunming about how they cope.
kunming no1 dish is rice noodles, no gluten. generally do not cook with starch, or thicken soups. lots of corn and corn dishes including corn breads. so if you order veg dishes and meat dishes and mixian (rice noodles) and rice should be no problem. southern dishes mostly rice, northern dishes mostly wheat. kunming is in south. you will find rice noodle, rice pancake and rice flour.
Afraid I don't know anybody here who is seriously troubled by gluten, although I understand that it's popular elsewhere. I'm sure for some people somewhere it is indeed serious. For most people who have this condition, doesn't it just mean generally avoiding wheat products? Shouldn't be hard. I don't understand why you'd need to consider preparing all your meals at home.
Um...this MAY not be related to the gluten issue - but restaurants here tend to add MSG to most of their soups, and...well most everything.
Before the trigger fingers kick in, MSG is NOT actually directly related to gluten (despite the similar sounding names). I mention this in case you have other allergies.
Asking (assuming you can communicate at this level) restaurant or grocery store staff any question on this issue will usually result in what they think you want to hear, but it may not be true, so buyer beware.
So, depends on the current state of allergy - but I'd highly recommend having a few epi-pens nearby and handy, as there's ALWAYS the risk of cross contamination from typically lax chinese cooking practices.
Most people have no problem with MSG either. Lax cooking practices - yeah, I guess so, depending on your basis for comparison, but it rarely leads to anything beyond the shits for maybe a day a couple times a year.
BUT CAN YOU REALLY DIE FROM BAD FOOD???
Yes, of course, what else is new?
Hope you enjoy your stay, it's pretty easy to do so.
Thanks for all your comments and ideas.
The reason I fear we'd have to avoid eating out is lack of confidence that restaurants could provide food without gluten. We can't know if a soup or sauce was thickened with wheat, or contains soy sauce (which generally contains wheat). Even ordering steamed veg, the steamer may previously have contained baozi, so a risk of cross contamination exists.
As Michael suggests, even if our request is understood it may not be enacted. And there's a difference between a willingness and an ability to avoid gluten contamination in the kitchen. If you are not used to the concept, you might not think twice about using the chopsticks that touched the baozi to also stir the soup.
To non-coeliacs I know this sounds obsessive - we certainly thought so at first! Unfortunately this disease isn't as simple as ordering rice noodles instead of wheat noodles - it means if you eat anything containing even small amounts of gluten you are going to damage your gut and have explosive diarrhoea for a couple of days. (symptoms vary, but this is our situation). And that's not a great way to spend a three week holiday ;)
Here in Europe restaurants are legally required to list the allergens in each dish, and there's a general understanding of the issue and cross contamination, so eating out is increasingly easy. But I'd love to know how coeliacs living in China cope (there must be some!) as it sounds very difficult if not impossible.
OK, well, most cases of gluten intolerance aren't so serious that minor contact with gluten is worth worrying about, but if this is a serious case, then I get the point.
