This April, we spotlight Ali Walsh, the ‘fountain of knowledge’ who heads up the inspirational gluten-free account @lifeonaricecake to help you lead a better gluten-free life.
🟢 Name & Age –
Ali Walsh, I’m 47 years old. My children are 7 & 6.
🟢 City –
Bristol in the UK
🟢 Bio –
My passion is to help people with coeliac disease to thrive! There’s some awful truths out there, such as roughly 1 in 100 people have coeliac disease, 2/3 of them are undiagnosed, with the average time taken to get diagnosed being 13 YEARS (cries in coeliac). I try to spread awareness to make real change and get those awful statistics down. My children are brilliant little helpers; they often cook up a gluten-free storm in the kitchen (and yes, it gets messy).
🟢 Diagnosis Backstory-
I got coeliac disease in the 90s & also have to avoid oats. To tell my diagnosis story I also have to tell my misdiagnosis stories…I was diagnosed nearly 25 years ago after 3 years of chronic pain and misdiagnoses, including an unnecessary operation to see if I had endometriosis. I still have the scar.
Years later I moved to Bristol and saw an article on IBS. I took my suspicions to the doctor and asked if I might have it. He said it could be IBS and suggested a low sugar diet of Weetabix, wholewheat bread and wholemeal pasta. I followed the diet to the letter but 6 months later there’d been no change. (And in hindsight, no surprise there.)
I was so fed up with being misdiagnosed I was going to leave it and just live with the pain. But thankfully I went back to a different doctor who casually mentioned it might be coeliac disease. And that was the beginning of getting my life back! As soon as I had a positive blood test I went gluten-free. The change was almost immediate. I felt so lucky to be well again.
🟢 Fav Bfree product –
My favourite BFree product is the pitta bread. I often get my children to make them into mini pizzas.
🟢 Go-to recipe –
My favourite recipe to make at the moment is buckwheat banana bread. I have it for breakfast with dark chocolate.
🟢 Fav GF restaurant –
My go-to gluten-free restaurant is Pho. I’m obsessed!
🟢 Best life tip –
My best tip for starting out gluten-free is to take things one day at a time. Then it doesn’t seem so overwhelming.
Check out Ali Walshes’ blog and courses for people newly diagnosed with coeliac disease here, or follow her on instagram @lifeonaricecake
Tip:
Think you could be our next BFree Foodie? Email us at [email protected] or DM us on Instagram!
