Since being diagnosed as a coeliac 5 years ago, I have been
able to order various foods on prescription. I started out with a huge variety
of different items on there, from flours to pastry mixes, biscuits to lasagne
sheets, fusilli to penne, sliced white bread to dinner rolls, and then there
were these weird things a bit like sponge fingers…
Over time I refined the list down to the things which I
actually ate - surprisingly, turns out I don’t use a pre-packaged pastry mix
very often, partly because I don’t often make pastry and partly because the mix
already contains an unspecified amount of sugar, making it impossible to use in
any normal recipe – and got things down to a pretty select list, which I would
then choose a few things from every couple of months.
I generally order a large quantity of items at once, because
I am too disorganised to go more frequently. Once a month?! What with the wait
for prescriptions, ferrying between doctor and pharmacy, lead time for items to
come in, finding the time to fetch items within normal working hours, I’d be
constantly managing one part of the process. Which as a disorganised person, is
too much. Does anyone have a
failsafe way of managing their repeat prescription ordering? I’m considering
some kind of Kanban system for low stock and a rolling reminder for the next
stage of the process, using average lag time data from previous cycles… (Can
you tell what type of work I do?!)
Back to the point. I have recently moved doctors, and my new doctor has fiercely
cut back on the products on my repeat prescription. I now have:
- 6 loaves of Newburn Bakehouse (Warburton’s) brown sliced*
- 6 bags of Bialimenta penne pasta
- 2 boxes of Juvela lasagne. I’m not quite sure why this is on here, as I so seldom make lasagne. But never mind, it’s at least making me come up with new and inventive uses for lasagne sheets!
According to the doctor, she recommends an annual review of
the items on my prescription and the opportunity to add or subtract items, as
well as a general health check. This sounds fairly sensible although the
thought of a year with the same few products on the list is a little daunting.
I’m thoroughly sick of my 3 items, as good as they are (in particular I would
recommend the Newburn bread, if you’re not already eating it by the freezerful).
I’m eagerly awaiting the latest Coeliac UK book for a list
of all the products available on prescription before I book my appointment with
the doctor. Then I can go armed and ready, and hopefully emerge with a couple
of different things to try.
Does anyone have any recommendations for items they get on
prescription and particularly enjoy?
*I’ve just read that these will soon be delivered in boxes
of 4, according to Warburtons this is for greater flexibility and for those of
us with smaller freezers. Any thoughts? I think this means more trips to the
pharmacy for me…
-Rachel
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