It’s December and the festive season is rapidly gaining speed. In our neighbourhood businesses and residential properties are already well decorated, lights twinkling away at night (and during the day).

Trying to be more environmentally conscious this year we decided to buy white LED lights for inside and outside, however whilst stockists of LED lights had thousands of packs of every colour you could imagine, the shelves where white should be were stripped bare. Something tells me that their buyers are not switched on!

NO! STOP RIGHT THERE! Strawberries are not wheat free.

Now you probably think I'm nuts, but if you have a wheat allergy then you will want to be very careful if you are going to choose strawberries as a wheat free dessert option.

I'll make no apology for it, I'm hopelessly addicted to chocolate.
In my younger days (pre 30) I wasn't discriminatory, any chocolate would do, and the greater quantities the better, so more chocolate for my money was always good with me. And of course I didn't have a wheat allergy then, so kit kats, twix, chocolate covered biscuits, you name it, if it had chocolate on it I'd eaten it, or was currently stuffing my face with it. If I didn't eat 3 to 4 bars a day I felt I was missing out.

I was interested to hear that a new no-dough pizza was released a few days ago. Although I'm not a big (wheat free) pizza eater, it's always good to know that there's a readymade wheat free pizza available to buy off the shelf, for those “must have pizza but haven't got the time to make it” moments.

So I wanted to know the low down on these new pizzas, as I'm sure does anyone else that loves pizza but can't eat wheat.

Well if you buy Amy's rice crust pizza, which is clearly labelled gluten free on the box, that's when.

For sale in the gluten free freezer section of my local healthfood store I was excited to see an organic rice crust pizza for sale. Inspecting the box it clearly said "gluten free", I quickly scanned the ingredients to make sure that they hadn't used wheat starch with the gluten removed, was satisfied that it was okay, so bought it.

If you have a wheat allergy or coeliac disease how do you cope with Holy Communion?

The Catholic doctrine believes that the wafer and wine taken at Holy Communion are the body and blood of Christ, and therein lies a major problem for someone with a wheat or gluten allergy.

I am of course being facetious. Eating out 99% of the time on a wheat free diet sucks!

Visiting friends just before Christmas we went to a local hostelry for lunch. The menu consisted of fried, battered or breaded foods, burgers, fries & lasagne. Even the salads came ready made with the croutons on, and a “well we could pick them off for you”. I don’t think so.

We have been contacted with some interesting information from Josie about her son's tentative diagnosis of petit mal, medication issues and subsequent changing to a wheat free diet.

Does anyone else have any experience of this? Or any comments they would like to add?

So Canadian news reported that a scientist at the University of Alberta has discovered a way to turn the dregs from brewing beer into a sweetener. Using the grain waste left over, which is often sold as cheap animal feed, the process can now create xylitol, a sugar substitute.

Now scientists are getting excited that this new discovery will have environmental benefits as well as financial ones. But what about the health ones?

Whilst the US Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act 2004 (FALCPA), that came into force 1 January 2006, has got to be a good thing, I’m starting to worry that there won’t be much left for people with food allergies to eat based on reading the packaging.

This is something that I’ve blogged about before, manufacturers covering their butts by stating that everything they make MAY contain or have traces of blah blah blah.

We were contacted by Allie about Tesco's habit of stocking gluten free products for a short while, then removing them again (just when people have got used to using them), does anyone else have this same question or comments?

First let me start with an apology to all those people that religiously read the wheat blog. Sorry there hasn’t been one for a while but wheat-free.org has been relocating offices.

Okay, so I hear you say “what’s so time consuming about moving?” Well we’ve actually moved 4,400 miles give or take a mile or three. So it took a bit more than a few cardboard boxes in the back of a lorry.

But wheat-free.org is alive and well and ready to get back into the saddle as it were. So thank you for bearing with us, and welcome to 2006. We do still have staff in the UK, so don’t worry, we won’t be missing out on all those UK titbits, product reviews etc.

Ahhhhh Christmas. Holly, the tree, tinsel, decorations, roast turkey, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, mince pies and mistletoe. Hang on, rewind that a bit, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and mince pies, hmmmmmmm now here I see a problem.

Christmas is meant to be the time of goodwill to all men (and women), a time of giving, receiving, sharing and general merriment. A time of binge eating and drinking and so much wheat in evidence you’d think you were living in a grain silo.

It’s food in the loosest sense of the word. Having recently had to endure the culinary disasters foisted on me as gluten free meals on my flights to and from Canada, I can only think that the caterers preparing the gluten free meals have absolutely no idea of what they were doing, or don’t care, or both.

For a start wheat free meals are not an option, you have to have gluten free or nothing. Which already puts my back up, and my suspicions, because some items that are gluten free have wheat in them that has had the gluten removed. So not safe for someone with a wheat allergy.

Last month The Guardian did an article on Paula Radcliffe, remarking on what a high maintenance woman she was, and suggesting that she was crossing the line between normal and nutty and on the slippery slope to 'celebrity-itis'.