A young woman forced to give up her favourite foods when diagnosed with coeliac disease is now helping thousands of others with a unique recipes, reviews, travel and tips website for everything gluten-free.
In 2019, Philippa Lee was first diagnosed with coeliac disease and had to learn to navigate a completely new diet and say goodbye to anything containing wheat, barley, rye, and oats, including her personal favourite jam doughnuts.
But Philippa, 30 – known as Phili – was frustrated by the lack of resources about gluten-free recipes, which restaurants had appropriate dishes and other vital tips and advice for people also with coeliac disease.
So now she’s teamed up with her boyfriend Ranveer Sahota, 28, to launch Gluten Free Glee – enabling sufferers to search, discover and review gluten-free friendly – or not so friendly – eateries.
And while an early version of the app is now being tested, the couple are also looking at other problems faced by those living with the condition, such as shopping and travelling.
She told the Daily Express: “I’ve always had stomach problems growing up, but it was just assumed to be IBS-related. In 2019, I lost a lot of weight unexpectedly and couldn’t stop getting mouth ulcers and having night sweats.
“I went to the doctors and luckily they decided to test for coeliac disease, which came back positive.”
Phili, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, said while some of the diet changes were easy to adapt to, eating out while following a strict gluten-free diet proved particularly challenging.
She explained: “Being accidentally ‘glutened’ makes me extremely unwell. I’ve had to leave restaurants and rush home on multiple occasions – then spent the following days in bed.
“The struggle to find places to eat with gluten-free options and a good understanding of dietary requirements sparked the original idea for the Gluten Free Glee review platform.
“However, after lots of research and feedback, we realised that there was so much more we could do to help the gluten-free community.”
Coeliac disease is the most widely known gluten-related condition. It causes the immune system to attack its own tissue and damage the gut when gluten is digested.
That then prevents sufferers from taking in vital nutrients from food and can cause a variety of unpleasant symptoms such as stomach pain, severe bloating, diarrhoea, indigestion, vomiting, constipation, and unexpected weight loss.
According to Coeliac UK, one in 100 people suffer from the disease. However, only 36 percent have had a diagnosis, meaning many are struggling with symptoms they don’t know how to manage.
Ranveer, from Stockport, hopes their website will make businesses more accountable after “frustrating” experiences following Phili’s diagnosis.
He said: “Watching someone you love struggle is really hard. I just wanted to help.”
“For the last few years, I’ve been tinkering with building websites and apps, and we just started brainstorming, thinking it would be brilliant if there was a platform where you could go and look up all of these things and you could share your experiences.”
Gluten Free Glee last year won funding from Innovate UK and has now launched two new free tools – a GF directory to help users GF brands, products and services, and Digital Allergy Translation Cards.
The allergy cards are normally printed on physical business cards to support people while travelling.
To make them more accessible, Gluten Free Glee has created free digital versions that you can also add directly to your Google or Apple wallet.
Said Phili: “Gluten Free Glee will help you get the information you need and play a part in helping others in a community that understands exactly what you’re feeling.”
Visit the website at : https://www.gfglee.com/
