Gluten free when we ski please

Added on 20 Mar, 2014 by Helen Fletton. There are .

We ski, not as often as we would like, but often enough not to forget how to. Armed with skis, poles, goggles, helmet, and backpack we enjoy the quiet, pristine ski runs of the Canadian Rockies—without any desire to check email or post a selfie.

But the one thing that would make an already perfect day just that little bit shinier would be to not have to carry food for the day in my backpack.

In many years of skiing I've yet to see any specific gluten free items for sale in any of the ski lodges. Okay, so yesterday I did buy a bag of potato chips because they had "gluten free" on the front, however, it would be great to be able to buy some real wheat/gluten free food.

For some reason generally ski hills prefer to provide pizza, burger, and fries type of foods. There are also sandwiches and wraps, but no gluten free options. And if there were, those options would really need to be pre-packed in a dedicated gluten free area to avoid cross-contamination issues. Wrapping something gluten free in a piece of clingfilm using the same kitchen, and then sticking it in a basket labelled "gluten free" won't cut it, (yeah, most of my local coffee shops still do this).

With the sheer quantity of people that visit a ski hill, especially in peak/holiday periods, weekends etc, surely there are a good proportion of celiacs skiing that would welcome being able to get, for example, a mug of hot soup or bowl of chilli.

One of my local ski hills can easily have 6,000 people on the slopes on a peak day. If 1 in 133 people in North America suffer from celiac disease, then that's quite a few skiers who might welcome the opportunity to purchase gluten free food.

There are many gluten free food manufacturers that make products that lend themselves very easily to long term storage or freezing. So it's not an impossible task for the ski hills to accommodate some gluten free food options—they just need the desire to do so.

Perhaps if enough people contact the Food & Beverage managers at their local ski hills it might get some attention. It sure would be nice to warm up with a steaming hot bowl of chilli, or soup, and leave the space in my backpack just for trail mix and chocolate.