I've got the real deal, I'm a bit more sensitive than most, and have been living with its cost and consequences post-diagnosis for roughly five years now.
The advice given thus far is mostly good, and what I would advocate... that is, changing your diet, not trying to replicate the SAD (Standard American Diet) diet in gluten-free form. That will go a long way to saving on the food budget.
That said, some of the advice given about just buying cheap bulk grains and the like such as with Ketchup and Dycker1978's advice highlights the disconnect between understanding the difference between a voluntary gluten-free diet and Celiac disease and illustrates how little
voluntary "gluten free" eaters actually know and understand. I've lost track of the people I've met over the years who claimed to have gluten sensitivities and were on "gluten free" diets that were just
loaded with gluten in their diet. They always claim how "easy" it is to eat gluten free, and don't get all the fuss, too. Sadly, no... you
don't get it and you
won't get it until you know what it's like to have your small intestine swell up and shut down, leaving food to
rot in your stomach for days until you have to throw it back up because it won't pass through your inflamed guts that feel like you're trying to digest razor blades with... and sometimes when you're
really lucky? The inflammation from an exposure is so bad that you can't even pass
water for a day or more.
I'm sorry for being graphic, but I think it's necessary to communicate what we're dealing with here.
The best way and closest analog to describe the restrictions for gluten with Celiac is something that probably isn't readily understood outside of Jewish communities: very strict, Lubavitch level definitions of
treif and kashrut (kosher) restrictions, where practically just waving kosher food over a pan that's fried a ham steak in it invalidates that food's kashrut status. I'm exaggerating slightly for effect, but it's not far from the truth.
Gluten == treif. For example, I deliberately experimented early on with various foods (mostly rice crackers) where the registered parts per million cross-contamination of wheat present in the product was listed on the package, and I found that I had gluten intolerance reactions to the presence of wheat cross-contamination down to around the 15-20 PPM level. All it takes is
one molecule of wheat gluten out of every
50-65 thousand molecules ingested in any one given portion of food to trigger a gluten reaction that makes my gut feel like I've gone a few rounds as a punching bag.
Thankfully, many with Celiac aren't near as sensitive as myself, but it highlights the very
serious issue of cross contamination. People with Celiac can't ignore the labels and just buy products that should be gluten free, because the issue of cross-contamination is a very serious one - especially with grains. It's not enough that it's just rice. It needs to be rice that wasn't from a paddy next to a wheat field, and wasn't stored in a silo or packaged in a facility that handles wheat. That labeling of "gluten free" is critical and a life saver in some instances for us, and the Certified Gluten Free seal is one that can be reasonably trusted as they have considerably stricter requirements for approval. It's true that the FDA has set guidelines requiring testing below a certain threshold for any company to legally mark their food gluten free, but the standard is too lax for at least a third of the Celiac community (IIRC) with a definition of gluten free that still allows enough gluten through to make folks like myself sick.
Here's a great example: corn tortillas and corn chips. Mission brand tortillas and chips proudly boast in huge copy on the packaging that they're "gluten free", and under the FDA guidelines, they legally
are. However, they're not gluten free
enough for me to safely eat their products, they make me
sick. Another brand, La Banderita, has the phrase "gluten free" in much smaller letters on its packaging and it's not a major selling point, but I
can eat them safely.
I can't safely eat out and off of "gluten free" restaurant menus in places that serve baked goods and anything breaded, I can't do bulk items, I can't just buy
any rice, or
any beans, prepackaged or not, I have to bag produce and thoroughly re-wash any vegetation that isn't in sealed bags sourced from general grocery stores and ensure there's no cross-contamination that can be picked up off of check-out lines. Food has to be processed in gluten free facilities for me to eat and handled carefully even while procuring, and that just comes at a price premium. Eating truly gluten free when nearly wholly dependent upon the modern food industry just costs
more. It sucks, but it's the reality of this auto-immune disorder.
The thing is, the gluten free label is important for Celiac sufferers, and there's an added cost associated with ensuring that the product is
legitimately gluten free. It's the cost of preventing cross-contamination with one of the most common ingredients in all processed food in our food supply in North America. Not all "gluten free" tags are clearly equal (nor is the definition of "gluten free"), but all are
necessary for the genuine Celiac sufferer (
which is interestingly currently being proposed as 1:141 Americans by the NIH).
This is what you're dealing with, and the consequences of not being strict gluten free when dealing with it means a dramatically increased risks of malnutrition and several forms of gut cancer longer term. If you truly love someone with Celiac, don't be a miser with the food budget, and don't mess with their food supply in dangerous ways. Go off the beaten path, introduce different styles of food from cultures that don't use wheat to meal plan, use more whole ingredients, but don't shop with the idea that just because "wheat" isn't an ingredient (even with whole foods) that there isn't the risk for wheat cross-contamination, and
this is where the "gluten free" label begins to have value.