Gluten free food

FOR several years I have had repeated requests to write a cookbook with delicious recipes for coeliacs people who can't eat the gluten found in wheat, barley and rye.

So now our book Healthy Gluten-free Eating is in the shops. My co-author Rosemary Kearney, originally a student and later a teacher at the Ballymaloe Cookery School, has been a coeliac all her life. She and I spent over a year collaborating and researching, egged on by the students on the annual coeliacs' courses at the school.

The number of coeliacs and people with wheat intolerance is growing at an alarming rate. At present 7 per 1,000 of the population have been diagnosed as coeliacs.