gluten-free food in the Philippines
Gluten-free food is relatively unknown on the Philippine Islands. It is actually quite tricky. The population is very friendly, but they are not familiar with glutenfree food. We often went to the more expensive resorts for dinner or lunch, because they have more knowledge there, while we stayed in cheaper hotels.
On our trip we visited the islands of Bohol, Siquijor, Busango and Palawan. See for the complete travel report https://captureplaces.com/filipijnen/
We had downloaded a gluten-free diet card in Tagalog https://www.celiactravel.com/cards/tagalog/
From the Netherlands we brought rice cakes, peanut butter, crackers, a bread, gluten-free soy sauce and a bag of chips. I don’t have a sweet tooth myself, so I don’t miss that. Handy utensils for someone with celiac disease are a spork and a box to take eggs with them.
In the hotels with breakfast I usually only took white rice, fruit and a boiled egg. I don’t like bread so that was fine. We often took some eggs with us as a snack during the day.
I have often eaten fried rice vegatable for lunch or dinner. That is actually a kind of nasi and that seemed the safest to me.
In Bohol on Alona Beach we ate shrimps on the beach and we ate once at Alona Tropical Beach Resort. The fried rice was fine there. This resort is in danger of being taken over by Henann Resorts. So this may no longer exist soon.
In Siquijor we have eaten at the Coco Grove Beach Resort https://www.cocogrovebeachresort.com and at the Baha Bar http://baha-bar.com. That was also fine.
The chef at the resort was also able to make gluten-free fried rice vegetable on Coron. That went well and then we had dinner 4 nights in a row. http://www.cortodelmar.com
You also get lunch on a snorkel tour, but that was quite difficult. I was the first to grab food to prevent cross-contamination. Usually I only grabbed some white rice and vegetables. You want to avoid abdominal problems on a wooden boat.
There was not much gluten-free food in the shops. Sometimes I found rice snacks or natural chips.
When I returned home I had lost about 7 kg, but I didn’t mind. The journey was very rewarding.