Coeliac Curry Troubles

So it's a Friday night, and it's curry night in our student house in Birmingham. I love a good curry but time and time again I am faced with the dilemma of not having a clue what is gluten-free or not. For instance, a poppadom.. I've always believed that they were made with a light rice flour and therefore eaten them in abundance, but have recently been told that they do actually include gluten - where is the gluten free poppadom?! Also, the communication about the ingredients normally included in curry sauces is usually very light on the ground with little information about alternatives for allergy sufferers being given. So where does this leave me? On one hand I desperately want to enjoy my favourite dish - chicken tikka masala, but on the other I am completely blind to the affect it might have on me as a coeliac. I think for the time being I'll let my heart instead of my head lead me on my menu decisions, and maybe invest in gluten-free curry cookbook for next time! 

The good stuff is expensive!

I'm a coeliac, but I'm also a 21 year old student. I can't afford to spend £2.50 on a bag of pasta or £3 on a loaf of bread that will last 3 days and crumble into sawdust as soon as I try to make a sandwich. So I turn to the easy option, ignore my allergy and live as my fellow students do... on vast amounts of reduced crumpets and plain pasta.

Obviously I don't go crazy, I generally don't eat bread as I know it's the worst thing I can have; I also tend to bypass biscuits but some things, like the cheap crisps in the shop, will contain gluten and I get round it by just ignoring the ingredients information. I tell myself daily that once I graduate I'll change, but right here, right now, I'll take the quick and easy option of cheese on toast over half an hour cooking in a grimy, practically condemned kitchen - does this make me a bad person? I don't think so, I think I'm the reality of young people with food allergies, if it's not going to have bad side effects immediately, I'm happy to play the ignorance card.

It's a constant internal battle that one day I hope I'll win, but who wouldn't pick chicken nuggets after a night out when the alternative is waiting until you get home and having a rice cracker!