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Monday, February 24, 2014

Gluten Free Lists & Labels

I have seen some interesting lists on bembu.com but the gluten free one made me laugh out loud - and sigh a little too.

The thing about gluten free being a fad is that so many things are being labeled as "gluten free" when there is no chance that they contained gluten in the first place. I've seen bottles of water that are labeled "gluten free" as well as packages of steak.   Really, the cow isn't made of wheat?  Go figure!

The bembu list starts with beans and then goes to beef before listing chicken.....yeah, those are wheat. It includes milk, cheese, vegetables...... all common sense items.

A better list is one of things that CONTAIN gluten where you aren't expecting it.  I once got a package of fruit snacks from Aldi's.  I expected corn syrup and was dumb enough not to read the ingedients since every other package of fruit snacks I've ever had contained corn syrup.  These were not made with corn syrup, but rather with wheat syrup.  Which until that reaction, I didn't even know existed.


My son worked at IHOP, he says their omelettes are made with pancake batter.  You can get them with real eggs, but that annoys the cooks.  At least at the one he worked at.  So, an omelette - which shouldn't have gluten at all - is heavy on the wheat stuff.



Some candies - like Twizzlers.  As a matter of fact, most licorice that I've seen has it.  Shame, because I do like licorice.



Chewable vitamin supplements.

and so on and so on and so on.

Lists are great, but it's an ever changing world of ingredients.  Read the label if you want to be sure.  And if the label isn't clear - avoid it unless you are willing to risk it.  Fine if you have allergies like mine, but for someone who has celiac disease, it's a much more serious matter.  I wish companies would clearly label gluten instead of slapping the "gluten free" label on everything that would have never contained it in the first place!

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