Hi, Iím Sarah Morehouse. Your first gluten free grocery shopping trip
is likely to be an eye-opening experience. I wanted to give you an idea of the kinds
of things you need to look out for in terms of hidden gluten ingredients and gluten cross-contamination. So I went to the Niskayuna Co-op, mainly because
I thought they would be less likely to chase me out of the store for taking pictures of
their shelves. Now obviously, unless youíre in the gluten
free product aisle, you can just roll on by any of the bread and baked goods. Sadly, you also need to keep walking past
the samples table. It used to be the highlight of my shopping
trip, but now itís verboten. Samples may or may not have gluten in them,
but usually thereís pretzels or crackers or bread for dipping somewhere around there,
and you canít be sure that crumbs didnít get in. I used to buy everything in bulk ñ rice,
nuts, trail mix, dried fruit, baking soda, everything. Not anymore. Flour is sold in bulk too, and it dusts up. The flour dust settles down on everything
in the area, so the bulk food is probably all contaminated.
Even if that didnít happen, people take the
scoop or tongs out of one container and use it in another container. Theyíre not supposed to, but they do. Meat! Meat should be safe, right! Well, yes and no. I have seen arguments online where people
who are sort of gluten free fanatics insist that you canít eat meat if the animal ate
wheat while it was alive. This is just not true. Any gluten that the animal consumed would
have been broken down into tiny, harmless amino acids before being incorporated into
its tissues. On the other hand, there are several ways
for gluten contamination to be introduced into the meat before you buy it. Ham is often contaminated with gluten because
of the brining and curing process.
There are some brands that are safe though. One of the gluten free brands of ham is Jones
ham. Deli meat often has gluten in it because of
wheat based fillers. Unfortunately, anything thatís cut on the
same slicer will have gluten in it too, because itís impossible for the deli to clean their
slicer to eliminate cross-contamination in between every kind of lunchmeat that they
slice. Boars Head products are all gluten free, but
if you want to buy them sliced, you need to ask the deli manager if they have a dedicated
gluten free slicer. Sausages may have gluten in them because of
the fillers used in them. If several kinds of sausage are made, some
with gluten ingredients, some without, you will need to ask the meat manager whether
the gluten free sausages are made on dedicated gluten free equipment.
The same thing applies to ground beef and
turkey. It goes without saying that you shouldnít
buy meats that have been marinated, stuffed, or breaded. But aside from that, meat is gluten free. Milk and eggs will be gluten free even if
the cow or chicken consumed gluten. However, there are some dairy products that
may have gluten. For instance, cheese is almost always gluten
free, but bleu cheese and Roquefort are not, because the cultures that are used to make
them are grown on a wheat substrate. Grated and shredded cheeses may have modified
food starch in them to keep them from sticking and clumping, so check the label. Processed cheese may have modified food starch,
maltodextrin, or malt flavoring in them. In particular, EZ Cheeze is not safe. Cheese slices and wedges may get gluten cross-contamination
if theyíre cut on the same slicer as something that had gluten, so ask the deli manager.
Most yogurt is safe, but for some reason,
Dannon is not. Also, watch out for yogurt that has granola
to mix in. Even if you do not open the granola packet,
the factory probably did not keep the two ingredients strictly separate. Other than that, dairy products should be
gluten free. Produce is safe! Fruits and vegetables are all naturally gluten
free and so are the food-grade waxes used to preserve some of them. And even if a little flour landed on your
apple somehow, you should be washing it thoroughly before you eat it anyway. Now onto the aisles of products in boxes,
bags, jars, and cans. You will need to read all the ingredients
on every one of them, so donít go to the store when itís busy.
The first time, go when the department managers
will be around. Try a weekday morning if you can. After you have shopped a few times, you will
start to have an idea what products are ok for you, and then you can shop whenever is
convenient for you. You should be keeping a list of some sort. I keep mine in a shopping list app on my smartphone,
but a little notebook would work too. Just keep track of the products that are safe
for you, their prices, what stores you found them at, and whether you like them enough
to buy them again.
Double-check the products on your list every
once in a while. While dedicated gluten free brands wonít
suddenly add gluten, a product that was just incidentally gluten free but was intended
for the mass market may decide to change the formula and add malt flavoring or change from
a corn-based maltodextrin to a wheat based one, and then youíll have a nasty surprise. At the Niskayuna Coop, I took some pictures
of products that you wouldnít necessarily think have gluten in them, but they do. For instance, hereís a can of tomato-based
soup.
It doesnít have noodles in it. But itís got both wheat flour and modified
food starch. Modified food starch isnít necessarily made
from wheat, but it can be, and Progresso probably doesnít even know whether their modified
food starch is gluten free or not. Worse yet, it could be gluten free for one
lot and full of gluten for the next lot. Hereís another one ñ chicken broth concentrate
for cooking.
It has maltodextrin, which is another ingredient
that could be made from wheat or from corn, and youíll never know which. Hereís some boullion with maltodextrin. Why are they putting this stuff in there? Probably to give the bouillon a richer feeling
in the mouth. There are gluten free versions of these products,
and sometimes theyíre not even special diet products. But you need to read the labels to tell. Cornflake breadcrumbs! These look like a nice, safe alternative to
wheat breadcrumbs! But no, the third ingredient is malt flavoring.
Whatís being malted is barley. Barley is one of the gluten grains. Same thing for rice krispies. Itís a rice cereal, so why on earth would
they put wheat in there? Malt flavoring is the third ingredient. If you want gluten free rice krispies, you
have to find the kind in the yellow box. Itís ok, they taste better anyway. I order mine from Amazon.com. Ok, letís look at some condiments. Hereís a barbecue sauce. Modified food starch, which is probably being
used as a thickener in this case. Lucky for me, my favorite Dinosaur Barbecue
sauces are all gluten free. Ranch dressing? Seriously? This is going to make a lot of people very
depressed. But itís thickened with modified food starch. If you really miss it, go to Penzeys Spices
and buy one of their salad dressing mixes. The spice packet has instructions to make
your own Ranch dressing.
You can bring a little bottle of it to the
restaurant in your purse. Or a hip flask. Be creative. No surprise, gravy mix has wheat flour as
its second ingredient, and pure wheat gluten further down the list. What is kind of a surprise is how little actual
beef goes into it. Scary. Bad news for people who like Asian food. Most soy sauce is mostly wheat.
They do make gluten free soy sauce, and thereís
also wheat free tamari, which is like soy sauce but more earthy. And for special snowflakes like me who canít
have wheat or soy, thereís Coconut Aminos. I shamelessly take my bottle of Coconut Aminos
to Mr. Fuji every time I have sushi, and theyíre very nice about it. But you canít count on the restaurant to
make you a dish using wheat free soy sauce, so most of the time, if you want Asian food,
youíll have to make it at home. How heartless are these people, putting gluten
in tea? Tea, the thing we drink when we have a tummy
ache, now some of it gives us a tummy ache. This particular herbal tea is made mainly
of roasted barley. Korean and Japanese green tea sometimes has
barley in it too. Most teas do not have barley or gluten in
them, but you should keep an eye out for flavored teas that taste like baked goods.
They may use barley malt in the flavoring. Speaking of which, the FDA does not require
food manufacturers to disclose what actual flavorings they are using as long as they
say ìnatural flavoringsî or ìartificial flavorings.î Either of those could contain
barley malt, which has gluten. Generally, if it is a product that is aiming
for a caramel or bakery kind of flavor, beware that it might contain barley malt. This is particularly common in flavored coffees. The only kind of coffee Iím aware of that
is always gluten free, even for flavored coffees, is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which also
includes Newmanís Own.
Dunkin Donuts is particularly bad, but for
another reason. Dunkin Donuts buys its coffee beans from farmers
who use the same trucks to transport grains, so the beans are contaminated from the point
of harvest. To all of you who live on Dunkies, I am truly
sorry. Try Stewarts or Cumbies and stick with unflavored
coffee. This, to me, is the most frustrating thing
of all. Ok, delicious chocolate bar, do you or do
you not contain gluten. I just donít know! The company manufactures gluten containing
foods on its equipment, and of course the equipment is cleaned in between, but they
donít go to the effort of doing it well enough to make the product actually gluten freeÖ
or maybe they did, but they donít want to spend the money having batches tested to make
sure.
So for all we know, this could be safe. Or not. Do you want to test it on your own stomach
though? Oats. For years, they thought oats must contain
gluten, or that the oat protein, avenin, was so close to gluten that it made people react. But it actually turned out that oats are usually
grown in rotation with wheat, so that the fields still have a few sprigs of wheat growing
in there, and the wheat gets into the harvested oats. If you want to eat oats, then you need to
buy special gluten free oats, which are about twice as expensive. Mmm Rid-xÖ breakfast of champions. For your septic tank. No really, right on the back of the box, it
warns you that the product dusts up. And then down at the bottom it tells you that
the active ingredient is in a wheat bran carrier. So there you are, trying to flush a box of
Rid-x to make your septic system happy, and you inhale a snootful of wheat dust, which
goes down your throat and gets swallowed.
If you have to use Rid-X, wear a face mask
or make your spouse do it. Toiletries and cosmetics. Please do not eat them. But even if you only use them on your skin
the way youíre supposed to, youíre going to ingest a little of them. Shampoo rinses off down your face in the shower. You put on lipbalm and then lick your lips. You put on face cream or sunblock and then
sweat and it comes down your face. And a lot of products use wheat germ oil because
itís good for skin and hair and it contains Vitamin E.
The good news is that more and
more companies are ditching, or at least clearly labeling their gluten ingredients. There are now many options for gluten free
toiletries and cosmetics. And finally, hereís a box of wheat gluten. You should probably stay away from it. So thank you for joining me for Sneaky Gluten
In The Grocery Store. I havenít even begun to cover all the places
where gluten hides out in seemingly harmless food products, but hopefully this gives you
an idea of what to look for. And just keep in mind that for every product
that I showed you, there is a gluten free alternative out there. Except the box of wheat gluten..
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