5/10/07    What foods are gluten free? There is no simple answer to this vital question. But here are some ideas that may help:

  If you ask the Google search engine to define “gluten free food”, it will respond “a product is classified as gluten free if it carries an appropriate mark, symbol or declaration to that effect”. That definition is a very honest answer, but it certainly doesn't offer much help

• there are thousands of gluten free products that do not carry that “mark, symbol or declaration” but are in fact gluten free. If we limit ourselves to foods labeled “gluten free”, our diet will be dull, repetitive, and extremely expensive.
• in most cases, consumers do not have access to those marks or symbols.
• we can’t be sure (or even reasonably certain)  that the person who originated that mark or symbols is using our favorite definition of gluten free.
• almost all processed food contain more than one ingredient. We must read and understand every item on every ingredients list. You will never see the words “gluten free” in an ingredients list. We need to learn the jargon. We must be able to spot “hidden glutens”

  The foods list published by the University of Utah Health Science Center is a great place to start in your quest for a personal gluten free food list. An excellent article titled “Cooking Gluten Free and More” is posted at Special Eats.Com. Pay special attention to the section titled “Cross Contamination and Hidden Sources of Gluten”

• Cross Contamination. Here’s an example that explains this concept. Potatoes are vegetables and therefore gluten free. However, if they are fried in oil that is also used to cook breaded fish or onion rings, they will pick up enough gluten to make them unacceptable on our diet.
• Hidden Glutens. You will probably never see the word “gluten” in an ingredients list. You will see the word “malt”, which is made from barley.

  Celiac.com publishes a “Safe” list and a “Forbidden” list that will help you identify the hidden glutens. When I shop, I carry copies of both lists as well as a magnifying glass. The ingredients lists are a legal requirement, but I suspect that very few package designers actually want you to read them.