People who live gluten free are cautioned to “read every ingredient label on every package that you purchase”. I wish I had a gluten free doughnut for every time I have dispensed this information. Of course, this caution is meaningless when the ingredient list is written in jargon that is meaningless to anyone with the possible exception a professional food scientist. Perhaps these suggestions will help:

Wheat is considered one of the eight major allergens. Products containing wheat must be labeled appropriately. Looking for the word ‘wheat’ in the ingredients list will help us reject most products that are unacceptable on the gluten free diet. All we need to be concerned with is barley and rye. This short cut will not work perfectly if the product is produced outside the United States or if there is reason to believe that the product is mislabeled.

Read this article from Gluten Free Living magazine’s website  titled “Top Ten Ingredients That you Really Don’t Need to Worry About“. Keep in mind that there are some gluten free experts would disagree with this information. FYI, I agree completely with what is said in  the article.

PLEASE NOTE: When I first wrote this article, I made a mistake that totally changed the meaning of the last paragraph. What you have just read is the correct version.

Here is another article on the same subject. Times change. New discoveries lead about all subjects — including our gluten free diet.

You may find one or more of these terms on an ingredients list. Click on one of the words and you will be taken to an article that I have written about that ingredient.

annatto | caramel coloring | chocolate | emulsifiers | hydolized protein

maltodextrin | modified food starch |

MSG | sprouted grains | vinegar |

Like much of the content of this website, this is a work in progress. I will be adding more material. In the meantime, I have linked this article to our power page “The Gluten Free Diet”.