Where gluten hides on food labels
Thanks to the labeling laws getting more and more clear there are fewer places where gluten can hide in the list of ingredients. For example, food starch is a common ambiguous term that may or may not mean wheat. In addition, sometimes a company will use a strain of wheat that isn’t as common or that makes it sound fancy and may cause you to question if it is wheat or not (such as “Einkorn” or “Semolina” or “Triticale”). Of course you also want to avoid any barley, rye, or oat products.
Watch out for Aisan dishes as they often contain a lot of ingredients and the soy sauce may be hidden in the middle of the list. I have found that in general Thai and Indian food are less likely than Chinese to have wheat in them. You still want to read the labels or check with the kitchen every time.
The longer the list of ingredients, the more processing that probably happened to produce that “food” product and the less healthy it probably is for you. That is a good general rule around label-reading.
For people with gluten-intolerance they can be a little more lax on label reading, if they choose to and are willing to accept the consequences. For those with Celiac, they really need to be clear about the safety of a food before they purchase it. For example:
¨ Vitamin E is sometimes processed with wheat germ oil. This is a concern not only for Vitamin E supplements but also shortenings which may contain Vitamin E.
¨ Shortening: See the Vitamin E explanation above.
¨ Spices: Straight spices are pretty much always gluten-free because it is just the spice as the only ingredient. For spice blends you may run into gluten as an additive.
¨ Pudding: May contain barley malt for flavoring and/or wheat starch.
¨ Cereal: May contain any number of wheat grains and/or non-gluten-free oats; may contain malt flavoring.
¨ Rice Syrup: May contain barley enzymes.
¨ Brewer’s Yeast: often processed with wort, a fermented barley.
¨ MSG: May contain wheat, especially if produced outside the United States.
¨ HVP/TVP Hydrogenated Vegetable Protein or Textured Vegetable Protein*
¨ Natural Flavor*
¨ Stabilizers*
¨ Fillers*
¨ Vegetable Gums*
¨ Monoglycerides*
¨ Diglycerides*
¨ Modified Food Starch*
* By “ingredient” alone you cannot tell what the raw materials are so you cannot determine if gluten is or is not an ingredient. Contact the company, especially if you are highly sensitive or have Celiac.
Cross contamination is also a concern since the same equipment may be used to process both gluten and non-gluten products. If you contact the company they will be able to tell you if a product is produced in a dedicated gluten-free facility or what kind of cleaning the equipment goes through.
It is important to stay on top of labels and any concerns you may have. Food manufacturers can change their ingredients with every batch if they choose to so you always need to read labels. Manufacturers are recognizing the purchasing power of those with gluten-intolerance and Celiac Disease and they are getting much better about voluntary labeling.
September 28 2009 09:00 am | celiac and gluten free and gluten intolerance and shopping