How to avoid gluten

It is easy enough to avoid gluten containing foods such as bread, cakes and cookies.

But have you considered what is in your gravy powder, salad cream, steak seasoning? How do you know if other food such as seasonings, dressings, your breakfast cereals, have suspect ingredients in them or whether they are safe to eat on a gluten free diet?

Do you know how to read food labels and how to discover the hidden sources of gluten?

Avoid gluten in disguise

You should avoid all of the following ingredients as they are, or could be, dangerous!

Wheat flour Rye flour

Flavourings (suspect even if it says natural) Fillers

Edible or Food Starch (Maize starch is fine) Seasonings (suspect)

Binder Rusk

Bran Wheatgerm

Wheat protein Wholegrain

Thickening Wheat starch

Glucose syrup (often made from wheat) Malt

Matzo meal Spelt (an old form of wheat)

Brown rice syrup (often made from barley) imitation seafood

HVP (Hydrolyzed vegetable protein) TVP (Textured vegetable protein)

Caramel color Dextrin

How To Avoid Gluten

Check with the Manufacturer

So what do you do if a product lists a suspect ingredient?

Avoid it in case?
Take the risk?

Your safest option is to try phoning the manufacturer for more information.

Tell them you need to avoid gluten in your diet and ask if the product is safe for you to eat.

Some companies will be very helpful, and may even send you a list of all their gluten free products. Others may not be so knowledgeable, especially if they use bought-in ingredients.

But remember that manufacturers can, and do, change their ingredients often.

Always check the label even if they have told you in the past that their food is safe to eat.

Allergy Advice

Here in the UK more products are including an Allergy Advice section on the label. This will tell you if the food contains wheat, gluten, nuts or ingredients that can cause common food allergies.

Check for this section before you read through all the ingredients, as it could save you time when shopping.

What happens if the allergy label states that the food has been prepared in a facility that uses gluten in other items?

Unless the producer is extremely careful and cleans the equipment thoroughly in between batches, traces of gluten can remain to contaminate the supposedly safe food.

Wheat flour can also float in the air and settle on foods that should have been safe. If you are very sensitive you will need to avoid gluten contamination by giving these products a miss.

Dr Christine Farlow gives some useful information about reading food labels on her Healthy Eating Advisor site.

Avoid Gluten 01

When Portion Size is Misleading

Just because a normal sized chocolate bar is gluten free, it does not mean that the snack sized ones or large bars are!

Often different ingredients are used, or a different method is employed in the production of different portion sizes.

The manufacturer may use such a tiny amount of a gluten containing food that it does not have to be listed. For example wheat flour can be used to stop sweets or candy sticking to the conveyor belt.

If you need to avoid gluten then it means ALL gluten, including this tiny amount.

Even if you suffer no obvious ill effects, it can still cause you damage!

What happened to me!

Let me tell you a little story. I attended a two day craft show one summer and just across the aisle was a home-made fudge stand. I was tempted so on the first day I went over and checked with the vendor that my favourite flavour was gluten free. He was very helpful and showed me the ingredient list and reassured me that he made the fudge himself and was certain that it wouldn't cause me any harm.

I decided to take a chance and treated myself. The fudge was gorgeous and I suffered no ill effects. Fantastic!

So, being greedy, the next day I went back for more. Bad move! Within half an hour I was racing for the toilet block at the other end of the field. What had happened? The ingredients hadn't changed overnight had they?

I checked again and we struggled to discover what had caused the reaction. Then we realised that this time the vendor had served my fudge with gloves he had used for other confectionary. That was enough to contaminate the sweets and cause me problems.

After that I always ask for my unwrapped foods to be handled with fresh gloves. This can get me some exasperated looks but I would rather be safe than sorry!

Return to top of how to avoid gluten

Check out the list of gluten free foods that you can enjoy

Return to Home Page