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"gluten Free" Items That "got You"

NorthernElf

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Larry Gessner Newbie
Larry Gessner
Posted

In researching this to learn more I have come across many, many complaints from the public with restaurants and coffee shops that cant seem to get it that cross contamination is a real problem. We live in a small town and I am sure that every other small town is dealing with trying to provide a gluten free food ( without doing the right things)

When it comes to the big companies it seems like they aren't doing their homework when creating the products.

Does the medical field have any way to rate a person's gluten intolerance as to severity? It sounds as if this all becomes trial and error after a person has been diagnosed.  I am interested in this because I would like all of my gluten intolerant friends to be able to live a normal life so I appreciate forums like this where people can share ideas. Perhaps the certification standards for gluten free facilities and the people in research and development need more training. 

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kareng Grand Master
kareng
Posted
7 hours ago, Larry Gessner said:

In researching this to learn more I have come across many, many complaints from the public with restaurants and coffee shops that cant seem to get it that cross contamination is a real problem. We live in a small town and I am sure that every other small town is dealing with trying to provide a gluten free food ( without doing the right things)

When it comes to the big companies it seems like they aren't doing their homework when creating the products.

Does the medical field have any way to rate a person's gluten intolerance as to severity? It sounds as if this all becomes trial and error after a person has been diagnosed.  I am interested in this because I would like all of my gluten intolerant friends to be able to live a normal life so I appreciate forums like this where people can share ideas. Perhaps the certification standards for gluten free facilities and the people in research and development need more training. 

non Celiac gluten sensitivity can vary, I suppose.  celiac disease is always " severe".  Less than 20 ppm has been established as the highest amount of accidental gluten that may be safe.  But  we aim for 0.  

 

I don't really understand your comments about " the certification standards for gluten free facilities".  If the facility is certified, they must meet the standards of the certifying entity.  Some are less than 10 ppm -so stricter than the law requires.  

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Larry Gessner Newbie
Larry Gessner
Posted

One of the problems faced with any gluten free facility or any facility that is allergen free, is that employees that work there may not be aware that they are contaminating the products. this came to light during a conversation with an inspector who had relayed an incident where an allergen free facility was being inspected and during that inspection the inspector decided to check the trash in a packaging room. To the inspectors surprise there was a half eaten snickers bar in the trash. The entire facility was shut down and an investigation revealed that one of the employees was starving and snuck the candy bar into the packaging room. No one witnessed this, but to be safe the owner did a voluntary recall  of all the product that was packaged that day and a through cleaning of the facility had to be done. So my point is that even with the best measures in place someone still violated a stand fast rule with no regard for the people who would consume that product. These are the kind of things I put into our training so that employees know that if you violate a rule like that you might cause someone to become ill or die from them being exposed to an allergen. Everyone who works at a food facility is trained in allergen management. What I believe should be done is more examples of recalls shared and the consequences that the contamination caused. 

Just wearing gloves only separates the skin from the product. If a worker is sweating and they run their hand across their face, they deposit their sweat onto the glove and that possibly gets transferred to the product. We all do involuntary things like this until we are made aware of the problems they pose.

Since I work in a food industry, I have a concern when I read all of the problems associated with Celiac afflicted people experiencing gluten exposure from supposedly gluten free products.  This problem needs to be addressed on a larger scale.

I listened to a podcast the other night from a woman who is celiac and she will not purchase any pre-packaged gluten free mixes because she cant trust them. This problem is new to me and I am trying to understand where the root of the problem is so that if there is anything I can do to help, I make it part of what we do at our plant.

I realize I have a lot to learn and my goal is to find a solution that works for you and everyone who is afflicted by this.

 

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    • Anmol
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      Thanks this is helpful. Couple of follow -ups- that critical point till it stays silent is age dependent or dependent on continuing to eat gluten. In other words if she is on gluten-free diet can she stay on silent celiac disease forever?    what are the most cost effective yet efficient test to track the inflammation/antibodies and see if gluten-free is working . 
    • trents
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      By trents · Posted

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    • trents
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      Welcome to the forum community, @ekelsay! Yes, your tTG-IGA score is strongly positive for celiac disease. There are other antibody tests that can be run when diagnosing celiac disease but the tTG-IGA is the most popular with physicians because it combines good sensitivity with good specificity, and it is a relatively inexpensive test to perform. The onset of celiac disease can happen at any stage of life and the size of the score is not necessarily an indicator of the progress of the disease. It is likely that you you experienced onset well before you became aware of symptoms. It often takes 10 years or more to get a diagnosis of celiac disease after the first appearance of symptoms. In my case, the first indicator was mildly elevated liver enzymes that resulted in a rejection of my blood donation by the Red Cross at age 37. There was no GI discomfort at that point, at least none that I noticed. Over time, other lab values began to get out of norm, including decreased iron levels. My PCP was at a complete loss to explain any of this. I finally scheduled an appointment with a GI doc because the liver enzymes concerned me and he tested me right away for celiac disease. I was positive and within three months of gluten free eating my liver enzymes were back to normal. That took 13 years since the rejection of my blood donation by the Red Cross. And my story is typical. Toward the end of that period I had developed some occasional diarrhea and oily stool but no major GI distress. Many celiacs do not have classic GI symptoms and are "silent" celiacs. There are around 200 symptoms that have been associated with celiac disease and many or most of them do not involve conscious GI distress. Via an autoimmune process, gluten ingestion triggers inflammation in the villous lining of the small bowel which damages it over time and inhibits the ability of this organ to absorb the vitamins and minerals in the food we ingest. So, that explains why those with celiac disease often suffer iron deficiency anemia, osteoporosis and a host of other vitamin and mineral deficiency related medical issues. The villous lining of the small bowel is where essentially all of our nutrition is absorbed. So, yes, anemia is one of the classic symptoms of celiac disease. One very important thing you need to be aware of is that your PCP may refer you to a GI doc for an endoscopy/biopsy of the small bowel lining to confirm the results of the blood antibody testing. So, you must not begin gluten free eating until that is done or at least you know they are going to diagnose you with celiac disease without it. If you start gluten free eating now there will be healing in the villous lining that will begin to take place which may compromise the results of the biopsy.
    • Anmol
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      Hello all- my wife was recently diagnosed with Celiac below are her blood results. We are still absorbing this.  I wanted to seek clarity on few things:  1. Her symptoms aren't extreme. She was asked to go on gluten free diet a couple years ago but she did not completely cut off gluten. Partly because she wasn't seeing extreme symptoms. Only bloating and mild diarrhea after a meal full of gluten.  Does this mean that she is asymptomatic but enormous harm is done with every gram of gluten.? in other words is amount gluten directly correlated with harm on the intestines? or few mg of gluten can be really harmful to the villi  2. Why is she asymptomatic?  3. Is Gliadin X safe to take and effective for Cross -contamination or while going out to eat?  4. Since she is asymptomatic, can we sometimes indulge in a gluten diet? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deamidated Gliadin, IgG - 64 (0-19) units tTG IgA -  >100 (0-3) U/ml tTG IgG - 4   (0-5) Why is this in normal range? Endomysial Antibody - Positive  Immunoglobulin A - 352 (87-352) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks for help in advance, really appreciate! 
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