Gluten-Free Snacks

Celiac.com 04/02/2021 - On a gluten-free outing with nursing students, they presented an array of snacks that were listed as "gluten-free". After careful review and sampling, we came to the conclusion that fancy packaging costs more than the product inside! That means sampling is costly so healthy meals are better for a healthy bank account. Here is a summation of the gluten-free snacks sampled (GF labels mean it contains less than 20 ppm gluten).

Organic Crunchy Rice Rollers = various flavors and all the GF ingredients you could want BUT they were so dry that extra liquid was needed to eat just 1/2 roll.

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Banana Vital " Simply Bananas" and "Simply Bananas + Guava" tasted good and was a good source of potassium, folate and magnesium for 90 calories and 17 grams sugar.

Real Fruit Yo Yo Mango 100% fruit rolls labeled " absolutely nothing else" were a blend of apples, pears, and mango rolled into 2 chewy fruit swirls at 8 grams sugar, 60 calories.

In the same snack aisle were:
Keto Crisps 100% artisan cheese "from family farm cows that are ethically cared for by local farmers" which made us think that the package message was more important than ingredients, taste or cost. Ingredients were pastuerized milk, salt, microbial congulant cheese cultures but I could not determine if with the label was accurate  indicating 2 servings because they disappeared so fast . 7 crisps = 160 calories.

Skinny Jimmy "clean protein bars" in chocolate peanut butter and "wake & focus" cookies 'N cream. The "wake & focus" bars featured guarana as a caffeine source + omega 3 fatty acids and MCT oil. The 21 g "clean protein" bar consisted of  soy protein isolate and pea protein GF cookies which is a highly processed protein source. These snacks led to a discussion of what other ingredients in processed foods should people with celiac disease and gluten-sensitivity need to consider.

Maltodextrin is a thickener produced from corn, rice, wheat or potato starch for use in shakes, sugar-free sweeteners and diet products. It has been shown to increase blood glucose and suppresses antimicrobial defenses in the gut.

Guar Gum is from guar beans in India and Pakistan. It is called galactomannan on labels and is used widely throughout the food industry - ice cream, yogurt, sauces, kefir, almond milk, coconut milk. As a thickener and stabilizer, it is used as a binding agent in making tablets as well as a thickener in lotions and creams. Guar can cause increased abdominal discomfort and gas.

Lectins are another carbohydrate binding protein that promotes inflammation in the gut. Foods that commonly contain toxic lectins are: pea family (peanuts, pigeon peas, soybeams, kidney beans, mung beans, lima beans, lentils, chick peas, carob, green and yellow peas). Green beans and snow peas can be tolerated since they are immature proteins with minor amounts of lectins. Grains are seeds from grasses- barley, oats, kamut, spelt, teff, wheat, millet, rye- all have detrimental effects of lectins and are a factor in the development of celiac disease or gluten sensitivity.