Glutened By Celestial Seasonings Tea!

[mimommy]

Hi gang.  I'm so angry I could scream...I accidentally glutened my daughter with a cup of Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea.  I have been at this for a very long time, reading labels diligently, teaching my child as she has grown up to be her own best advocate, and we have literally had not one single glutening issue in more years than I can remember.

Until now.

I recently purchased several boxes of tea by different companies, because it is cold out and we all wanted something warm to drink.  I do check labels diligently, a hard lesson learned for all Celiacs as we know, but I swear, it never even occurred to me that an herbal tea made by a reputable company would add gluten to the mix, so I did not read the ingredients when I purchased this item.  Big mistake.

The tea is called Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride, so that should have been my first clue to check the ingredients, but it also boasts itself to be an herbal tea, which threw me off.  I am embarrassed to say I did check the side label for nutrition content, but I was checking only for carb count, as we only eat sugar free now.  I did not read the ingredient list until last night, and boy am I miffed!  I made myself a cup of the tea last night and it just tasted way too good to not have something questionable in it, like artificial flavoring or corn syrup solids (after not eating sugar or any variation of it for it so long my palette is highly sensitive to sweet tastes).  When I looked at the ingredients it said it contains ROASTED BARLEY.  Roasted barley!  And it did not list any allergens whatsoever!  Ugh...

So I inspected the entire packaging as carefully as I could and nowhere on the front of the packaging did it say it was not a gluten free food, however it did say--way on the bottom of one side where it is very easily overlooked--that it "Contains Gluten".

Well, Dear Celestial Seasonings, you just glutened my kid.  She only drank one cup of the Sugar Cookie tea 4 days ago, and tells me she didn't notice any symptoms, but I can tell you that for the last several days she looked different to me--peaked, pale, circles under the eyes, etc.  I told my husband that it wouldn't surprise me in the least if she had a stuffy nose for the next few days--a sure sign of glutening for her.  The only good news is that she did not get the resulting abdominal pain and symptoms of a high dose of gluten.  But on the other hand, she seems to think that because it didn't affect her that way she can get away with occasional gluten.  Wrong!  I feel like we just lost years and years of hyper-vigilant avoidance and education.

So there it is, a hard lesson re-learned--always, ALWAYS check labels. 

Sigh.  

 

[Adalaide]

I was disappointed by that tea. My husband sent me a pic of the holiday flavors of their teas and I told him to buy all of the herbal ones. When he brought them home and asked which one I wanted I told him the cookie one of course! Then I was like "can you just read the ingredients to me, there isn't any reason to put gluten in tea just because it says cookie on the label but read it anyway." There was an amount of swearing when the second ingredient was barley, but then I told him I would have the sugar plum instead. He rather enjoyed the cookie tea and it smelled divine.

 

FWIW I get different symptoms that last different amounts of time depending on what type of gluten I ingest. The times it has been wheat it has always been about a month, and really bad, really fast. The single time it was barley it wasn't so bad all at once but it was more neuro, and lasted far, far longer. So it's possible that a barley glutening won't be devastating to her, but that doesn't mean that even a trace amount of wheat won't be. Plus, not that it makes it ok, but it isn't like she ate a bunch of barley... she drank water that barley had been in. Not quite so much a hit as straight up eating a spoonful of gluten. Not that anyone wants to see a child suffer, but if she thinks this is an excuse to eat gluten and does cheat hopefully it will hit her with enough to make her seriously rethink that.

[mimommy]

I was disappointed by that tea. My husband sent me a pic of the holiday flavors of their teas and I told him to buy all of the herbal ones. When he brought them home and asked which one I wanted I told him the cookie one of course! Then I was like "can you just read the ingredients to me, there isn't any reason to put gluten in tea just because it says cookie on the label but read it anyway." There was an amount of swearing when the second ingredient was barley, but then I told him I would have the sugar plum instead. He rather enjoyed the cookie tea and it smelled divine.

 

FWIW I get different symptoms that last different amounts of time depending on what type of gluten I ingest. The times it has been wheat it has always been about a month, and really bad, really fast. The single time it was barley it wasn't so bad all at once but it was more neuro, and lasted far, far longer. So it's possible that a barley glutening won't be devastating to her, but that doesn't mean that even a trace amount of wheat won't be. Plus, not that it makes it ok, but it isn't like she ate a bunch of barley... she drank water that barley had been in. Not quite so much a hit as straight up eating a spoonful of gluten. Not that anyone wants to see a child suffer, but if she thinks this is an excuse to eat gluten and does cheat hopefully it will hit her with enough to make her seriously rethink that.

Thank you Adalaide.  I agree, it does seem in my daughter's case that a glutening from wheat is far, far worse symptomatically for her.  But even if she isn't having abdominal symptoms I can always tell just by looking at her if she has had exposure to gluten--something very subtle and very distinct happens to her pallor and the area around her eyes, and she definitely looked that way these past few days.  I almost said something to her at dinner time yesterday (before I discovered the glutening), but she is at an age that she is so darn sensitive to my noticing her that I just kept my concern to myself.  Of course, a few hours later it all made sense when I read that label.  Imagine how mad I was--I had just spent tons of money and 3 long days preparing an entirely gluten free AND ketogenic Thanksgiving meal, then discovered I had messed up so easily.

I'm glad that you had the presence of mind to double check before you consumed it.  I had this unfortunate reminder of why it is soooo important to be vigilant about checking every label first   I've been on top of this for so long perhaps I need a refresher, sort of a renewal of my advocacy license.  I can't believe I was so naïve about this, when I am so hyper vigilant all the time.

I agree that sometimes kids need to learn for themselves...once, when she decided to just go ahead and eat a wheat pastry when I wasn't looking--pain be darned--she got a reminder.   After being symptom free for so long (she was very young when she was diagnosed), I told her maybe she needed that pain as a reminder of why she can't eat those things anymore.  Hardline, yes, but it is how we learn sometimes. 

I told my husband to just take the rest of the box of tea to work with him (with a reminder to tell the two Celiacs he works with not to drink it).

I did go looking around the Celestial Seasonings site and they state very clearly which teas are gluten free, however I did not think that herbal tea bags were a gluten containing product--my bad.  Doh!  I feel horrible about it and hope others won't make this mistake, but I also want to add that the Celestial Seasonings labeling is not at all user friendly.  The disclosure was in small print no where near the actual ingredient list and there was no allergen warning whatsoever, which with my bad eyesight is usually what helps me catch it.  I think that we all need to keep pushing for better labeling and disclosure, especially in regards to non-wheat gluten ingredients such as barley, rye and oats.  Just my two.