WholeFoods Salad Bar

[Ennis-TX]

Was at Whole foods when I saw them putting out fresh bins of lettuce, peppers, and tomatoes (Salad without contamination) and jumped at fixing myself something. I was looking at the other gluten-free options they had and they had a garlic and herb Couscous dish labeled gluten-free (No intention to eat it just thought this was wrong). Now I know in America most Couscous dishes are wheat, so as the flag went up I asked on of the staff behind the counter to look it up, and low and behold it was a wheat based version. Just a reminder to always be watchful and if in doubt insist to be shown the ingredients, and ask about preparation. 

On a side note I know a few years ago you could find rice versions in the store along with millet versions, but I have not seen these in the past year.

[AristotlesCat]

This doesn't surprise me. I used to work at a whole foods (in the fish and meat departments). We had a practice there of putting penko bread crumbs on older fish and frying them then selling them as snacks. This on its own is fine (the fish was still good and the frying made it taste great). But we used the same surface for spreading the penko as we did for filleting and cutting all the fish. In the meat department there were similar practices and quite a bit more use of bread crumbs (for things like certain hamburger). I can tell you first hand, there is no way this counter was cleaned enough to prevent cross contamination with the fish. Anyone who bought fish from us was most certainly getting some gluten in their cut. This was about eight years ago so things may have changed since. But I am pretty wary of whole foods myself these days.