Apple Apps - Gluten Free Scanner & Find me gluten-free for restaurants.

[Gail Gentry]

Apple has a Gluten Free Scanner App that you can scan the bar code on products and if the item is in the database it will tell you if it is gluten free, contains gluten, etc. Apple also has another app called Find me gluten-free and it pulls up restaurants in which ever area you are in that have Gluten Free food. I have had celiac disease for 32 years and am just learning about these apps from a friend. Yesterday had to have another endoscopy and colonoscopy and was telling the doctor and 7 nurses about these apps and they all work in Gastroenterology and NONE of them had ever heard about either of these apps to know before and told me good to know. Just wanted to share as these have been very helpful to me.

[plumbago]

Thanks Gail! It's great to know about this, but it will be important to verify that they are effective and accurate, so please do check back in with any updated info you have.

I'm not surprised about the GI staff. There's a lot of money in our colons, and they need to be scoped to get it out. IOW, I don't think there's much real curiosity about the conditions they are treating. Mostly they are very concerned about not killing us and billing.

[trents]

Gail, these kind of apps have been around for years and they have them for android phones as well. Their helpfulness depends on how well the data bases are maintained. Some of the apps actually scan the barcodes of products on the shelf to give you a report on the ingredients but more recent ingredient reporting requirements have largely made that function unnecessary. That is, if you can read the fine print on the labels.

[Scott Adams]

Overall I think it's better to learn to read and understand ingredient labels, which often change much faster than an app can maintain, and as far as restaurants go--buyer beware--personnel changes at restaurants happen so often that it's basically a crap shoot. Someone might go into a restaurant one night and safely order from a gluten-free menu and then report a wonderful experience on the app, while another might go the next night and get sick (perhaps a different chef that night...maybe just really busy?). 

If you eat outside your home, you may want to consider taking AN-PEP enzymes with a meal, as there have been many studies done on AN-PEP which show that it can break down small amounts of gluten in the stomach, before it reaches your intestines. One of our sponsors here, GliadinX is the original brand to include AN-PEP, and has links to the studies on AN-PEP their site:
https://www.gliadinx.com/publications