Gluten Cross Contamination From Cereal

[Guest alex j]

I was wondering if anyone has noticed any problems from cross contamination in breakfast cereals. I'm worried that there must be so much gluten dust in the air and on equipment at cereal plants that this is likely to be a problem.

My 6 year old son has been eating Fruity Pebbles and Dora the Explorer Cinnamon Stars lately. He was diagnosed with celiac in February of this year. He didn't have any obvious symptoms except for problems with blood sugar control (he has had diabetes since Sept 2003). He was overwhelmingly positive on both blood work and biopsy and clearly he is healing because his blood sugar control has got much, much better. However he still doesn't have obvious symptoms when he is exposed to gluten. Sometimes he will get tummy ache, but often not. Nothing else happens. This means I have to rely entirely on the information given out by companies and the experiences of others to figure out what is truly gluten free. He also has food allergies, to which he reacts obviously, and I know that many things that *should* be OK aren't for unknown reasons.

Alex

[Mango04]

The one thing I know for sure about those cereals is that they're full of processed sugar and artificial ingredients and preservatives, which can all be harmful regardless of gluten content. I know that stuff can be hard to avoid though.

If you're worried about CC in packaged foods, you might stick to whole, single ingredient foods for a while, and see if you're son improves any. In my experience, that is the best way to remain healthy and completely avoid CC. You could also buy from companies such as Enjoy Life, which does not use any gluten or food allergens in any of their products. You might have to go through a bit of trial and error before you find food that you're confident about feeding to your son. You can't lose with the single ingredient whole foods though....

[Guest alex j]

I agree, Fruity Pebbles are not what I want him to be eating. No preservatives (who needs it with all that sugar) but the food colorings.... However I just want there to be one or two products that you can buy in a regular grocery store that I can tell my sisters in law about, and that he can eat with his zillions of cousins when we are visiting. They used to love to bake for all the kids but I haven't found a recipe that he can eat and they can bake yet.

There are a couple of relatively healthy cereals (Rice Twice, Erewhon Brown Rice Crisps, Perky O's) that he can eat, but he doesn't like them, they aren't easily available where my family lives, and they get very expensive when you are buying for that many children.

Generally he eats everything home made from whole ingredients, partly because I want him to, and partly because between the celiac and the allergies there is rarely any other option.

Alex

[Mango04]

Hmmm...maybe others will chime in but I'm pretty sure the larger companies who process those cereals are pretty good about CC. I know there's about a billion people on this board who are currenlty enjoying Dora the Explorer

[lorka150]

I have never not seen Nature's Path / Envirokidz varieties at the normal grocer. Have you tried those?

[BRUMI1968]

I agree, Fruity Pebbles are not what I want him to be eating. No preservatives (who needs it with all that sugar) but the food colorings.... However I just want there to be one or two products that you can buy in a regular grocery store that I can tell my sisters in law about, and that he can eat with his zillions of cousins when we are visiting. They used to love to bake for all the kids but I haven't found a recipe that he can eat and they can bake yet.

There are a couple of relatively healthy cereals (Rice Twice, Erewhon Brown Rice Crisps, Perky O's) that he can eat, but he doesn't like them, they aren't easily available where my family lives, and they get very expensive when you are buying for that many children.

Generally he eats everything home made from whole ingredients, partly because I want him to, and partly because between the celiac and the allergies there is rarely any other option.

Alex

do you have the Erewhon crispy rice with fruit in it? I used to love that when I drank soy milk (I quit soy milk and switched to rice milk and now don't like it as well, but it is good!)

[hez]

I know fruity and cocoa pebbles are Kraft products. I am confident in their limiting cc issues. I know many people on this board have run into cc issues with other products (such as Amy's) but I have not. You could always call the company and ask about their cleaning policy.

Hez