What Do You Do If They Dont Give You A Strait Answer?

[lightningfoot speakin words]

I called post about their fruity pebbles bronto bites and the person said that they will put the dereritive if its from gluten and I said well can you just tell me because I dont really know. Then she got all snappy and had a cow and was like I CANT HELP YOU!! I AM NOT SPOSSED to because I AM A JERK!!

[penguin]

General Mills will clearly list wheat, barley, rye, and oats in the ingredients. They won't hide gluten under natural flavors or anything like that. Sorry you had a bad experience.

[tarnalberry]

The companies that have a policy of clearly listing on labels won't generally tell you about particular items over the phone precisely because of their policy. They've shifted responsibilty to the label - they know their formula's change, so they take accountability at the labeling stage and use their labels to convey consistent information, not customer service representatives who can't know what the label you're looking at says. That means you become responsible for looking for the words "wheat" "barley" "rye" or "oats" on the label.

I kinda like that approach, myself.

[kbtoyssni]

I get annoyed when a company can't give me a straight answer (assuming they're not one of the companies who say that gluten will be on the label) and usually refuse to buy their food. I don't need that kind of hassle and I'd rather give my business to a company who knows what gluten is.

[penguin]

Just so we're on the same page, Post makes the pebbles cereals and is a Kraft company, which means they'll clearly list wheat, barley, rye, and oats, even if they occur in trace amounts.

[psawyer]

This has been posted elsewhere, but here is the list I have of companies/brands that will always clearly disclose gluten sources. Many of them will tell you to read the label, and has been pointed out by others in this thread, that is a good thing!

My List:

Arrowhead Mills, Aunt Nelly's, Balance, Baskin Robbins, Ben & Jerry, Bertoli, Betty Crocker, Blue Bunny, Breyers, Campbells, Cascadian Farms, Celestial Seasonings, ConAgra, Country Crock, Edy's, General Mills, Good Humor, Green Giant, Haagen Daz, Hellman's, Hershey, Hormel, Hungry Jack, Jiffy, Knorr, Kozy Shack, Kraft, Lawry's, Libby's, Lipton, Martha White, Maxwell House, McCormick, Nabisco, Nestle, Old El Paso, Ortega, Pillsbury, Popsicle, Post, Progresso, Ragu, Russell Stover, Seneca Foods, Skippy, Smucker, Stokely's, Sunny Delight, T Marzetti, Tyson, Unilever, Wishbone, Yoplait, Zatarain's.

There may be others as well. Post is on the list.

[tiredofdoctors]

Will have to look in my pantry to give more brands . . . What I have come across, more often than not, is that the companies will take responsibility for their PRODUCT -- that they don't add anything that contains gluten. What they won't take responsibility for is checking from their suppliers if THEY have any gluten-containing ingredients in what they are purchasing from them. This is especially true in women's cosmetics, soaps (fragrance) things of that nature.

An example of that in food is, say, Company A makes soup. They list on the label "natural flavors". They purchase the natural flavors from Company B. Company B, for whatever reason, uses gluten-containing products, maybe to thicken the natural flavors into a paste that can be added to Company A's vats. Company A, that manufactures the soup doesn't put gluten into their product; however, they don't check with Company B, the supplier of the natural flavors to find out if their product contains gluten.

It seems to me that is the biggest "loophole" in the whole labelling system . . . and tends to decrease accountability.

[lightningfoot speakin words]

sorry, I kinda lost my temper with the whole situation. I understand but it would make it a whole lot easier if they could tell me.

[ms-sillyak-screwed]

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[penguin]

I feel the same way - big companies really don't care about us.

Were we will make a differenece is writing and complaining to the FDA.

I have major issue with words like "NATURAL", "natural ingredients", "natural flavoring or natural additives".

For example - Prudue ground turkey, has natual ingredients. I called last year and they told me it's ROSEMARY. I don't have a problem with rosemary in general. But every time I eat their ground turkey, I get reactive. Yesterday I called again. The woman was nice but told me it was a trade secret. I pressed her and told her my daddyO was a friend of Frank (he really was) and that I have life threatening food allergies and I really need to know for medical reasons. She then told me its extracts from rosemary OIL. I didn't know rosemary oil EXTRACT was 'natura'l from the plant and was not processed in anyway.

Is rosemary oil extract a 'natural ingredients"?

Is SOY a natural ingredient? SOY is listed and one of the deadly 8 allergens. Why do they allow the manufacures to mislead us? We have to complain to the FDA.

I have been writing to the FDA and complain that the word NATURAL is used to loosely in the new labeling laws, these new lables need to be modified for people with special medical dietary needs. And WE must STOP them from using the word "NATURAL" in everything from body products to what we eat.

Rosemary oil is a natural product, because you just have to press rosemary leaves (in theory) to get it out. Rosemary is a plant that grows out of the ground, and is therefore natural.

As much as you like to demonize soy, it is also natural. Soy is a plant that grows out of the ground, just like wheat or grass or hemlock or an oak tree. Soy also happens to support much of the agriculture in Arkansas (and other places).

Are their labelling policies great? No. It's a good move to complain to the FDA, and also to your local senators/congressmen.

[dkjones2]

I have found people react differnetly to ingredients, I have to avoid Rosemary and I never buy anything that says the words modified food starch unless it says corn otherwise it might be wheat. I also dont buy anything that is made "gummy" fruit snacks, swedish fish,gum drops, etc they may or may not go down a convor belt that had been sprinkled with flour some use sugars but most use flour.

[lovegrov]

In this case the answer was just as straight as any company can give you. Read the lable and if it doesn't say wheat, rye or barley, it's gluten-free. It couldn't be any simpler. I wish that would be the response of EVERY company.

richard