Need Your Help!

[stef-the-kicking-cuty]

Hi to everybody.

Here I am with a problem. I just bought lentils from the grocery store. I never made lentils on my own, but I wanted to make them, like my german grandma always used to make them. So I take the lentils, put them in the pot with water. And as they are in that water for about a minute, suddenly those little "things" appear on top of the water. And those look like wheat or barley germs, or whatever. They are kind of long, maybe 1 or 2/8 of an inch and skinny. They kinda look like wheat, but I'm not 100% sure. So I was wondering, if anybody else had that problem. Lentils are glutenfree, aren't they? And how in the world can there be wheat or whatever grain germs they are swimming in my lentils, when I bought pure 100% lentils. What's going on???

One clueless Stef

[RiceGuy]

Well, I cannot say I've ever seen what you describe in the lentils I eat. I do know however, that lentils are supposed to be rinsed until the water is fairly clear. There are often bits of debris which must be removed, including tiny pebbles.

Suppose you take a close-up picture of the things and post it? Maybe someone will recognize them.

[TinkerbellSwt]

I make lentil soup all the time and I have never seen what you are explaining. I know the Goya brand of dried lentils says now on the label that they may contain traces of wheat. I only use the Jack Rabbit brand of dried beans.

All the Goya bags have changed to that statement, whether its a CYA or not, I am not sure. I just dont use them.

Sorry I havent been much help either.

[HawkFire]

Lentils are great. There are black ones as well as the pale green ones. My kids like both. As a matter of fact, we had them in a homemade vegetable soup last night. Now, I've never seen anything questionable in my lentil. Could yours simply be dirty? Just rinse them off. I don't soak my lentils, either. They don't require that as do some of the other beans. You can do so much with lentils, btw. Just toss a half a cup in any soup you are simmering. In Chili they are great. Particularly the black ones.

[DebbieInCanada]

Hi to everybody.

Here I am with a problem. I just bought lentils from the grocery store. I never made lentils on my own, but I wanted to make them, like my german grandma always used to make them. So I take the lentils, put them in the pot with water. And as they are in that water for about a minute, suddenly those little "things" appear on top of the water. And those look like wheat or barley germs, or whatever. They are kind of long, maybe 1 or 2/8 of an inch and skinny. They kinda look like wheat, but I'm not 100% sure. So I was wondering, if anybody else had that problem. Lentils are glutenfree, aren't they? And how in the world can there be wheat or whatever grain germs they are swimming in my lentils, when I bought pure 100% lentils. What's going on???

One clueless Stef

I KNOW I have found barley grains in a bag of dried red lentils (threw the soup out, didn't use the rest of the bag). I know that farmers can rotate different crops on to their fields, and there could be cross contamination through equipment, etc. It may depend on the variety of lentils, where they are grown, and the company that processes them. If you see grain germs, then I wouldn't eat them

I have had good luck with lentils purchased in the East Indian/specialty section of my supermarket.

Debbie

[sarah ruth]

yes. ALWAYS a good idea to sort through and rinse your legumes, if not for stray grains then for rocks and pebbles. my favorite are the chickpea sized rocks . I do not know the celiac implications of stray grains. My inclination would be to sort them out, rinse very very well, and cook it up, but buy from a different supplier next time.

Debbie, how are your experiences with JOWAR (sorghum) flour from the east indian stores? I have yet to buy some, but was in Pakistan as a child and have love-filled memories of the jowar rotis with saag and chai, and feel a deep *need* to make them again now that I have figured out what the grain was.

[Anonymousgurl]

It's so funny that you just posted about lentils, because i just had the strangest lentil experience last night! LoL. I bought these "split red lentils" from Draegers...they were "packaged by Vanns spices" or someone like that...and i took them out of the package and started boiling them, and noticed they had a REALLY strong smell. The package says that it's just lentils, just like your package says...but these HAVE to have SOME kind of spices in them. And mine turned out weird too. Like mush. LoL. The again, the package DOES say that they can take a "puree" form....but ANYWAYS...do you all think they're safe to eat, even though they obviously have added spices? I don't think their website has any info on gluten.

[stef-the-kicking-cuty]

Thanks for all your replies guys. I ate the lentils after I sorted everything out and nothing happened to me. But here's what I figured out so far. I took those strange looking thingys to a good friend. He's a farmer. And he said, yep, that's barley. So thanks god I noticed it , before I cooked the entire stuff. Well, actually I rinsed everything off in a sieve (sp?) before I wanted to cook them. But only the dirt and the little pebbles fall through the holes in a sieve, however not the barley. So thanks to my habbit of sometimes throwing stuff in a cold water pot first and THEN after I did that heating it up. See, my husband would have done it the other way around. First boiling the water and then throw everything in. With my stupid habbit of throwing that stuff in cold water first, the barley grains started to swim on top and didn't cook into the soup that fast and I could pick them out one by one. Barley grains actually most likely will swim on top for the first few seconds before they are entirely soaked, so if you stir your lentils right at the beginning in a pot of water without cooking them right away, they will rise to the top. I'm so glad I did that.

Hugs, Stef

[Ursa Major]

I would NEVER have suspected barley being in lentils! You shouldn't have eaten them, I hope you won't get a delayed reaction.

I think I need to cook some good old-fashioned German sweet and sour lentils one of these days (thickened with light buckwheat rather than wheat, of course), I haven't done that in ages. It can be my lentil-trial, to see if maybe I can tolerate them again. Might as well make it as pleasant as I can, eating one of my favourite foods!

[stef-the-kicking-cuty]

Hi Ursa,

of course, you are right. I should have never eaten them. But I didn't have anything else at home, so I just picked them out before cooking. Nothing did happen so far and usually I have a pretty strong reaction, especially against barley. Hope it stays that way.

Thanks, Stef

[Ursa Major]

Well, it's three days ago, I think you got lucky this time. Good thing you managed to get the barley out before cooking the lentils first, you'd have been glutened for sure then.

But in a way I am glad this happened to you, because I think it helps a lot of people, including me, to realize that barley can be in lentils. It would never have occurred to me.

[stef-the-kicking-cuty]

Yes, as silly as that sounds. I'm actually glad, it happened to me, too . That's why I wrote it on here. It might help some other celiacs, right? That's why I think this board is the best support group out there. You have them day and night and there's no answering machine, when you call. There's always somebody here.

[RiceGuy]

It's so funny that you just posted about lentils, because i just had the strangest lentil experience last night! LoL. I bought these "split red lentils" from Draegers...they were "packaged by Vanns spices" or someone like that...and i took them out of the package and started boiling them, and noticed they had a REALLY strong smell. The package says that it's just lentils, just like your package says...but these HAVE to have SOME kind of spices in them. And mine turned out weird too. Like mush. LoL. The again, the package DOES say that they can take a "puree" form....but ANYWAYS...do you all think they're safe to eat, even though they obviously have added spices? I don't think their website has any info on gluten.

I buy red lentils - for the very reason that they cook into a puree. They DO have a noticeable aroma to them, as if spices have been added (even before cooking). I think they smell sort of peppery. But there is nothing added to them. At least not the ones I have been getting.

However, there are at least three kinds of red lentils that I'm aware of. For the kind I have been getting, the package doesn't indicate "split", nor does it say which kind of red lentil they are. I don't know if all the red varieties smell/cook similarly, but they might.

[RiceGuy]

Debbie, how are your experiences with JOWAR (sorghum) flour from the east indian stores? I have yet to buy some, but was in Pakistan as a child and have love-filled memories of the jowar rotis with saag and chai, and feel a deep *need* to make them again now that I have figured out what the grain was.

Isn't ordinary sorghum flour what you're referring to? That's easy to obtain. Even Bob's Red Mill sells it.

[lpellegr]

A while ago I also found grains of some sort in lentils I bought from Whole Foods, their house brand. I threw them out and wrote to them and they said that the lentils were processed on shared equipment with barley. I have also read that lentils are often rotated in fields where barley is grown. Now I don't trust any lentils, and I don't trust canned lentil soup because who knows? If you cook the lentils as described above I wouldn't recommend eating the rest of the lentils after you pick out the grains that you can find because any fragments of broken grains that stayed in the water or released gluten proteins into the water would be enough to cross-contaminate the lentils and cause damage to you, whether you notice it or not.

[stef-the-kicking-cuty]

Correct me, if I'm wrong, but I thought, sorghum flour is a kind of wheat flour??? How can it be glutenfree?

Oh and believe me, I have it so severe, I WILL notice it, if I get glutened. I notice every little bit. So apparently this time really nothing happened...

Stef

[Mango04]

It's so funny that you just posted about lentils, because i just had the strangest lentil experience last night! LoL. I bought these "split red lentils" from Draegers...they were "packaged by Vanns spices" or someone like that...and i took them out of the package and started boiling them, and noticed they had a REALLY strong smell. The package says that it's just lentils, just like your package says...but these HAVE to have SOME kind of spices in them. And mine turned out weird too. Like mush. LoL. The again, the package DOES say that they can take a "puree" form....but ANYWAYS...do you all think they're safe to eat, even though they obviously have added spices? I don't think their website has any info on gluten.

Red lentils do have a peppery spicy smell and they turn mushy. Red lentil soup is good though, or you can make Indian dishes with it by adding ginger and curry spices and then mixing with rice. I think they're safe to eat

[Mango04]

Correct me, if I'm wrong, but I thought, sorghum flour is a kind of wheat flour??? How can it be glutenfree?

Oh and believe me, I have it so severe, I WILL notice it, if I get glutened. I notice every little bit. So apparently this time really nothing happened...

Stef

Sorghum is gluten-free. Many gluten-free beers are made with sorghum.