Oatmeal?

[christtheking]

Why is Oatmeal avoided so often from gluten-free, when to the best of my knowledge it have no gluten or wheat?

[lovegrov]

All oats in the U.S. are completely contaminated with wheat. They're grown in the same fields, harvested with the same equipment, stored in the same silos, tranpsorted in the same trucks, and processed on the same equipment as wheat. Every celiac expert agrees that pure oats wouldn't have gluten, and those same experts advise us not to eat oats. Some people do eat McCann's oats, but others have also gotten sick from them.

richard

[tpineo]

I am familiar with all the celiac organizations position that oats must be avoided due to contamination and have avoided oats for my daughter, 3, since her diagnosis. We went for our 6 week follow up and met with the dietician and GI doc. Both recemmonded that we use "pure" oats and not the big brands like Quaker. (I am awaiting more information from them as to what oats are "pure".) I did do some looking and could only find McCann's which gives a statement that contamination is possible. Is anyone aware of any truly "pure" oats? She is doing so well, I am just not willing to try something that some say is okay.

Thanks for any information.

Tania

Greenville, PA

[lovegrov]

There's is no such thing as pure oats made in the U.S. I've heard there's one somewhere in Norway or somewhere but don't know a name and don't think it's exported. When scientists studied the effect of oats they couldn't find any pure enough so they grew and processed their own.

As I understand, McCann's is about as pure as it gets. Is it the doctors who want her to have oats and if so, why? Or is it that she wants them.

Personally, I wouldn't do it. We're already getting minor contamination all the time from other sources.

richard

[tarnalberry]

One note is that even those studies where they grew pure oats had participants that dropped out due to serious GI symptoms. Avenin (the oat protein) is different, but still similar to gliandin (the wheat protein), so it is possible that the immune system reacts broadly enough to react to oats, which _may_ (I'm not saying does, this is a conclusion I've drawn from a number of studies on the subject) still bother some people. Not the majority, of course, and I have no idea from the studies I read if they were experiencing any damage while experiencing the symptoms, but it's lead me to conclude that the only thing to do is try them, but realize that you _could_ (not necessarily likely) get symptoms.