Is A Food Gluten Free

[tzeskimo]

I have a multi-step process for figuring out if a food is gluten free:

Step 1: Read the label. If all goes well, the food is clearly gluten free, and I can stop here. This is also the only part of the process that really is discussed in celiac reading material.

Step 2: If the food has a mystery ingredient, like "natural flavoring", I'll go to the manufacturer's website to see if they have a gluten free list, or a gluten free policy. Hopefully, this clears stuff up.

Step 3: Most of the time I stop before this step, but if I really want the food, I look it up on forums using google, and see if most people think the food contains gluten or is gluten free. If most people think it's safe to eat, and they have fairly convincing arguments, I'll eat the food. Unfortunately, this step is time consuming and a little sketchy.

Do other people have a different way of figuring out which foods are gluten free? Do people actually use gluten free lists (I personally don't find them very useful because they have such limited coverage)?

[happygirl]

1. Determine what company produces the food. Refer to list of companies that will clearly disclose gluten. Then, when I read the label, I know if it is safe or not, and don't have to worry about "natural flavorings" and the like.

2. If its not a company that is on this list, then I contact them. But, luckily, that is rare!

And I agree---I don't trust "lists" of "safe" foods...unless it is a currently updated list from a company on their website. Even then, it is only used as a backup after reading the labels.

[JennyC]

1) Try to make a shopping list using my many incomplete lists of gluten free foods, trust-worthy brands or buy specialty food.

2) Read label & watch for terms like modified food starch, flavoring, ect.

3) Try to decode the manufacturer (and hope that it's Kraft ). Before I started looking for the brand names I did not realize that most of our mainstream foods come from a small handful of companies. Before I would have likely found it disturbing, but now I am thankful.

4) If it is not on the list, or if I'm still not sure if I trust them, I go home and try to contact them. This can be frustrating. For example, I must have had 10 windows open on my computer trying to find the contact phone number for Pepsi-Co this morning. It kept referring me to this cyber chick named Lisa. When I typed in a question about gluten free products, within 1.5 seconds I was transferred to a top 8 allergens FAQ page.

5) If this does not work to my liking, then I pose a question on the board.

*I also try to keep running lists of others' posts of gluten-free foods.