When "gluten-free" Really Isn't

[CaptainObvious]

After noticing that the dog food we are feeding one of our dogs is actively advertising (on the bag, in National Geographic, etc.) that it is "gluten-free," I of course went right to the ingredient list. I should mention that we had not been trying to buy gluten-free dog food due to the limitations of finding one that also conforms to the food allergies/restrictions that one of our dogs has (ironic, I know!), so I was mostly just curious as to what the food actually DID contain. The ingredient list included RYE, two kinds of BARLEY, and OATS, which of course, mean the food is NOT gluten-free.

I tried calling, but was unsuccessful in actually talking to someone, so I sent the following e-mail after some deliberation regarding what I should say:

"I noticed that you advertise that many of your products are gluten free. However, many of them list rye and barley as ingredients. Barley is a grain that contains gluten, and for people such as myself that have celiac disease and must avoid gluten, it is a grain that we cannot eat.

If a person with celiac disease were to purchase your product because you claim that it is gluten-free, he or she could become very sick from coming into contact/ingesting your product via handling the food, getting licked by their pet, or simply having the crumbs around the house. In addition, your foods contain oatmeal, a grain that we also need to avoid due to the fact that it also adversely affects many celiacs.

I really cannot stress enough that you SHOULD NOT claim your product is gluten-free when it contains any wheat, rye, barley, or oats (or derivatives). It can make people (or their pets) that need to be on a gluten-free diet extremely sick! I would appreciate a reply regarding how you are able to label your product gluten-free, when it obviously is not, and whether you have any plans of removing this claim from your products.

Thank you for your time."

I got the following e-mail back in reply:

"Thank you for your interest in BLUE. All grains have a gluten component of the whole grain. When we say gluten free, we mean that we don

[gfjayhawk]

After noticing that the dog food we are feeding one of our dogs is actively advertising (on the bag, in National Geographic, etc.) that it is "gluten-free," I of course went right to the ingredient list. I should mention that we had not been trying to buy gluten-free dog food due to the limitations of finding one that also conforms to the food allergies/restrictions that one of our dogs has (ironic, I know!), so I was mostly just curious as to what the food actually DID contain. The ingredient list included RYE, two kinds of BARLEY, and OATS, which of course, mean the food is NOT gluten-free.

I tried calling, but was unsuccessful in actually talking to someone, so I sent the following e-mail after some deliberation regarding what I should say:

"I noticed that you advertise that many of your products are gluten free. However, many of them list rye and barley as ingredients. Barley is a grain that contains gluten, and for people such as myself that have celiac disease and must avoid gluten, it is a grain that we cannot eat.

If a person with celiac disease were to purchase your product because you claim that it is gluten-free, he or she could become very sick from coming into contact/ingesting your product via handling the food, getting licked by their pet, or simply having the crumbs around the house. In addition, your foods contain oatmeal, a grain that we also need to avoid due to the fact that it also adversely affects many celiacs.

I really cannot stress enough that you SHOULD NOT claim your product is gluten-free when it contains any wheat, rye, barley, or oats (or derivatives). It can make people (or their pets) that need to be on a gluten-free diet extremely sick! I would appreciate a reply regarding how you are able to label your product gluten-free, when it obviously is not, and whether you have any plans of removing this claim from your products.

Thank you for your time."

I got the following e-mail back in reply:

"Thank you for your interest in BLUE. All grains have a gluten component of the whole grain. When we say gluten free, we mean that we don

[psawyer]

The word "gluten" is ambiguous, and the phrase "gluten-free" does not have a definition backed by either legislation or regulation in the USA, yet.

I understand your frustration. The word gluten can refer to the protein component of any grain, or even to other plants which are not really grains. As we use the term, it refers to the proteins of wheat (gliadin), rye (secalin), barley (hordein), and possibly oats (avenin). All of these prolamins are problematic for persons with celiac disease.

Corn gluten (zein) and rice gluten (orzenin) are "gluten" under the scientific definition of gluten, but do not cause problems for persons with celiac disease. While these are also prolamins, they are safe for us to consume.

Until the FDA establishes a legal definition for the phrase "gluten free," each of you is right. The word is ambiguous, and each of you is taking a different, but valid, interpretation.

[gfjayhawk]

The word "gluten" is ambiguous, and the phrase "gluten-free" does not have a definition backed by either legislation or regulation in the USA, yet.

I understand your frustration. The word gluten can refer to the protein component of any grain, or even to other plants which are not really grains. As we use the term, it refers to the proteins of wheat (gliadin), rye (secalin), barley (hordein), and possibly oats (avenin). All of these prolamins are problematic for persons with celiac disease.

Corn gluten (zein) and rice gluten (orzenin) are "gluten" under the scientific definition of gluten, but do not cause problems for persons with celiac disease. While these are also prolamins, they are safe for us to consume.

Until the FDA establishes a legal definition for the phrase "gluten free," each of you is right. The word is ambiguous, and each of you is taking a different, but valid, interpretation.

You're right, but it is frustrating that they chose to use the term gluten free when the product contains gluten. Their "logic" makes my head hurt.

[kbtoyssni]

Woah, that is misleading. It should say something like "no gluten added to supplement that already contained in our dog food". It's pretty obvious they have a VERY different definition of what gluten-free means. I wonder if this is due to last year's issue with contaminated gluten in dog food. I'd focus on the fact that their food does contain gluten, even if it's added as part of another grain. Who cares if they add a scoop of barely or a scope of straight gluten??? It's still gluten!

[2kids4me]

The use of the term gluten free has a different meaning when applied to human food vs pet food. That is the underlying problem.

Although celiac disease is known in Irish setters and is presumed to affect cats and other breeds, pet food manufacturers are under no legislation or law that prohibits them from using the term gluten free. Whereas in human food production - the use of the term is only allowed when processing lines are dedicated and/or ELISA tests are used to prove "gluten free" status.

Always read labels on pet food if people in the house, or the pet, has allergies. The most common foods that cause allergies in pets are wheat, eggs, dairy. If you think about it - they were never meant to eat any of those foods. Dogs often raid gardens for carrots and corn, cats and eat meat or sometimes chew on grasses (as will dogs).

Interesting was this statement: producing a concentrated gluten ingredient that can be used as a protein supplement, replacing meat protein.

This way, a manufacturer can then claim the protein content meets standards but it is rice based protein , not meat.

A suggested response / feel free to change or whatever :

Dear Sir, Thank you for your response to my concerns about the use of the term "gluten free" on your pet food. Perhaps you do not understand that in retail sale of human food - the term gluten free is allowed ONLY when that product is free of gluten derived from wheat. rye, oats or barley; in addition, those food items are produced on dedicated production lines.

Gluten derived from rice or corn does not cause health concerns for the growing number of people with celiac disease. The label on your pet food leads one to the incorrect assumption that there is no wheat, rye, oats or barley in the food. This can be dangerous to celiacs handling your food - thinking it is gluten free as per human standards. Many individuals would not understand your complicated reasoning behind the use of the gluten free label. You may leave your company open to litigation if an adult or child becomes ill as a result of handling a pet food they erroneously think is gluten free because of your label. It would be more accurate and less misleading to state: we only use gluten derived from whole grains , and then develop marketing to promote the health benefits of pet food using gluten from whole grains.

Couldnt think of anything else .......

just my few thoughts. I mention the word litigation because that seems to be what perks up the ears of those in charge of a company.

Sandy / AHT

[Takala]

I wouldn't even go so far as to give them that "out", letting them define what "gluten free" means when the intent of the label is to mislead the consumer as to the contents of the product.

I agree that this misleading labeling is probably a response to the Pet Food Manufacturing with Contaminated Gluten Scandal of last year. A company based in Las Vegas, Nevada, called Chem Nutra was importing wheat gluten into the United States from China and distributing it to pet food manufacturers. Imported food ingredients must be assigned an FDA code as to what they are made of, such as wheat, or a wheat byproduct, and what grade they are, human grade or animal feed grade. This allows the FDA and distributors/manufacturers to track the ingredients, if necessary.

The gluten that ChemNutra was importing was assigned a grade of fit for "human" use on the shipping invoices. (this was done by the owner's wife, who is Chinese- American and has worked in both countries, in collusion with the factories in China that were processing the gluten. The company has subsequently been charged in the state of Missouri with committing fraud across state lines.) The gluten was deliberately padded with melamine, a resin byproduct normally used in manufacturing things like formica. This was done so that when samples were tested, the samples, which are burnt and then the gasses emitted are measured as to what is left, would show that the samples reacted just like something that had a higher protein content. Therefore, the gluten could be said to be "high protein", and therefore adding the "high protein" tainted gluten to the pet foods would make it seemingly higher protein.

The tainted gluten with melamine pet food, also contained a type of acid created as a byproduct of the manufacturing process, which, when consumed by cats and dogs, caused kidney failure in pets. Cats were much more vulnerable than dogs, because they don't drink much water anyway.

One of the pet food manufacturers, which tests batches of food on cats, noticed they had a problem early last year and notified the ingredient distributors before they notified the FDA. The distributors notified the manufacturers in China, who destroyed the plant (yes!) and tried to blame a rival manufacturer. Thus began one of the biggest cover ups in consumer history... they almost got away with it.

Except now we have the internet, and pet forums, and people with dying and dead cats started talking to each other and to veterinarians and forced the FDA to finally take action to track down ALL this contaminated gluten. Thus the immense "Pet Food Recall." The private tally by veterinarians and self reporting on the internets and to the FDA via complaints was at least a thousand dead pets and many more permanently injured, the Associated Press, much to my everlasting disgust, kept repeating over and over again... "18 dead cats."

Some of the tainted gluten did eventually work its way into the human food chain via chicken and pig feeds made from animal feeds that the manufacturers tried to recycle. The FDA recalled some of this meat, other meat did not get recalled after the FDA determined (to its standards, not mine or yours) that this meat did not pose a significant health risk to humans.

(This is long, but I'll get to the point soon !)

The ongoing and relevant problem I see in this is that the reason the manufacturers were using imported instead of domestic gluten in the first place was that it was cheaper for China to do the processing, even if they had to import wheat from another country, then ship it back out as gluten. Making gluten is not difficult, basically, it's "washing" wheat so the starch is gone and then only the inner wheat kernel, which is higher protein, remains.

But the Chinese, when you read their sales ads for wholesale export, use the word "gluten" to mean any type of processed grain protein, whether it be wheat, rye, corn, rice... bean... whatever. And in some of the ads, they were claiming their "special" or "secret" manufacturing processes were creating a "gluten" product with unusually high protein, and they were not being specific about which type of grain product was being used in their "gluten protein powders."

But American pet food buyers had been scared off of the word "gluten" inspite of people like me (and most of us here) who spend part of our days explaining just exactly what gluten is to the curious. We say "gluten" and we mean the proteins of the wheat, rye, and barley grain families. Chinese wholesalers... mean high protein powder, usually plant derived.

To me, this means that the increased use of imported raw manufacturing food ingredients into this country for both pet AND humans, poses an increased risk of contamination, most likely accidently, but sometimes deliberately, by manufacturers and importers not using the same words to mean the same thing, or by people trying to cheat to make more money.

If you go to the FDA website and search, you can find their ongoing recall list, if you read it regularly, see all the recalls, and realize that only a fraction of imported things get inspected on arrival, you will be at least dismayed and maybe horrified.

Now that I've written all this, I hope anyone reading it can understand why, when I see a pet food manufacturer again playing footsie with the labels on a pet food, in the hopes that they can persuade the righteously cautious consumer to buy their product, that I get very annoyed, because not only is it unwise, it is unnecessary to treat the average pet food purchaser like a turnip.

Gluten is found in wheat, rye, and barleys. If they are putting wheat, rye, and/or barley into their pet foods, IT HAS GLUTEN, even if it is a relatively "small" quantity, even if it is perfectly safe gluten coming from domestics sources... is it coming from domestic sources?

Remember it only took a very small percentage of melamine in the gluten in the Cat foods to kill a cat. You'd think they'd know better.

If they are just having a "language" problem, it would not be difficult to re write the label to be both more accurate and to make customers feel their need to purchase safe food is being respected.

I don't use this brand, but when my cat or dog licks me, I don't want to make myself sick. I use brands that disclose their ingredients, that agree with my pets, and I wash my hands a lot.

~~~~~~~~~~

I would be asking them where their ingredients came from (country of origin), and if I didn't like the answer, I'd contact the FDA.

I won't even get into DETAILS that last line about how "geneticists have experiment with a gluten free grain" other than to say that

There is no such thing as "gluten" free grain, if they just explained to us that they think gluten = protein

Geneticists ARE experimenting with altering the genetics of wheat, rice, and barley, and are doing the growing trials in places China because some of what they are doing has been banned in the United States. Some of this is also being done in Kansas, I think, by Monsanto.

One of the most troubling things I've read is that they are experimenting with using barley genes in rice to produce a rice crop which needs less fertilizer or other petrochemical use to grow. The problem is that to understand completely, I either need to study further or have someone study and explain truthfully whether or not this would effect the protein makeup of the actual rice kernel as it relates to our digestive processes.

If they do this successfully, the question becomes, is it safe for us to eat, and if not, can it be kept out of the regular rice supply?

I think there is also talk at this point by Monsanto of supposedly attempting to develop in the near future, a wheat variety that didn't have the problem protein for the wheat family gluten- intolerant or celiacs.