Sri Lanka

[TawnyaK]

My husband and I adopted a 2 year old this summer from India who was recently diagnosed wtih celiac disease. My husband is from Sri Lanka. We enjoy many Sri Lankan and Indian foods. While Sri Lanka has had wheat based foods for many years at least since the Portuguese's arrival in the 1500s, there are many non-gluten items and recipes/dishes that are fantastic. What we want to know is if the pre-packaged items sold in Sri Lankan grocery stores in Sri Lanka and Asian stores worldwide or through Kapruka (online distributor in the U.K. and USA) are gluten free from their manufacturing/processing at the plant. Has anyone called and/or contacted the manufacturers for companies such as Larich and Marketing Department (MD)? We prefer buying the pre-packaged item as it can be time consuming to make everything from scratch and not all ingredients are readily available in all locations one might live in the USA.

Is there a network of others impacted by celiac disease or needing to be on a gluten free diet who have a connection to Sri Lanka? India?

Thank-you!

Tawnya K.

[TawnyaK]

After doing the research on Sri Lankan and Indian products, we wanted to let you know that it is not advisable to consume any commercially prepared food items that were prepared and processed in India and Sri Lanka. At least in Sri Lanka, gluten is often added and is not always reported on the label and when it is reported, it is not often labeled as gluten. In addition, cross contamination is a real factor. The only substitution is to make foods from scractch. It is ok to consume Sri Lankan and Indian processed foods that were prepared in countries with good labeling practices and in a facility that prevents cross contamination (e.g., Canada, Italy, and the USA).

Tawnya K.

P.S. There is a Celiac society in Delhi - Open Original Shared Link