"gluten Free" Kettle Chips Always Get Me...

[NorthernElf]

What gives ? The bag says gluten free but my intestinal tract says otherwise !

A few months ago I tried the (gluten free) BBQ flavor and next thing I knew I had headaches & gut cramps...ugh, just let me lie down & leave me alone.

So, I'm in Costco the other day and I see the baked plain Kettle chips and the bag says gluten free...so I think, well maybe it was something else or maybe it was the full fat chips. I so wanted to believe ! Anyway, I had a small bowl each of the last 3 nights and headaches and such resumed. Ok, so I'm a little slow, the reactions were mild enough but as I look back I see I wasn't good company the last 3 nights and my tummy has been grumpy...and I've taken a lot of Tylenol. This am it has hit me full force.

So...I'm thinking - either I'm really sensitive or the term "gluten free" is pretty loosely defined. Or Kettle chips just suck...

Anyone else have a similar experience with Kettle chips or other so called gluten-free products ? I know when I was in England last year I got hit by some of the "Free From" products...it was only after I was back home that I found out the level of tolerance (ppm of allowable gluten) was higher there.

[kiraalyx]

What gives ? The bag says gluten free but my intestinal tract says otherwise !

A few months ago I tried the (gluten free) BBQ flavor and next thing I knew I had headaches & gut cramps...ugh, just let me lie down & leave me alone.

So, I'm in Costco the other day and I see the baked plain Kettle chips and the bag says gluten free...so I think, well maybe it was something else or maybe it was the full fat chips. I so wanted to believe ! Anyway, I had a small bowl each of the last 3 nights and headaches and such resumed. Ok, so I'm a little slow, the reactions were mild enough but as I look back I see I wasn't good company the last 3 nights and my tummy has been grumpy...and I've taken a lot of Tylenol. This am it has hit me full force.

So...I'm thinking - either I'm really sensitive or the term "gluten free" is pretty loosely defined. Or Kettle chips just suck...

Anyone else have a similar experience with Kettle chips or other so called gluten-free products ? I know when I was in England last year I got hit by some of the "Free From" products...it was only after I was back home that I found out the level of tolerance (ppm of allowable gluten) was higher there.

i get the worst stomach ache whenever i eat kettle chips, any kind

same with plain lays the bags clearly state there is no gluten in them

maybe its cross contamination

stick with tostitos / fritos , im extremely sensitive to gluten and those don't make me sick!

[psawyer]

So...I'm thinking - either I'm really sensitive or the term "gluten free" is pretty loosely defined.

Here in Canada, where we both are, "gluten-free" is rigorously defined:

Food and Drug Regulation B.24.018

No person shall label, package, sell or advertise a food in a manner likely to create an impression that it is gluten-free unless the food does not contain wheat, including spelt and kamut, or oats, barley, rye or triticale or any part thereof.

Under this rule, gluten-free means gluten-free. It even goes so far as to say that selling "gluten-free oats" is illegal in Canada. It is so restrictive, when taken with another regulation, that many foods that are actually gluten-free may not legally be so labeled.

Of course, like FALCPA in the US, it does not cover unintentional cross contamination.

[annakm]

Hi, 

I always get a headache after eating Kettle brand potato chips. Usually I just eat the regular sea salted ones. I don't have any food allergies, I am not gluten intolerant. So, maybe the chips have something else in them that give you a headache? Those chips give me a headache, and I can eat all the gluten I want. The Lays regular salted potato chips don't give me a headache. 

Today I searched about headache after eating Kettle chips and found this forum, and wanted to give my input. Thanks!

[kareng]

Hi,

I always get a headache after eating Kettle brand potato chips. Usually I just eat the regular sea salted ones. I don't have any food allergies, I am not gluten intolerant. So, maybe the chips have something else in them that give you a headache? Those chips give me a headache, and I can eat all the gluten I want. The Lays regular salted potato chips don't give me a headache.

Today I searched about headache after eating Kettle chips and found this forum, and wanted to give my input. Thanks!

FYI - this thread is over 4 years old. Product info and ingredients can change in that amount of time.

[CAileenG]

Kettle Chips are now officially certified gluten-free and made on gluten-free equipment. However, their FAQ page states that they are made on equipment shared with dairy ( http://www.kettlebrand.com/our_products/faqs/.), and I am as sensitive to dairy as I am to gluten, so I do react to Kettle Chips (even the plain, salt only, supposedly dairy-free ones), most likely because of this cross contamination.

[Rhotitar]

I just had a very intense reaction to Kettle brand Backyard BBQ potato chips. Ugh it was awful very intense pain certainly feels like more than a slight cross-contamination judging by the amount of pain I am feeling. And it's the only thing I ate then 2 hours later bam hit me like a truck. The funny thing is that I have eaten Kettle chips before with no problem even these BBQ chips so I know it's not the ingredients. Maybe someone got this stuff contaminated somehow in the factory. 

[Ennis-TX]

1 hour ago, Rhotitar said:

I just had a very intense reaction to Kettle brand Backyard BBQ potato chips. Ugh it was awful very intense pain certainly feels like more than a slight cross-contamination judging by the amount of pain I am feeling. And it's the only thing I ate then 2 hours later bam hit me like a truck. The funny thing is that I have eaten Kettle chips before with no problem even these BBQ chips so I know it's not the ingredients. Maybe someone got this stuff contaminated somehow in the factory. 

Unsure how, unless they accidentally sourced something with gluten by accident (some companies have this happen on a RARE occasion where they bulk order a ingredient with the wrong number IE, Gluten free BBQ base for one with Soy or Malt) Not saying this is the case here just a consideration. Please E-mail the company as to a inquiry and give them the lot Number, date of manufacture along with a list of issues you had with it and why you suspect it. They will look into and might issue a Recall if they find something. If you have a gluten testing device double check a sample taking it in a way as to not touch it with your hands and contaminate it. DO NOT jump the gun and start blaming them even is this comes back positive, But notify a group like Gluten Free Watch Dog about it. 

Side thoughts is there a chance you touched something in public before grabbing a chip? I have gotten CC issues from touching door handles, rails, tables that had gluten on them from what I assume was some kid with food on his hands then touched my mouth and glutned myself (last time was a mint I popped after opening a door to a coffee shop that had pastry smears on it without thinking) Later noticed the stickiness on my hands.

[ceracea]

2 hours ago, Rhotitar said:

I just had a very intense reaction to Kettle brand Backyard BBQ potato chips. Ugh it was awful very intense pain certainly feels like more than a slight cross-contamination judging by the amount of pain I am feeling. And it's the only thing I ate then 2 hours later bam hit me like a truck. The funny thing is that I have eaten Kettle chips before with no problem even these BBQ chips so I know it's not the ingredients. Maybe someone got this stuff contaminated somehow in the factory. 

The biggest issue I have with BBQ flavored anything is the caramel coloring added to the bbq sauce. Caramel coloring is considered "safe" but since I am highly sensitive, it gives me issues every time. 

[bmkassa]

similar issue with stomach ache.  I usually do not eat out much and can have a little sensitivity towards greasy food.  But an hour after eating Lays Kettle Cooked Jalapeno chips about 1/2 bag of the 8oz., I had the worst stomach ache I have ever had in my life.  Extremely painful.  I never get stomach aches.  When food doesn't agree, maybe diarrhea, but not stomach ache.  I am not lactose in tolerate or sensitive to gluten. After the stomach ache started I didn't need to urgently poop.  throwing up seemed like a possibly but never came out naturally and I wasn't about to force it.  There is something in those chips that disrupted my stomach and many other people after doing research.  Possibly inflammation in one of our organs due to one of the ingredients.  It has been 39 hours and my stomach still has a little pain.  I have already reached out to Lays today , probably will not get far with them, but maybe gain more knowledge

[LilyR]

I tried a few different chips and always got a stomach ache and sometimes bloat. But for me, I think I realized it's the oil they use. Some use canola and some use soy, or even if it says vegetable oil, that is soy.  And come to find out, soy seems to bother me.  I found one bag that I believe used olive oil, and I have been trying to find it again, but can't remember the name or what the bag looked like. So I keep searching.  

[Ennis-TX]

13 minutes ago, LilyR said:

I tried a few different chips and always got a stomach ache and sometimes bloat. But for me, I think I realized it's the oil they use. Some use canola and some use soy, or even if it says vegetable oil, that is soy.  And come to find out, soy seems to bother me.  I found one bag that I believe used olive oil, and I have been trying to find it again, but can't remember the name or what the bag looked like. So I keep searching.  

The chips I personally use are Protes and they use sunflower oil. I cater with Kettle Brand chips and they have ones cooked in avocado oil and almond oil ones that I keep buying. Had a nice smoked salt one that people loved.

[LilyR]

On 7/19/2018 at 1:13 PM, Ennis_TX said:

The chips I personally use are Protes and they use sunflower oil. I cater with Kettle Brand chips and they have ones cooked in avocado oil and almond oil ones that I keep buying. Had a nice smoked salt one that people loved.

Thanks for sharing those brands. I wonder if they sell Kettle brand in the stores?  I wonder if that was the one I got, but forgot what oil it was.  I thought it was a black bag though, but lately there is so much I look into with no gluten, soy, or corn, it starts to get hard to remember. I had started bookmarking things that worked for me, but then when my computer got a virus, I lost everything saved in it. So, starting all over again. 

 

[Ennis-TX]

Hold the phone, I just noticed, maltodextrin listed twice on the list, I only say Potato Maltodextrin at first not the plain, then I saw the Citric Acid on a few flavors. I am emailing them I might have to drop them from my catering... I never handled without gloves so I would not have seen a rash if I had a reaction. >.> Tempted to go crush some up and rub on my arm to see if I get the corn allergy rash lol.

[Ennis-TX]

Update, Kettle Emailed me, the chips are gluten free BUT all contain corn derivatives and are not safe for someone with a corn allergy? I sorta wish I had tried eating them to test them, giving the bags I have away and removing from my catering menu with my business.....NEW IDEA, getting a mandolin and thin slicing potatoes....thinking deep frying them in sunflower oil (cheapest corn free, peanut free, and canola free, deep fry oil at $38 for 5gallons). New food truck item from my food truck? Recall ribbon potatoes at a carnival as a kid that were like a cross between fries and potato chips?

[LilyR]

That is a bummer about the Kettle chips. I had them on my grocery list to check for this week.  Oh, that corn!  It has to go and show up in so much. When I first found out I couldn't eat gluten I was still thinking, I can eat nacho chips, taco shells, popcorn!  Oh well. It takes some getting used to.  Right now I'd love a lemonade and bowl of popcorn.  It is weird though. It seems some items with a corn ingredient don't tend to bother me much, yet other items seem to give me that stomach distention.  Still working on it all, but just seems better to avoid all corn. Still working on some prescription meds though. Oh, and the frozen turkey burgers I had been getting which were very nice and convenient and not overly expensive seem to maybe be discontinued, at least at the store i was getting them.  It did help me to try something else, which I like the taste even better, but a little pricier.  But this is all still a work in process, and it seems we just need to roll with changes that come up. Sure keeps us on our toes, that's for sure. This message board and everyone sharing is such a blessing!

[Lydia A.]

On 1/1/2014 at 7:42 PM, annakm said:

Hi, 

I always get a headache after eating Kettle brand potato chips. Usually I just eat the regular sea salted ones. I don't have any food allergies, I am not gluten intolerant. So, maybe the chips have something else in them that give you a headache? Those chips give me a headache, and I can eat all the gluten I want. The Lays regular salted potato chips don't give me a headache. 

Today I searched about headache after eating Kettle chips and found this forum, and wanted to give my input. Thanks!

I an very sensitive to gluten, but I also cross-react to rice as well. I don't have any other food allergies besides gluten and rice. (Rice doesn't actually surprise me, because it is also in the grass family like wheat and shares 89.5% of the same DNA.)

I recently tried the plain Himalayan Salt Kettle Chips cooked in 100% avocado oil and reacted. It was a low grade reaction, but all the telltale symptoms were there. The first time it was from a full single serve bag. The next time I tested it by eating a single chip; I could already feel the warmth, rush to my head and brain fog creeping in, so I stopped eating it. I wish I had a Nima sensor; that would be the first food that I tested.

I don't react to plain Lays (potatoes, salt and cooked in corn oil). Some people do cross-react with corn, which is another grain in the grass family. Some common grass family: wheat, barley, oats, triticale, rice, corn, bamboo/bamboo shoots, sugarcane.

[LilyR]

I had been mentioning Kettle brand to my daughter before seeing they might bother some people.  So my daughter brought me home a bag today. It says gluten-free on the bag, and the only ingredients in this one was potatoes, avocado oil, and himalayan salt.  So I just ate two.  Now about an hour or so later I have bad bloat.  The stomach distention sort of bloat.  I am not certain it was the potato chips, but could very well be.  But I wonder why if it states gluten-free on the bag, and it was plain, not flavored, and only three seemingly safe ingredients.  Weird. 

[Ennis-TX]

2 minutes ago, LilyR said:

I had been mentioning Kettle brand to my daughter before seeing they might bother some people.  So my daughter brought me home a bag today. It says gluten-free on the bag, and the only ingredients in this one was potatoes, avocado oil, and himalayan salt.  So I just ate two.  Now about an hour or so later I have bad bloat.  The stomach distention sort of bloat.  I am not certain it was the potato chips, but could very well be.  But I wonder why if it states gluten-free on the bag, and it was plain, not flavored, and only three seemingly safe ingredients.  Weird. 

Well I emailed them they use corn in other chips, with your corn issues....it is probably related to that and cross contamination.....OR you have issues with carbs? To plain potatoes bother you?

[LilyR]

On 7/26/2018 at 3:29 PM, Ennis_TX said:

Well I emailed them they use corn in other chips, with your corn issues....it is probably related to that and cross contamination.....OR you have issues with carbs? To plain potatoes bother you?

Potatoes seem okay with me. I also remembered that the day I ate a few Kettle chips, I also tried one seaweed chip my daughter was eating.  It said gluten-free on the package and looked like dried out, paper-thin seaweed, so I ate one and then realized, I still should see the ingredients.  Come to find out there was canola oil in them.  I have questioned canola oil before and how it makes me feel, so now I am not sure if it was the Kettle chips or that seaweed chip.  I need to remember not to try more than one new thing within days of each other.  But maybe there is some corn cross contamination from the Kettle chips?  Maybe I will try another Kettle chip sometime, I don't know.  The stomach ache was very short, like about an hour or two, and then went away. But I only ate 2 of the Kettle chips and one of the seaweed chips.  Maybe that was why the stomach ache was gone soon.  Also, I ate dinner and that almost seemed to help my stomach feel better.  Weird. I wasn't going to eat but even though I had the stomach ache, I actually felt hungry too though.  Eating some more food seemed to help, for some reason. 

[Foodie#1]

My husband and myself have no gluten sensitivity. However, every time we eat Kettle brand chips(have only tried plain) we get low grade nausea. Why try again? No sane answer... We usually eat lays plain and have no such problem.The oil in Kettle brand is a mixture of safflower/sunflower/canola oil.Lays just say vegetable oil.Don't think gluten is the problem...

Hope this helps.

[DeniseBu]

Perhaps the Kettle Chips contain citric acid? See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6097542/  Citric Acid is a very common additive in many foods nowadays.  Best to avoid it if you are sensitive to aspergillus mold species. 

It's also strange that the Celiac.com website touts this product as helpful for digesting gluten when it could be a hidden source of other digestive issues due to the Aspergillus niger it contains.  Can anyone comment on this?  https://www.gliadinx.com/?ref=gFe06sbd2VHY

[zenith12]

Are KETTLE CHIPS still safe. I am just gonna buy some Mi Nina.

At least there is no citric acid or maltodextrin added.  Odd that they would be in gluten-free chips. 

 

I just contacted the company to see if both are derived from CORN and NOT wheat.   The Mi Nina, they said they make their own masa and there is no wheat products in their facility. I ate them before and did fine.

 I just wanted to make sure since i haven't eaten them after i got glutened from the wal mart chips.   

[FSP]

On 7/26/2018 at 12:24 PM, LilyR said:

I had been mentioning Kettle brand to my daughter before seeing they might bother some people.  So my daughter brought me home a bag today. It says gluten-free on the bag, and the only ingredients in this one was potatoes, avocado oil, and himalayan salt.  So I just ate two.  Now about an hour or so later I have bad bloat.  The stomach distention sort of bloat.  I am not certain it was the potato chips, but could very well be.  But I wonder why if it states gluten-free on the bag, and it was plain, not flavored, and only three seemingly safe ingredients.  Weird. 

I just had the same experience! I had kettle chips long time ago and didn't have any issue. I don't have any food allergies in general.

Last week, I bought a bag of Jalapeno flavor chips. About an hour after eating the chips, my stomach inflated like a balloon. It was the worst stomach I've experienced. It was so painful that I couldn't stand up straight. Drinking lots of water seemed to ease the pain and the issue finally went away a couple of hours later. 

I had different types of food that day so I thought I ate something bad. Next day, I had more of that chips. Same thing happened! I threw it away and would NEVER buy it again!

Don't know what chemical they are using that could cause this problem but it doesn't matter. It has gotta be something extremely bad for the body if it creates such terrible stomach reaction!

[psawyer]

Jalapeno is a strong spice and may indeed cause stomach upset. It is gluten-free.