Starbucks - Gluten Free Or Not?

[JamieBrain]

Hi there,

I am *very* new to a gluten free diet (1 week +) and to this website (just today!), so please forgive me if this has been addressed somewhere and I just haven't been able to find it.

I'm a Starbucks fanatic. I went to Google and searched for 'Starbucks gluten free'. I found all kinds of blogs and different sites stating that Starbucks beverages (with a few apparent exceptions for some of their Frappucinos) are gluten free. I even found postings by people who said they had called Starbucks customer service or talked to Starbucks managers, and they were told beverages were gluten free. But I couldn't find anything on the actual Starbucks website. Since I felt like I should be sure, I called the Starbucks customer service number myself. The guy I spoke to told me that they cannot guarantee that *any* Starbucks beverage is gluten free, because even if a beverage doesn't have any ingredients that contain gluten, they can't guarantee there's no cross contamination. The example he used was if a gingerbread latte was made before my gluten free drink, that would contaminate my drink. So they won't make any guarantees about it.

So now I'm naturally confused...people are saying that they've been told by Starbucks employees that XYZ beverages are gluten free, it sounds like lots of people on a gluten free diet drink Starbucks every day without a problem, but this one guy told me he can't say "gluten free". I feel like I should believe the Starbucks person I spoke to. But for all I know really the guy didn't know and chose the easy and legally "safe" answer. I'm wondering how others would view this (traumatic, for me) dilemma?

[psawyer]

What he said was that he could not guarantee that the beverages were gluten-free, and that is a pretty standard disclaimer from any company. Unless they test each and every batch, they cannot make any guarantees. the very nature of Starbucks makes testing impossible.