The Little Stickers They Put On Fruit

[Wandering Hermit]

I love apples, but I'm worried about those little stickers they put on them. If there is gluten on stamps, I figure there might be gluten on these stickers. Peel them off and they leave a residue. I have been wiping my apples with a paper towel before I eat them, but I worry that there may still be some residue.

Plus, the shiny apples I buy clearly have some kind of waxy substance applied to the outside - is this safe?

Am I getting paranoid?

[KaitiUSA]

I don't think that is too paranoid. Alot of stickers have gluten in the adhesive. You could take a knife and peel that part of the skin off ...that would work

I do think by washing it off after taking the sticker off would probably do the job though so if your doing that I wouldn't worry too much.

[watkinson]

Never paranoid...always careful

WOW! I never thought of that. I do eat a fair amount of apples. I wash them carefully and polish them up but I wonder about that resiude you were talking about.

HMMMMM, Wendy

[celiac3270]

While I think it's very good that you're being so careful, I have to disagree with the responses to this one. I don't want to discourage you from asking questions, though. While the amount of damage needed to cause gluten is small, the sticker on fruit, even if the adhesive contained wheat, would be of absolutely no risk. If we start worrying about the sticker's on foods, then we should also be avoiding all foods made in facilities that make wheat products. Then we shouldn't even be eating anything that isn't 100% natural at all--and that we can't confirm are made in 100% gluten-free fields with gluten-free fertilizer, etc. If it makes you feel better, you can rinse the piece of fruit, but seriously, it's nowhere NEAR the amount of gluten you'd need to get contaminated.

[Wandering Hermit]

celiac3270:

I hope you are right. It begs the question: how much gluten is too much? I read somewhere that it is 100 ppm. Is this pretty well accepted? It would be worth doing a simple estimate of what a bread-crumb in a normal sized, otherwise gluten-free dinner would work out to in terms of ppm.

[celiac3270]

100 ppm is the CODEX standard...200 ppm is about what it would take to cause damage. Anne Lee compared this to about 1/8 of a tablespoon of flour.

[lovegrov]

I've seen at least three people who have checked this out and the answer has been the same -- the stickers do NOT have gluten.

richard

[Wandering Hermit]

100 ppm is the CODEX standard...200 ppm is about what it would take to cause damage. Anne Lee compared this to about 1/8 of a tablespoon of flour.

1/8th TBSP? Seems like a lot! That is a lot bigger than a breadcrumb. Does this mean mixed in with a nominal-sized dinner? If one crumb can do you in, it must be because you had it on a relatively empty stomach.

[Wandering Hermit]

Sorry to harp on this, but something here just does not add up.

It has been stated that even if it was gluten, the sticker residue on an apple is of no risk.

Yet I am also told that:

- I should not use a wooden utensil or iron skillet that once touched flour, even if they have been scrubbed.

- I should not eat fries out of a frier that even saw one onion ring.

etc.

Surely the amount of gluten from the wooden spoon is not significantly more than the sticker residue? We are talking trace amounts in either case.

Here is a "back of the envelope" calculation of ppm. Suppose a bread crumb is 100% pure gluten (worst case). Suppose it is 1 cubic mm - thats about the size of a crumb.

Now suppose your dinner is about 500 cc's of food. I think this is a fair estimate.

In that case, at least in therms of volume, if not mass (because I am not taking the density of different food items into account) - the volume ratio is

10^-3/5x10^2 = 5.0X10-5, or 0.00005, or 50 ppm. This is an order of magnitude ESTIMATE. This is what you get if you get one crumb in your dinner. (Of course the one crumb on an empty stomach would be a different issue entirely.)

If this really is the case, I'm having a hard time seeing how a scrubbed wooden spoon used to stir a large pot of otherwise gluten-free stew is going to cause a problem.

Of course, I will still continue to use a non-gluten-free spoon, just because I am a bit paranoid and anal.

[astyanax]

yeah i was surprised by the response to this thread too. i brought up awhile ago that i eat american food that's gluten free according to the euro standard (since usa doesn't have one) and i thought the response was predominantly: any gluten is too much (which i totally understand, i personally find it too difficult to avoid even 'gluten free' food and feel if it's ok for europe, it's ok for me !)

i'm personally confused on this issue, although i continue eating food that's "gluten free" even if it falls in that euro standard. especially since something could look gluten free ingredient wise and end up having more gluten from cc than something labeled 'gluten free' in accordance with the european standard.

[gabrielle]

I agree with celiac3270.

It's good to be careful, but don't drive yourself crazy!

[celiac3270]

I had also thought it was a lot when Anne Lee said that. I had heard 1/48th of a slice of bread, which is a very small amount.

Yes, wooden spoons are very dangerous in terms of contamination, so any wooden spoons used for gluten should be replaced. Same with teflon. I also agree with the thing about the fryer. In reality, is it probably going to damage your villi if the spoon is scrubbed well and then stirs this gluten-free stew you speak of? No...but regardless, you're best off not doing that because if you get lenient on the wooden spoon with the stew and you occasionally use the gluten-free pan to make non-gluten-free food and you use that same plastic measuring cup for gluten-free and regular flour, it's going to add up to a substantial amount that can contaminate you.

It's a difficult topic. We don't really know exactly how much is too much, we don't really know about certain ingredients: the Europeans accept wheat starch in their gluten-free products, yet Americans and Canadians do not. We don't really know if wheat starch is okay--in some ways it's difficult to imagine that it would be, but yet, you don't hear all the European celiacs grumbling about symptoms from products which contain it.

But my point is that the adhesive from the sticker:

1) is gluten-free

2) if it did contain gluten, the adhesive wouldn't come close to enough wheat to contaminate you

3) how much of the adhesive actually sticks to the apple

4) this can be avoided simply by taking the skin off the part with the sticker or washing the apple

[SabrinaLuvsGluten]

I think if it were me, I would just do what someone else had said and cut the part with the sticker on it off with a knife and be done with it! Then I would rinse it after that...

Sabrina

[Guest nini]

I recently read that the stickers used on fruit are made by only ONE company, AND they DO NOT use any gluten in their adhesive, so to answer the question, those particular stickers DO NOT pose any gluten risk.

[stef-the-kicking-cuty]

I just asked myself the same question a few days ago. And frankly said, I don't care, if anybody tells me, there's no gluten in it. I always cut it of, so I don't have problems for sure. And it's easy to do that.

[lotusgem]

I'm so glad that this topic was brought up, as it gave me pause the last time I washed an apple and pulled off that little sticker, wondering if its adhesive contained gluten. It is certainly logical, given all that we have to consider, to be concerned. I never lick envelopes or stamps, so why would a fruit sticker be any less suspect? Because it is on food? How about ESPECIALLY because it is on food, we should question it? Well thanks guys for letting us know that the stickers pose no risk. We've cleared yet another great hurdle.

Paula

[PreOptMegs]

I am EXTREMELY sensitive to gluten, so I know for a fact that I would have symptoms even if it was just a small crumb, so to say that everyone can have up to x amount of ppm of gluten and be fine is an overstatement. I have experimented with my body and I know my limitations. I have learned the hard way.... you can never be too careful!!

[calico jo]

with me I seem to be a tiny bit tolerant, but it seems to be cumulative also. I'm not sure within how much time, or how much is my limit, but if I had several "one little bits" that on their own wouldn't cause me a problem, they could add up to make me sick.

I accidently ingested a crumb from a piece of cereal one day and within 1/2 hour I was vomitting and had diarrhea that lasted all day. It was horrible, just from that one little crumb. Or so I thought. Could be I'd had gluten elsewhere and it all just finally added up to enough to make me sick.

So when I think of ANY gluten as being too much, this is why.

As far as stickers on fruit, I peel them off, then use a scrubby sponge with a little soap and rinse well. We ought to be washing our fruit anyway. Could be all of the environmental contaminants are what led to our bodies behaving this way with NORMAL foods to begin with!