Is Grilled Chicken Gluten-Free And Casein-Free?

[CGally81]

I've been recovering from my celiac VERY well. I no longer am hungry all the time, and in fact can easily afford to eat less than 2500 calories every day (sometimes even less than 2000 calories!). I sometimes get random headaches where I feel kinda knocked back, which is hard to describe, but I get them less and less often. They would occur after eating ANY food, or sometimes out of the blue, and other times would not occur after eating food.

Anyway, my parents make chicken in different varieties, but are aware of my condition, and try to avoid putting anything in it that I can't have. My mom, however, was unaware that the flavoring used for her flavored hamburger contains flour (which has a significantly more subtle effect on me than outright wheat - but removing flour has helped my health a lot), and I had to point it out myself (I'd only had flavored hamburger once since going Gluten-free Casein-free).

Tonight, I had grilled chicken. As we are installing a new kitchen this summer, I was told that we'd have to start grilling everything since we won't have an oven or stove for a while. Well, I had the grilled chicken, liked it, and noticed it was in a pan filled with... something, but not sure what. I don't know what grilled chicken is often cooked in.

I didn't feel the obvious glutening symptoms (which to me are a certain kind of headache, being spaced out and unable to concentrate, feeling VERY hungry, and/or having liquid D), but I did get a headache some time after dinner - about 20-30 minutes. It's the same headache I'd been randomly getting after eating any kind of food, or sometimes out of the blue. I'm not sure if I was glutened or not.

Anyway, here's my question. What's grilled chicken often cooked in? Was I glutened or caseined? Or did that likely not happen?

If it did happen, I will have to find a way around this, since I can't trust a grill to not have gluten-containing foods cooked on it, leaving residue. I'd have to find another way to cook dinner during the month the kitchen will be revamped (i.e. using my ricemaker to cook rice and having peanut butter or something for protein).

[kayo]

The only way to know for sure is to ask the person who cooked the chicken.

[i-geek]

Can you not ask your parents (or whoever did the cooking) how the chicken was prepared?

Alternatively, you could purchase a Foreman grill and cook your own meat while waiting for the kitchen to be finished.

[CGally81]

Can you not ask your parents (or whoever did the cooking) how the chicken was prepared?

Alternatively, you could purchase a Foreman grill and cook your own meat while waiting for the kitchen to be finished.

My mom isn't too happy when I ask her questions that are essentially accusatory. Not to mention that if I didn't get sick but it has flour (which again, is subtle), she might think I'm full of it. Though she has said a few days ago that she apologizes for her past skepticism and is glad to see that I'm noticeably doing better in some ways than even before I had overt celiac symptoms.

[tictax707]

Grilled chicken can be marinated in anything... Again, you've got to ask. I noticed that you are casein free too. There may have been margarine in the marinade or something. You'd be amazed at how many times I've seen milk related products in grilled meats!! I second the george foreman idea - it will be safest to have your own to use, and then you won't have to worry about contamination from the grill... I wish you luck in sorting this out.

[CGally81]

Grilled chicken can be marinated in anything... Again, you've got to ask. I noticed that you are casein free too. There may have been margarine in the marinade or something. You'd be amazed at how many times I've seen milk related products in grilled meats!! I second the george foreman idea - it will be safest to have your own to use, and then you won't have to worry about contamination from the grill... I wish you luck in sorting this out.

"KC Masterpiece Marinade Steakhouse" is what it appears to be.

One of the ingredients is modified food starch. That may or may not contain gluten. I have a celiac coworker who said he got sick off eating popcorn that contained modified corn starch. I'll have to find out.

On their site, they say they label all food allergens (including wheat and milk) clearly, but make no reference to gluten specifically.

So, considering this fun headache has lasted 2 and a half hours already (even if it's not accompanied by the more common gluten symptoms I have), should I assume the modified food starch contains gluten, and stay away from this?

On the other hand, supposedly food companies now are listing wheat separately from modified food starch.

Also, the headache I have is the same type I'd been randomly getting anyway, so it may or may not be gluten-related.

I e-mailed the company asking about the gluten-free status of this particular marinade.

While I wait for their response and avoid this food for now, does anyone else know for sure if this food is or isn't safe?

[Heidi S.]

Well it is hard to say?

This was posted awhile ago on our forums but it might help:

Posted 03 February 2007 - 02:38 PM

KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce is NOT gluten free. We e-mailed the company a couple of months ago to find that our families favorite sauce is off limits.

Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ is gluten free that is what I use. I am sorry your mother is defensive about her cooking. It is a shame that she does not understand it is a medical necessity and can cause long term damage to your system, even death...not to be graphic or harsh. But she needs to face reality that it is NOT a choice, you need support!

About grilled chicken, it could be contamination from the grill but if you use aluminum foil to cook yours on you wouldn't need to buy a new grill. Second a lot of chicken is not gluten free b/c it is injected with chicken broth, chicken broth that is thickened with wheat. You need to check the brand of chicken first. If your mother can handle it you should ask for your chicken with just a little salt and pepper grilled on aluminum foil, if you can not get her to buy gluten free marinades. A lot of seasoning and marinades are gluten free and maybe you can convince her to switch to the gluten free options if you go grocery shopping with her.

Hope it helps, good luck on your journey!

[Roda]

If modified food starch is made from wheat it has to be declared on the lable. What I would be questioning is the "natural flavors." Other gluten can be hidden, usually barley or barley malt. Also if you eat something with flour in it, it is made from wheat.

[VioletBlue]

If gluten foods have been made on that BBQ and the grill was not scrubbed down, and maybe even if it was, gluten can transfer onto new foods.

In addition, if it's a charcoal BBQ many charcoal briquettes contain wheat as a binder. Kingsford charcoal last time I heard was gluten free and they use corn as a binder. The jury is kind of split as to whether the smoke from glutened charcoal can deposit gluten on grilled food, but since I'm the griller in my house, I'd have to handle it anyway, so I just use Kingsford to be safe. If it's a gas grill of course you have no worries about the heat source.

You can try wrapping foil around the grill to keep the food off it since heat will transfer nicely through aluminum foil, but you'd still have to worry about ripping the foil and having food touch the grill.

[Skylark]

Anyway, my parents make chicken in different varieties, but are aware of my condition, and try to avoid putting anything in it that I can't have. My mom, however, was unaware that the flavoring used for her flavored hamburger contains flour (which has a significantly more subtle effect on me than outright wheat - but removing flour has helped my health a lot), and I had to point it out myself (I'd only had flavored hamburger once since going Gluten-free Casein-free).

This is very confusing to me. Flour IS outright wheat.

There is never a 100% guarantee that a processed food, sauce, or soup is gluten-free, unless the company is cleaning machinery and testing their bulk ingredients.

It's really easy to make good grilling marinades and rubs instead of buying them. I have a book I've always loved called "Grilling" by John Phillip Carroll from the Williams-Sonoma kitchen library, ISBN 0783502060. It has all sorts of marinades and rubs, most of which are naturally gluten-free. It's old enough to be out of print and only available used, but Williams-Sonoma has a bunch of grilling cookbooks out now that probably have some of the same recipes.

[CGally81]

Flour is made from wheat, certainly, but I noticed foods with bleached wheat flour didn't seem to affect me in quite the immediate way as foods with regular wheat. Not sure why. At least, it didn't seem that way at the time, but I stopped eating it anyway. Same with malt powder (which did cause me to have a low blood sugar reaction within 1-2 hours after eating it, a problem that went away when I stopped).

My parents know I use tinfoil when cooking things in pots and pans, and when the kitchen is being revamped, I will use tinfoil myself.

I e-mailed the company, and got back this reply:

"The FDA requires that we list the following allergens on our ingredient labels:

1. Egg

2. Soybean (excluding high refined oil)

3. Dairy

4. Peanut

5. Wheat (barley, rye, oats, or any source of gluten)

6. Fish

7. Crustacean

8. Tree Nut

Please know that the modified food starch in this product is made from corn.

For the most accurate source of information, please check the back of the ingredient panel for every purchase as ingredients may change. Additionally, the term "Natural Flavor" is proprietary to our formula however, if any of the allergens listed above were present in the natural flavors it would be called out specifically on the ingredient panel. Further, none of our products are manufactured on dedicated lines.

Again, thank you for contacting us."

I hope they're right, and my headache was caused by something else (it wasn't the same type of headache I'd get when glutened, which is very specific and feels quite different).

[Salax]

Forgive me if this comes across in a "rude" way. It is not my intention. My thought is only to help.

I can't help but to wonder why you would eat something that you

[kareng]

Maybe you could cook for your parents, too? Also, I know people that get a headache from MSG which has nothing to do with gluten but is in alot of things. Look around on this post because I think that autolyzed or hydrolyzed yeast or something may be similar to MSG. There was some discussion on this in the past month or so.

[Korwyn]

Karen said what I was going to. MSG is derived from soy. Processed soy especially is high in glutamates. MSG is a known cause of headaches and other problems (MSG is evil). Even before I found out that soy was causing many of my neurologic symptoms, MSG gave me a killer headache within 30-45 minutes after consuming it.

And soy sauce is a common ingredient for many BBQ sauces. I use either my own BBQ sauce (a semi-sweet/tangy/mildly hot sauce) or Sweet Baby Ray's which is soy, gluten, and casein free. It does have high-fructose corn syrup but I won't get on my soapbox about that right now.

[kayo]

My understanding is that MSG in the US is not made from soy or wheat. It's made mostly from beets and/or sugar. However you could still be sensitive to it.