Trader Joes Taco Shells

[mamarie]

I'm so bummed. This is my second week of gluten free, and so far everything has been going great. I ate Trader Joes taco shells tonight which says on the label "no gluten ingredients used", but my stomach is having a bad reaction. I know it's the shells and nothing else, because I only ate them with ground beef (no seasoning), cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and avocado (i never have a problem with these things).

How can a product that touts being free of gluten be tainted? I'm so discouraged and feel I can't trust any label. I'm doubled over in pain.

Did anyone else ever have a problem with these taco shells?

[Skylark]

The Taco shells could be CC but I eat Trader Joe's stuff all the time without problems.

Are you sure it's not food poisoning from the ground beef? That stuff can have an awful lot of bacteria in it.

[Ahorsesoul]

I ate Trader Joes taco shells tonight which says on the label "no gluten ingredients used", but my stomach is having a bad reaction. I know it's the shells and nothing else, because I only ate them with ground beef (no seasoning), cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and avocado (i never have a problem with these things)./quote]

Yes, this is a major problem with labels. Part of the truth.

No gluten ingredients used but probably made in a factory that used the machine to make other items with gluten. So it could be a cross contamination issue.

Also you may find that dairy and soy products need to be cut out of your eating plans for a few months while your intestines heal. I suggest keeping a food and symptom journal for awhile.

[Lily127]

I'm new to all this and trying to figure out what is what. I was curious, how soon most people experience a reaction. I had been doing really well with no diarrhea for almost two months. I nearly got into a car accident (not my fault) and had back pain so I took a Celebrex last Monday night. Celebrex is infamous for giving me a sick stomach but I felt OK.

Tuesday I bought some trader Joe nuts (cashews, almonds and cranberries with salt) and also bought some celery and philadelphia cream cheese with chive and onions. I had a few nuts around 1pm and then around 4pm ate 4 celery sticks and the whole small container of cream cheese. Well within an hour of that I was DEATHLY ill. I mean it's a good thing I was home because I nearly passed out from the pain and cramping and then the onslaught came.

So for me I'm thinking it was probably the celebrex (not that it has Gluten but that it can upset people's stomachs as many anti-inflammatories do) because I've read really good things about Philadelphia Cream Cheese (no bad reactions and also had it early on in my gluten-free diet) but the Trader Joe nuts did concern me so I simply tossed them and decided to go with Diamond or nutsonline.com.

I'm trying not to get discouraged but since this bout my joint pain has reflared something awful as well. I suppose if I get to a good point again I can retry the TJ nuts. The funny thing is before going gluten-free I'd get sick but this sick was like deathly ill!! Since my joints are killing me maybe I should just take another celebrex and if I get sick again I'll know it was that and NOT the TJ nuts. Ah the complexities of going gluten-free!

[Skylark]

It can be very confusing to sort things out. I was thinking it was the Celebrex, but that seems like a long time between the drug and GI issues and I'd think you would have seen a reaction that strong before. My own timing for gluten GI trouble is about 4 hours, so if it were me I'd suspect the nuts. They weren't out of a bulk bin, were they?

[ravenwoodglass]

I'm new to all this and trying to figure out what is what. I was curious, how soon most people experience a reaction. I had been doing really well with no diarrhea for almost two months. I nearly got into a car accident (not my fault) and had back pain so I took a Celebrex last Monday night. Celebrex is infamous for giving me a sick stomach but I felt OK.

Tuesday I bought some trader Joe nuts (cashews, almonds and cranberries with salt) and also bought some celery and philadelphia cream cheese with chive and onions. I had a few nuts around 1pm and then around 4pm ate 4 celery sticks and the whole small container of cream cheese. Well within an hour of that I was DEATHLY ill. I mean it's a good thing I was home because I nearly passed out from the pain and cramping and then the onslaught came.

So for me I'm thinking it was probably the celebrex (not that it has Gluten but that it can upset people's stomachs as many anti-inflammatories do) because I've read really good things about Philadelphia Cream Cheese (no bad reactions and also had it early on in my gluten-free diet) but the Trader Joe nuts did concern me so I simply tossed them and decided to go with Diamond or nutsonline.com.

I'm trying not to get discouraged but since this bout my joint pain has reflared something awful as well. I suppose if I get to a good point again I can retry the TJ nuts. The funny thing is before going gluten-free I'd get sick but this sick was like deathly ill!! Since my joints are killing me maybe I should just take another celebrex and if I get sick again I'll know it was that and NOT the TJ nuts. Ah the complexities of going gluten-free!

I do hope you have verified that the Celebrex is gluten free. Not all meds are and doctors really don't know. Check with the company that makes it.

I found it useless when I still had arthritis but since my stomach was always upset I don't know if the celebrex contributed to it or not as I was taking a handful of different drugs prediagnosis.

It could also have been the nuts.

Not all of us get symptoms right away, especially the digestive ones. For me I get a reaction neuro wise pretty quickly after getting glutened but the GI distress takes about 3 days to appear.

[dilettantesteph]

I had the problem when I was first diagnosed that I reacted to things that other celiacs on this forum said that they ate with no trouble. After getting sick multiple times, I finally realized that I was more sensitive to trace gluten than some of these other people. Just because they could eat it didn't mean that I could eat it. Cross contamination is a real issue for me.

As far as gluten reactions go, I can notice subtle things right away, mainly the flashy temper. The GI issues I don't notice until the next morning, or in the middle of the night if it is really bad.

[kareng]

The first few weeks I was gluten-free, I found corn and corn products hard to digest. After about 2 months, I was better able to eat it. I still try not to combine a lot of corn items and dairy in one day. I will have 2 tacos but no corn chex for breakfast. That sort of thing. I agree with the thought it could be food poisoning. Not everything is gluten. I remember someone insisting they were glutened. Nothing they ate could have done it. He finally admitted both kids had just brought a stomach virus home from school. . Feel better soon!

[Lily127]

They were packaged nuts. I guess bin nuts are bad then?

I actually have had strong reactions to Celebrex before but it didn't take that long (like you mentioned).

I have to admit I'm feeling rather exhausted with all of this the past few days. I'm also still wondering about my Qualitest Valium since they wrote back to me and basically said they couldn't guarantee the gluten free status of their drug. The pharmacist said it looked ok to her but I had also taken 10mg's of valium as well after the near car accident.

I also never heard back from Sandoz about the Zolpidem I take EVERY night so I'm wondering a little bit why I'm bothering to try to make this work if I can't even get a straight answer about the drugs I need. Foods are one thing but it's very difficult for me to make it without my zolpidem and sometimes I need the valium as well.

Does anyone here take a Generic Valium and/or Zolpidem that they are sure is gluten-free?

As to Trader Joes, I do intend to give their nuts another try and when I do I'll post about it. I don't want to write them off without being sure.

L

It can be very confusing to sort things out. I was thinking it was the Celebrex, but that seems like a long time between the drug and GI issues and I'd think you would have seen a reaction that strong before. My own timing for gluten GI trouble is about 4 hours, so if it were me I'd suspect the nuts. They weren't out of a bulk bin, were they?

[Lily127]

Oh and I read the Celebrex (which I think is only made by one company because there is currently no generic) is Gluten Free on the drug list. I can't remember which list exactly but I'm almost 100% sure I read that Celebrex is indeed gluten-free.

Celebrex is a life saver for me in that all the other ones never worked. I think Celebrex is the only Cox 2 inhibitor left on the market and it seems to offer me relief. I usually have to weigh the severity of the pain in my hands against the possible sick stomach. This time I really got sick though. The last time I was that sick was about 20 years ago when my Mom was still alive and I had to call her into the bathroom to hold me up on the toilet because I was really getting ready to pass out from the pain (which is saying alot given I live and have lived with multiple constant sources of pain since I was 12 years old, which I'm sure many of us have).

It's not so much the pain that will make you pass out but the hyperventilating that seems to accompany it.

I'm just laughing here now cause I remember a South Park ep that depicted diarrhea and God it made me laugh so hard and I was thinking WHY on earth am I laughing at this when I know how NOT FUNNY it is but still I was able to laugh at it which I guess means I'm not totally beaten down by it yet!

L

I do hope you have verified that the Celebrex is gluten free. Not all meds are and doctors really don't know. Check with the company that makes it.

I found it useless when I still had arthritis but since my stomach was always upset I don't know if the celebrex contributed to it or not as I was taking a handful of different drugs prediagnosis.

It could also have been the nuts.

Not all of us get symptoms right away, especially the digestive ones. For me I get a reaction neuro wise pretty quickly after getting glutened but the GI distress takes about 3 days to appear.

[Skylark]

They were packaged nuts. I guess bin nuts are bad then?

Bulk bins are a bad idea. You don't know what was in any particular bin in the past, the scoops can be moved around, and bits of gluten-containing food can be spilled into something that would otherwise have been gluten-free.