Oats

[Emme999]

So anyway, last night I went to this "Celiac Basics - Reading Labels" class at Wild Oats where a dietician from a local hospital was providing the lecture. At one point she was talking about Oats and suggested that after 6 months gluten-free, I try adding them to my diet.

I was floored. *Never* have I heard anyone suggesting that someone with celiac disease eat oats! A few minutes later she left the class for a moment and I turned to the other people who were there (all two of them ) and asked them about oats. They had both been diagnosed over a year ago and said that oats made them deathly ill.

I came to celiac.com looking for some information to send to this dietician so that she will not suggest oats to other celiacs - but (from the site index) found writings that mostly agree with what she said! What the #(^??

I will not try oats again because I don't have immediate reactions to gluten and wouldn't even know if I was hurting myself.

But can anyone give me any advice here? I wonder if I should send her information on the high possibility of cross-contamination

If you know of any valuable links that I could send to her - please let me know. I am very concerned - as she is one of the dieticians for a major hospital and could be leading countless others down a bad path.

Thanks!

- Michelle

[KaitiUSA]

I am highly against oats. I believe most if not all the oats in the U.S are contaminated and alot of the stats show at least some contamination. Aside from that the protein in oats called avenin causes some celiacs to have reactions.

If you have to have oats I would get them from somewhere where they have been grown separate from wheat, and made in a different facility because of contamination.

[Guest gfinnebraska]

I use to eat oats all the time before knowing about celiac (doing a purely "wheat free" thing), and I use to get SO sick. I didn't know what was doing it until I quit the oats. Eating oats, to me, is the same as wheat. Same reaction --> period!!

NOT good to go around telling people to eat them... yikes!!

[Carriefaith]

There are a few articles on this site about oats that you could send to her:

https://www.celiac.com/st_main.html?p_catid...-13105020922.f2

I find that you can't believe everything knowledgeable people say. Once I went to a celiac presentation and the presentor said that wheat starch is most likely ok for us to eat!

[flagbabyds]

I actually eat oats, and am perfectly fine with them. They don't make me sick, and I had a biopsy after 3 months of eating it every morning, and it was completely normal.

I use Irish oats.

[tarnalberry]

Take a look through the abstracts on pubmed.com for the research evidence you need. The answer boils down to "many celiacs don't react to uncontaminated oats, but uncontaminated oats pretty much only happen if you grow them in an isolate laboratory, and there's still a subset of celiacs (~10-20%?) who do react to them".

[plantime]

Does anyone know how to process oats? I'm thinking of growing a few in a bucket to test my own reaction to oats. I am afraid to eat the storebought oats, but if I grow and harvest my own, there will be no wheat in them. Then I would know for sure!

[Guest barbara3675]

I missed oatmeal so much and tried some organic oats bought at the health food store that they said were processed where there was nothings but oats, and I did get away with it for awhile. However, after a few times, I got pains in my stomach and the oats did not agree with me. DARN....now I have this big bag of oats staring at me that I cannot eat. Different people react differently.....I think I have a real bad reaction to barley as I ate a fudge with isomalt (barley) as the first ingredient and got such bad diarreah that I couldn't leave the bathroom...and it came on fast too.

Barbara

[celiac3270]

Oats are theoretically safe...contaminated not. If you eat oats, which I wouldn't do personally, but studies show you can: McCanns is the best, as well as Country Choice. Quaker is among the worst. So oats aren't universally gluten-free due to contamination, but can be.

[tarnalberry]

celiac3270, McCann's had higher contamination rates than Country Choice, as I recall. None of them were consistently under the CODEX standard, however.

[gZimmiZ]

My Celiac husband asked his Gut Doctor about eating Oats. He told him, something like this; Big question, well, I guess we could biopsy your intestine then you could eat Oats for a couple of months and then we could re-biopsy and know for sure. My husband decided not to eat Oats but wishes we could know for sure.

[skbird]

I think I have a real bad reaction to barley as I ate a fudge with isomalt (barley) as the first ingredient and got such bad diarreah that I couldn't leave the bathroom...and it came on fast too.

Actually, Isomalt isn't barley. It's not a malt, either. It's a sugar alcohol. When I get a second (running off to a meeting) I'll put in the link to the bit I wrote about this last week...

Stephanie

PS Here it is: Open Original Shared Link

[Guest gliX]

I was also recommended by a doctor to try oats after being gluten-free for 6 months and he said if my blood levels improved then the oats were ok to have..so i tried it..turned out my blood levels did improve to normal with the oats..

nevertheless, after reading these forums i decided just to eat grits instead..i would stay away from them

[celiac3270]

celiac3270, McCann's had higher contamination rates than Country Choice, as I recall.  None of them were consistently under the CODEX standard, however.

At the time of that study, McCanns had a contamination problem with one machine. They have since corrected it. (I found this out from Anne Lee, who spoke with the nutritionist there).

[astyanax]

sorry if this is getting repetitive, so mccann's oats IS ok??

and flagbabyds, what is the brand name of the oats you use ? or do you get them at some kind of specialty store ? have they been tested for gluten?

i'd love some oats

[ianm]

I used to eat oats nearly everyday. I ate far more oats than I did wheat and was very ill. Some of us may be able to eat oats with no problem but I will stay away from them.

[connole1056]

It seems like oats are one of those topics that will always cause a big debate, or question, on whether or not they are safe. I have heard of people being fine and others getting sick. I thought that most of the celiac support groups in the US recommend avoiding oats, so it is surprising that someone speaking on celiac disease would not concur. Perhaps the presenter should have said that many people do have problems with oats, and then spoke of the reasons.

[Emme999]

I was very unimpressed by this dietician. Not only by her oats comment - but also by her lack of understanding of the common complications associated with celiac disease. She brought samples of foods for us to try - all of them containing dairy. I told her that I'm unable to eat dairy because of allergies & intolerance. From what I've read - this is pretty standard among newly diagnosed celiacs (due to the villi being blunted or flattened). I had though that -as a dietician who was presenting herself as familiar with celiac disease - she would be aware of this.

The other people who were there knew a lot more about celiac disease than she did and she commented "Wow! You guys know so much about this!"

We all just kind of looked at her like she was a total idiot. Of course we know about this - our health depends on it! It's more than just a paycheck to us or a chance to impress others that we know stuff about it. It's our bones, our digestion, our emotional wellness, our cancer risk, our fertility, our "bathroom experiences", our thyroid, and a thousand other things.

So many people don't realize how vital to our existence it is that we know as much about this disease as we can. I was really irritated that she just thought it was "neat" that we know so much about this - like it's a hobby or something!

Anyway, I sure as hell wont be visiting her for nutritional advice - and I'll be contacting my doctor to tell her how inadequate this dietician is regarding celiacs disease so that she wont send anyone to her. I'll probably even contact Utah's Gluten Intolerance Group and let them know about the situation.

She seemed to hardly even recognize the possibility of contamination.. how scary is that??