Question On Soy Sauce Vs. Soy Beans

[Grace'smom]

At an intro to "celiac disease: 101' class that my husband I took at Children's Hospital in Boston a couple of mos. ago, one of the nutritionists explained that celiacs have to avoid soy sauce as it contains gluten.

I'm often unnerved when reading ingredients and find soybeans or soybean oil or some other term that incorporates soy into it. I understand that the kind of soy that's in, say, soy milk, is ok. So what is it in Soy sauce that is not ok, and where is the difference? I'm not sure about the soy issue and its probably a really dumb question, but its driving me crazy that I keep meaning to ask someone about this, and we're not due back to the hospital for a while..can anyone explain the ok soy vs. the not ok? Thanks

[Dixiebell]

Soy sauce is made with wheat.

[Dixiebell]

Do a search 'how is soy sauce made'. I found a site wisegeek that explained it well.

[GlutenFreeManna]

Most regular soy sauce has wheat in it. There are wheat-free brands though (I can't tell you which brands because I have to avoid all form of soy in addition to gluten). If your daughter doesn't need to be soy free then you can just get wheat-free soy sauce or wheat free tamari. In the U.S., the label has to specify if the soy sauce has wheat. So that should be easy for you to check. The trickier thing is eating out and ordering something that has soy sauce because you don't know unless you ask them to check the label (or unless they have a gluten-free menu) if it has wheat in it.

[Roda]

Jade Dragon soy sauce is gluten free. My bottle says: hydrolyzed soybean and corn protein, water, corn syrup, salt, carmel color. I also found this brand listed in my gluten-free grocery shopping guide (Cecelia's markeplace). Also San-jay makes a organic tamari wheat free soy sauce.

[Skylark]

La Choy was also gluten-free last time I checked. I like the San-J tamari much better though.

[T.H.]

Yeah, it's the wheat rather than the soy that's the issue. :-) But, interestingly enough, you're getting the more traditional soy sauce when you go gluten free - it's called tamari - because when it was first invented, it was only made with soy beans. Using wheat, which makes the flavor a bit more mellow, is a more modern process. However, if you traditionally use soy sauce in your recipes, you may find that you need a bit less gluten free soy sauce than you would the wheat soy sauce, because of the stronger taste.

The soy beans themselves, no problem. :-)

[RiceGuy]

For those who cannot have either gluten or soy, there's Open Original Shared Link.

[Mizzo]

We use both La Choy soy sauce and San J Tamari with no problems.

There is a Teriyaki sauce from Premier Japan which is gluten-free but we have not tried it.

[GlutenFreeManna]

For those who cannot have either gluten or soy, there's Open Original Shared Link.

Thanks for the reminder. I had checked before about a month ago and they didn't have it in my area. Now two stores carry it and I can order it online. Yay!

[Grace'smom]

Thank you all for clearing it up...so it has nothing to do with the "soy" per se, just the wheat flour that was added to Soy sauce....GOT IT! Thanks

[Mizzo]

Just a comment.

I got my Celiac 101 from Children's hospital as well and we were told that only certain Soy Sauce were gluten-free, we were not told to avoid all of them. The fact that the same hospital told you something different bothers me. I would think Children's hospital of all places should be extremely clear about their nutrition talks.

Thank goodness for this forum!

[psawyer]

For Canadians, VH soy sauce is gluten-free, and widely available. Most VH sauces are gluten-free, however they are only sold in Canada, AFAIK.

[Grace'smom]

Just a comment.

I got my Celiac 101 from Children's hospital as well and we were told that only certain Soy Sauce were gluten-free, we were not told to avoid all of them. The fact that the same hospital told you something different bothers me. I would think Children's hospital of all places should be extremely clear about their nutrition talks.

Thank goodness for this forum!

Hi Mizzo,

It could have been my misunderstanding; it was a week post-diagnosis when I took the class and my head was spinning from all of the info. She may have said to read Soy sauce labels carefully and I heard otherwise. I do think the class was extremely helpful. Didn't realize you are in the Boston area too.