Erewhon Brown Rice Gluten-Free Cereal

[IrishHeart]

Maybe someone more experienced at this food labeling can help me...I feel as if the "gluten-free" label is not always a guarantee.

This cereal is labeled gluten-free, so I "should be safe" ...right? I am suspicious of it only because I feel rather ill and racy right now after eating it. I eat it several times a week. And so, yes, I am having this feeling a lot. No other packaged foods in my diet (except Good Karma whole grain rice milk) now that I ditched the Orgran crackers and Wholly guacamole.

So, I am wondering if anyone else had a reaction to this cereal? This is tricky business...

Thanks!!

[attunefoods]

Hi Irish Heart. I wanted to reply to your post and inquiry. My name is Annelies and I work for attune foods, the manufacturer of Erewhon cereal. Our Erewhon gluten free cereals were tested and certified gluten free in November last year by GIG. I hope that helps. If I can be of further assistance, please email us from our website.

[snowgirl]

IrishHeart,

I have wondered about the cereal too. My son eats a ton of it and I often feel he is much more hyper , trouble sleeping (issues he has with gluten). I also thought it could be that there is trace gluten - I assume they test to 20ppm or some amount - so maybe if he eats a lot it adds up to too much. Plus he craves it which makes me wonder. Anyhow , I have not found any cold cereal that is produced in a gluten-free facility and is milk and soy free (and free facilities.) So I think I would have the same problem. NuWorld Amaranth used to make the best gluten-free cereal ever, but stopped making it a few years ago when they lost their gluten-free facility.

I did email Erewhon last week for info on the facility but they have not answered yet.

[IrishHeart]

IrishHeart,

I have wondered about the cereal too. My son eats a ton of it and I often feel he is much more hyper , trouble sleeping (issues he has with gluten). I also thought it could be that there is trace gluten - I assume they test to 20ppm or some amount - so maybe if he eats a lot it adds up to too much. Plus he craves it which makes me wonder. Anyhow , I have not found any cold cereal that is produced in a gluten-free facility and is milk and soy free (and free facilities.) So I think I would have the same problem. NuWorld Amaranth used to make the best gluten-free cereal ever, but stopped making it a few years ago when they lost their gluten-free facility.

I did email Erewhon last week for info on the facility but they have not answered yet.

Hi!

I have the same problem because many cereals have soy in them. I just cannot get myself to eat meat and veggies for breakfast, as some people suggest. I just can't! I am lucky I have an appetite at all. I used to eat Honey Bunches of Oats and Cheerios and Shredded Wheat with MILK before all this, so you can imagine how much I miss my hearty cereal!! LOL I wondered about the "brown rice syrup" although the sugar content is nothing. So, why would we feel hyper afterward? weird.

Did you see the post in between yours and mine?

[Snugbuggin]

I eat this cereal every morning, and I am ULTRA sensitive. I have never had a problem on this cereal. I started to suspect that I had a casin problem, so I started eating this with Almond milk... YUMMY. Sorry you guys are having issues. I hope that it is not something in the cereal.

[ravenwoodglass]

Do you like hot cereals? If you do you could try Pocono brand Buckwheat cereal. It is grown in dedicated fields, harvested with dedicated equipment and processed in a plant that only processes buckwheat. It might be a safe option for you.

[CeliacAndCfsCrusader]

Never a problem eating this cereal either.

[T.H.]

If Erewhon is certified by the GIG, which they were saying earlier here, then that means they test down to 10ppm or lower of gluten. Whether they have to test every batch of product is unclear, because that is not standard to get GIG certification - it depends on the cc risks involved in the individual facility. GIG certification also means that oats are not disallowed - do you know if you have a reaction to gluten-free oats or not?

If you do, it could be that is the issue. You'd want to find a product with CSA certification, which means oats, even gluten-free ones, are taken into consideration in avoiding cross contamination. GIG certification doesn't look at this for anything but non-gluten-free oats, last I looked (which was a few weeks ago, so it should be pretty accurate).

Also, I do not know anything about the rice milk, but have you checked them to make sure they don't do the same thing that Rice Dream does and process with barley water? Doesn't have to be labeled if it's just 'processing' and not 'ingredient.'

You were saying you only have these two processed foods in your diet right now - does that mean you are currently avoiding any whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, oils, or spices?

I ask because all of the above have given me issues at one point or another. Kinda sad, looking at it. Sigh. Nuts and beans were the worst. Pistachios once got me so bad I would have happily died for a few days and avoided the pain. Bleh

[IrishHeart]

I eat this cereal every morning, and I am ULTRA sensitive. I have never had a problem on this cereal. I started to suspect that I had a casin problem, so I started eating this with Almond milk... YUMMY. Sorry you guys are having issues. I hope that it is not something in the cereal.

Since I posted this a while ago, I have stopped feeling that way after breakfast. My thinking is I was just still too sick and was reacting to everything....thanks for your input!!

[Nor-TX]

I've been eating this cereal and it seems ok. I bought it to use in my homemade granola bars. Yummy.

[MJ-S]

Testing aside, did anyone ever find out if this cereal is produced on shared lines?

[IrishHeart]

Testing aside, did anyone ever find out if this cereal is produced on shared lines?

Hey there! Gosh, this is an old thread. I had forgotten I even started it. I've made so many posts since.

In answer to your question, here is their company statement:

Which of your cereals are Gluten Free? Are they produced in a dedicated gluten-free facility?

We are pleased to offer six gluten free cereals at this time.

Crispy Brown Rice- Gluten Free

Crispy Brown Rice- Mixed Berries

Cocoa Crispy Brown Rice

Rice Twice

Corn Flakes

Strawberry Crisp

Stay on the look-out for a seventh gluten free cereal, Crispy Brown Rice- No Salt Added, to be transitioning later in 2011.

All of our gluten free cereals are made in a facility that while it's not free of wheat, does practice good cross contamination prevention. Our gluten free cereals do share lines with gluten and wheat, so we have several steps in process to help prevent cross-contamination. Prior to running the gluten free products, the machinery is sanitized and thoroughly washed. After the gluten free cereal is made, it is tested to ensure it is less than 20 ppm of gluten. We sent our cereals to a separate facility to test how low the gluten levels were and found them to be under 5 ppm.

Our Erewhon gluten free cereals were certified gluten free by GIG in late 2010.

[MJ-S]

Thanks. I got a similar response yesterday from them:

"Our Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice - Gluten Free is Certified Gluten Free by GIG. The line that it is produced on is used to make other products that contain gluten - but we use good manufacturing practices to clean the line, ensuring our certification."

I'd be curious what GIG certification means - do they only get tested once, or on an ongoing basis? Because if a line needs to be cleaned, I would imagine one batch could come out differently than another.

I'm asking these questions because I definitely reacted to the Erewhon a few nights ago. In the past I sometimes reacted poorly to it (wondering if cc is why sometimes it seemed ok, but sometimes not), but I blamed the soy milk. When I gave up soy I also gave up cereal.

I tried it again this week for the first time in over 6 months with almond milk (which I have regularly and is safe for me) and had stomach pains later that evening and the following day. Also minor fatigue, depression, and brain fog for a day or two. It was actually a less severe and shorter lasting reaction than I usually have so I question whether gluten was the actual issue. But unless the brown rice syrup is the trouble? I'm fine with brown rice in general, but I've had trouble with other items with brown rice syrup in the past and don't know why?

I'm pretty sensitive - I've reacted to other foods made on shared lines before, so I won't be eating the Erewhon again. Don't know if that makes me a super sensitive, or if it's anything that would bother most other people on this board.

[IrishHeart]

I honestly doubt it is CC (IMHO) but I cannot account for your symptoms either (sorry, hon)

Read about GIG here:

Open Original Shared Link

[weluvgators]

Our family would not eat Erewhon cereals when we researched it a couple of years ago. In the past year we have been quite successful introducing Orgran cereals. Orgran is made in Australia and is required to adhere to a "no detectable gluten" level. Their customer service has been fantastic in my phone calls as well. The current level of detection being used in Australia is 3 ppm, so there remains room for the more super sensitives to react, but we have been very encouraged by the made in Australia processed foods. In my manufacturing contacts, one of them forwarded a report done by the New South Wales Food Authority, and of 222 "gluten free" labelled foods tested, 95% contained no detectable gluten at 3 ppm detection limits. However, the worst performing categories were "cereal and cereal products" at 79.2% (24 samples tested)and "bread and bread mix" at 82.6% (23 samples tested).

I found that report here: Open Original Shared Link

[dilettantesteph]

Don't know if that makes me a super sensitive, or if it's anything that would bother most other people on this board.

Tested to under 5 ppm could mean just under 5 ppm, zero, or anything in between.

Rice Dream milk is tested to under 5 ppm: Open Original Shared Link

yet, you have probably read many posts on this board from people who react to it.

I'm not sure what the definition of super sensitive should be. Maybe it's those who react to some foods tested to under 20 ppm, the proposed standard. I'm not sure that's all that unusual.

I'm glad that you figured it out. Getting glutened is no fun.

[Sunshine-Lollipop]

I just had a similar experience with this cereal today that I thought I should share. I opened a bag of their crispy brown rice w/mixed berries, and poured a bowl. I started eating, and noticed it tasted a bit funny - then I noticed quite a few round brown seeds in my bowl.  They were far too big to be berry seeds - so I wasn't sure what they were at first. I called the company and they said to send in a photo, and suggested it may have been from a previous batch of cereal that wasn't cleaned out fully. Meanwhile, I started to feel the hyper feeling I get when exposed to gluten (I haven't had gluten in about 7 or 8 years, and I'm super careful, so it's been a while since I felt this). Then, when I looked the seeds up online I realized they are hemp seeds. Attune foods has a new 'Erewhon' cereal out with hemp and buckwheat - it was probably from that. There were also a couple of flakes in there that looked like oat or wheat flakes and not rice - so someone may have just not been cleaning the lines very well after each batch.

 

So I don't know if my reaction was to gluten or to the hemp - but I would definitely caution you against having their cereals if you are avoiding either!  I would NOT feed this to my child because even though food-hemp has very little thc, it also has other medicinal compounds and I don't think it's been studied long enough as a food source to be safe for kids, particularly since pot is known to carry some significant dangers for them.

 

So, if this can happen once it's likely happened before, and in this case it was obvious since those seeds were huge, but if they clean out the big pieces and don't thoroughly wash down the lines after a gluten-containing cereal is processed, you could easily get glutened without knowing it (except for the symptoms of course).