This Is Probably A Crazy Question

[pondy]

Okay, here goes...

At the risk of sounding naive I must ask:

Is it possible to wash/rinse gluten off of certain food?

Lets say I have some nuts or dried fruit that was manufactured on suspect equipment... if I rinse them really well, could I remove the gluten molecules?

I actually just tried this (maybe in vain) with a package of Sunsweet Pitted Prunes. There was no info on the package about manufacturing on shared equip.

Thanks much,

Pondy

[Jenniferxgfx]

I've read here some folks actually wash their grains before grinding. Soap should denature the gluten protein, actually, and I do wash my veggies with soap or Fit wash. Fruits with lots of crevices and pores may be harder to de-gluten, but I have no evidence for this, just thinking about it.

Not a dumb question

[mamaw]

gluten is not like a germ that we can clean away with fit wash or anything else. I too clean all my purchased fruit & veggies but to remove all the chemical sprays that are there not to rid it of gluten.. I honestly don't think that would work or we all would be soaking & rinsing our products... Saoking nuts makes for easier digestion & to bring out the flavor of the nut...

sorry

[T.H.]

Is it possible to wash/rinse gluten off of certain food?

Lets say I have some nuts or dried fruit that was manufactured on suspect equipment... if I rinse them really well, could I remove the gluten molecules?

Yes and no.

Water will rinse off a little bit, but not a lot. Soap and water will wash off more (but not denature, actually. To denature gluten is a pain in the butt - takes something like 600F for 15-30 minutes or so. Not something we can usually do, eh?). Scrubbing hard with soap and water will get even more, like you would scour out a pot - which you usually can't do without turning the fruit or veggie to mush, but you might be able to do better with the outside of a nutshell. (and yeah, I do this...still sometimes get sick off of nuts, but less than before I washed and scrubbed them with soap and water.

However, if there are cracks and crevices, even scrubbing likely won't get it all. If the fruit/veggie is more porous, then gluten is going to soak in and you definitely can't get it all off.

Like, say, strawberries - can you imagine actually cleaning out every little crevice of a strawberry? I can't see it as possible.

I wash all my veggies and fruits with soap and water, and it does make a difference, I'd say. But with things that are processed with wheat, I don't know that it would do enough. Like prunes that are pitted means that they have had equipment inside them digging out the pits, so it would be impossible to clean them enough.