Gluten Enzymes - Experience/reviews?

[Leper Messiah]

"Cheers yolo, I agree with your sentiments re my flatmate however he is normally pretty good but to him it's moving from the country to the city (and all the excitment of being in the town and being able to go out on the piss from our doorstep, you know what I mean) and he is my best mate so I'm wary of pushing him too hard - also I kind of need the rent too. He generally agrees to what I need but if I'm 100% honest, I think I need a gluten free home as no matter how hard I or he tries it's always going to be difficult to completely avoid and it only takes one misplaced gluten protein it seems to set me up for 2 weeks of unbelievable fatigue. I think his plans are to stay here for 2-3 years then move in with his brother so I figure I'll try and cope until then and then once he leaves I should have enough money to go it alone and achieve what I seem to dream about every night.....a gluten free home!!"

It actually is good to hear your flat-mate is trying to work with you. Sounds like he is a nice guy. Maybe, as he learns more, eventually he can become your advocate?? Barring one of you moving out, or having your room mate go gluten free at least in the flat while you live together, I suggest you create a gluten free area where you can store your food and cook in, and have your flat mate do the same with his stuff. It would be a good idea for instance if you got your own dedicated toaster oven for instance, as well as your own cutting board etc. It would be nice if you or he could get your (or his) own mini fridge too if that is at all possible. And maybe a hot-plate?? You should probably also go through "decontamination" rituals like always washing your hands before putting them to your face or mouth and maybe even washing off plates and silverware, just as a precaution, depending on the situation--or again have your own separate stuff you store separately. Maybe too get your own washable place mats for your table only to be used by you.

Meanwhile I have found this washing my hands all the time to be a life saver in numerous situations, just through the day. If you also have to be extra cautious in your own flat, so be it.

I have a gluten free area and have my own gluten-free cupboard but as it's a small kitchen the rest is pretty much a free for all which I have to manage hence why if this enzyme spray worked, omg it would be like all my christmasses rolled into one, lifesaver potentially.

Yeah I have rituals, lots of them . Washing hands is problematic however because my flatmate's glutenny hands get on the taps etc. So I do his dishes and only allow him to use the cold tap hence I can use the hot tap to wash my hands and wipe down everything including the cold tap without re-CC'ing myself essentially.

[CR5442]

Yeah exact reply here:-

Thank you for your email.

I`m sorry but I cant really comment on your question. It is not something I have studied or used. I have no idea if it works on surfaces that may have traces of gluten on them. sorry

I agree we are thinking outside the box but surely not by a far stretch of the imagination, essentially what I was asking them was specific to their product but they would have surely known or had an opinion to whether our suggestion might work. That's all I was looking for, I mean technically if it did surely it's a massive product given the increasing market for celiacs and non-celiac-gluten-intolerants. Sorry just a bit peeved at their lazy response.

I'm not yet entirely convinced taking the enzymes will help with my reaction, hence the investigation to stopping gluten before it enters my mouth. It appears, I've yet to try them of course and will reserve complete judgement until then, that it only reduces the intensity and length of the attack for folks affected by bowel issues, diarrhoea / sore stomach etc. I've not heard of them reducing the length of time for those who have a 2 week fatigue instead nor reducing the severity of the fatigue. Which kind of makes sense in that it takes time for the enzymes to break down the gluten but since it's been ingested this is largely irrelevant except for those affected by immediate GI issues. We shall see though. I don't have any major GI symptoms when I eat gluten, perhaps slightly so but it's the fatigue which really defines my reaction.

Hmm butcher paper could be a shout, will look into that.

Hi there. Just to let you know that there are very peculiar guidelines about what you can and can't say about any medications even herbs in this country. If they don't know the specific answer they will say they don't as they don't want you to end up getting glutened using this method. If you like, as I'm in the UK I can give them a call to see if there is someone else they could recommend speaking to? Let me know. Also, what was the name of the person as they have more than one nutritionist. The lady was very helpful to me, one of the guys not so helpful.

[Leper Messiah]

Yeah you're probably right Caroline, better to be safe than sorry I guess, it was a Carla Halford of their Technical Department. Happy for you to call them if you are happy to, might be able to get a little further than I did.

I've got my hands on this Glutenzyme product so I'll report back on if it does anything in terms of ingestion and my symptoms.

[CR5442]

Hi there, I just spoke to Evie, who was the nutritionist I spoke to before. She said that these supplements, with regard to diet, should only be taken to try and ameliorate symptoms from accidental/possible glutening e.g. when you go out. With regard to using it in solution on a counter top, she advised that the gut environment is completely different from dissolving the supp. in water and mixing to apply to a counter top. There is no way of knowing that the enzyme molecules are evenly distributed, so her advise is not to use these for this purpose.

With regard to alcohol, there has been a lot of discussion about alcohol being made from grains - particularly if it is the drinking type. On here there is a piece by one of the contributing editors which gives a number of alcoholic drinks as safe to drink (i.e. no gluten). Pure ethanol is normally distilled so whatever it is made from any potential gluten particles should have been left behind in the sediment after distillation. Go for the purest kind you can find for wiping your counter tops.

[Skylark]

good answer from Evie, although I would be more concerned about the enzymes lacking a gut-like environment (or even more specifically a germinating barley seed environment) rather than even distribution on the counter-top. A lot of enzymes don't work very well in pure water and you have to play with things like pH and salt.

Great point about grain alcohol! Look for isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol) instead. It is derived from petroleum rather than grain. I don't know what's available in the UK, but in the US you can get "rubbing alcohol" that's 70% isopropanol (the other 30% is water).

[Leper Messiah]

Cheers Caroline/Skylark, given me some much needed food for thought. Got glutened again yesterday so this has picked up my spirits a little (pun wholly unintended !).

I've found this Open Original Shared Link so am about to email them to ensure gluten free but it looks to be exact same product as you've indicated above Skylark. It doesn't say for sure that the other 30% is water but am I safe to assume this? Or will it matter given that I'm going to wipe off the alcohol with kitchen roll anyways, i.e. no residue should remain?

Thanks for the technical input Skylark, I see that using the gluten enzyme product in this way is perhaps flogging a dead horse so to speak. Perhaps when I'm better I'll have the energy to probe further as I'm still interested in researching whether it is possible to neutralise or break down the gluten protein with a view to developing some sort of kitchen cleaner.

Incidentally, I tried the Glutenzyme product just after I'd been glutened and I didn't notice any effect - brain fog etc still seemed the same, maybe slightly less pronounced but I can't be sure if this is the placebo effect - but if my two weeks of fatigue turn into 1 and half or even 1 then I'll be the first to shout it from the rooftops!!

[Skylark]

Yes, that's exactly the rubbing alcohol I'm talking about. Yes, the other 30% is water. I would not bother mailing them about gluten. They probably won't even have a clue what you mean or why you are worried. Only traces of isopropanol are made in grain fermentation so it's not a commercially viable source.