Could The Milky Way Ingredients Have Been Misleading?

[Neighbor808]

Hello all! I am still quite new to this whole diet, being introdcued only before Thankksgiving. From the start of this diet, I've seen good imporvement, which makes me happy. Anyways, I just got a Milky Way bar a few minutes ago, read up online a bit, read the ingredients (I'm already pretty knowledgeable of the good and bad of ingredients, but not wholly familiar), and it seemed okay. I saw no wheat ingredients, but I DID see an ingredient listed as "Malted Barley". Now, I knew that most things "Matled" cannot be good news. What lead me to believe it's gluten-free status was printed on the bottom: the allergy information, "MAY CONTAIN PEANUTS". Now, if wheat or gluten was in that product, it would've also listed "CONTAINS WHEAT INGREDIENTS", right? Since it said nothing about wheat, and was made by Mars (which I heard was very good about giving you correct allergy information and ingredients on their products), I thought that it must be okay. The doctor described me as having "Latent Celiac Disease", I've felt slightly better after the diet, and my mornings have been much less agonizing. I don't exactly get "glutened" when I eat products with gluten, but I do experience very slight discomfot and burping, which I've been having after eating this. Should I saty away from these for good, or am I okay? My body can't exactly give me the asnwers....

[Skylark]

Hello and welcome. I'm glad you are feeling better. You are correct that Mars is very good about labeling and they used the word "barley" to warn you.

We can NEVER eat wheat, rye, or barley, and you want to avoid oats unless they state they have been tested for gluten. "Contains wheat ingredients" only covers wheat. If you see a rye or barley ingredient like malted barley anywhere in the ingredients, the food is not safe to eat. You cannot eat any more Milky Way Bars, or other candies with malt, barley malt, or malted barley.

There is an unsafe ingredient list here. You might want to print it out and keep a copy until you are more used to the label reading. It's a pain!

https://www.celiac.com/celiac-disease/forbidden-gluten-food-list-unsafe-ingredients-r182/

[Skylark]

Oh, and avoid oats until you are 100% well. At that point you can cautiously try adding some gluten-free oats and see if you can tolerate them. Some celiacs react to the gluten-like protein in oats as badly as if it were wheat.

[AMom2010]

Milky way dark bars are gluten free!!

[psawyer]

Welcome to the board, and welcome to the process of learning to read labels.

The Milky Way bar contains gluten (barley malt), and is not safe for us.

Gluten, defined in terms of celiac disease, is a protein found in three grains: wheat, rye and barley. Oats are generally contaminated with wheat, and a minority of us also react to pure oats.

The list of top allergens that must be disclosed includes wheat, but not the other three.

"Contains" and "May Contain" are different animals, too.

In the US, if a top-eight allergen is present, it must be listed by its common name, EITHER in the ingredients list OR in a contains statement. Only allergens may be listed in the contains statement. The eight allergens under the federal Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) are: wheat, soy, milk, peanuts, eggs, tree nuts, fish, and crustacean shellfish. Since barley and rye are not on that list, they will never appear in a "contains" statement. (In Canada, the list also includes sulfites and sesame seeds.)

If there is a "contains" statement, it must list every allergen present. But, again, barley and rye are NOT "allergens" as defined by the label regulations.

In this example, barley was listed in the ingredients by name. As someone new to this, I understand your confusion. But the label is not misleading, and conforms to the rules. You can not rely solely on the "Contains" statement to identify gluten. You'll know about wheat, but not barley or rye.

Rye is not something you need to worry about. It is in very few foods, and those are confined to selected baked goods where you would expect it, like rye bread and pumpernickel. In my experience, it is always clearly listed on the label.

"May contain" means that the ingredient is not intentionally present, but despite Good Manufacturing Practices and other precautions, it is not possible to be sure that trace contamination does not occur. Like the previous discussion, only ingredients legally described as allergens will be listed.

And, last, Open Original Shared Link If you don't see "wheat, rye, barley, barley malt, oats" on the labels, its not there, or hidden in "flavors, starches, etc." This makes shopping MUCH easier.

Edit: Three other posts were made while I was composing this.

[Skylark]

Great explanation, Peter!

[Neighbor808]

Thank you very, very much Skylark and psawyer, I appreciate the help and explanation tremendously! I didn't have a reaction to the Milky Way bar when I ate it before the post but I do now understand that it is harmful, and to look out for anything with "Barley". But I have one more question, say that something just had malt as an ingredient or did not have something like Barley, Wheat, Rye, etc. at the end but it was "Malted" something else. Is this Malt ingredient harmful, as well? I think I remember hearing something about Malt ingredients not being safe. I appreciate it! And also to AMom2010, I'm very happy to hear that the midnight edition is gluten free. Milky Way is my favorite and although I'm a little upset with having to part with the original, the midnight not being quite as good, I'm still happy that I can enjoy one Milky Way product.

[Skylark]

Malt is unsafe.

Please read this list! You really need to start to learn where gluten hides.

https://www.celiac.com/celiac-disease/forbidden-gluten-food-list-unsafe-ingredients-r182/

[Neighbor808]

Malt is unsafe.

Please read this list! You really need to start to learn where gluten hides.

https://www.celiac.com/celiac-disease/forbidden-gluten-food-list-unsafe-ingredients-r182/

Okay, thank you very much. I will check out that list, also.

[heatherjane]

The "Simply Caramel" version of Milky Way is also gluten free. It's closer to the original than Midnight.