Good Greens Bars - Labeled gluten-free, But Not Really

[hotincleveland]

Just wanted to share something I learned to help others...

I used to be enamored with Good Greens bars. They were my go-to food for portability. I swear, on my honor, that they used to be certified.

A while back I noticed some constipation with them, but figured I just wasn't getting enough fiber. Then, I had a PB&J bar, and noticed it was disgustingly sweet. I asked my husband, "Do these taste different to you?" He said, "I dunno"

He just called me from the grocery store to say that the box has a "Produced in a facility with wheat" statement. I went to the kitchen, pulled up the box, and sure enough, there it was. Also, the "Gluten-Free" is no longer the black and white certified gluten-free circle, it's just a generic grain pic with "gluten free" under it.

Looking closely at the ingredients, it has "grain dextrins" -- not sure how I missed those before; they don't list the dextrose source -- and "certified gluten free oats" -- that explains some things, for me at least!!

I am going to write the company to see if their formulas and certification status has indeed changed, that way I'll know if it's them or if it's me. When I first ate them, I was newly gluten free, and as time goes by, I seem to be getting more and more able to detect trace amounts by my reactions.

Just want to encourage you to read your labels of your Good Greens bars if you eat them.

[hotincleveland]

response from the company

Begin forwarded message:

From: Good Greens Info <info@goodgreensbars.com>

Date: October 11, 2012 4:14:01 AM EDT

Cc: Jim Clifford <jc@goodgreensbars.com>

Subject: Re: change in formula / gluten free certification?

First off - We would like to thank you for supporting Good Greens, and for asking these questions.

1) The allergen statement about wheat,soy ect IS NEW - it was a requirement made by liability insurance for the facility the produces our bars, since it's not exclusively a gluten free or NON GMO facility

2) The sweetness in the bars comes from (1) the natural ingredients in our Z-52 superfood powder (nine different dehyrdrated berries), (2) the nautral freeze-dried fruit in our bars, (3) Fruitrim which is concentrated fruit juices that we use for freshness and to hold all of the raw ingrendients in our bar together. Since it's a raw product, the taste of the product varies depending upon when we harvest the ingredients for our superfood powder, and generally later in season berries tend to taste sweeter once they have gone thru the dehyrdation proces.

3) Again the grain dextrins are from the Fruittrim, Open Original Shared Link and it's certified Gluten Free

4) The facility that made our bars was at one time certified by GIG as being Gluten Free, and recently we were informed by GIG that they they were no longer certified, and therefore neither was our product. As a result we have had to remove the GIG certification and get certified by an independent 3rd party, which we are now doing. This 3rd party works with our manufacturing facility's Quality Assurance Team to ensure that the proper protocol is met each time we manufacture our product, and then subsquentially randomly tests our product to ensure that the gluten content in our bars is less than 20 ppm which is the FDA standard.

5) The oats we use are from Cream Hill Estates and are certified Gluten Free by GIG -The oats is what give our bar it's 5 grams of fiber, and also allows for bar to be low glyscemic (diabetic safe), no plans for changing in the futue - I understand your concern but this might help

Open Original Shared Link

On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 4:55 PM, wrote:

Hi - I've been a Good Greens customer for a while; at least one year. I have noticed some changes, and am wondering if you can verity these for me?

1) I noticed the allergen statement about wheat, soy, etc. Has that always been on your packages? Is that fairly new?

2) I noticed that your bars seem to be much sweeter than before. Has the recipe changed? Have your suppliers changed formulas?

3) Can you tell me the grains included in the "grain dextrins" of the fruit sweetener?

4) I thought I recalled your products as having the "Certified Gluten Free" black and white circle logo on them. Do I remember this correctly? Has your certification status changed? I was surprised to look at a newer box and see that it is a wheat logo with gluten free under it, not the circle certification logo. Can you verify? Have you ever been certified? Will you ever be ?

5) Will you ever make a bar that is without oats? Some celiacs cannot tolerate even gluten free oats. Avenin can trigger an immune response like gluten. Have you considered other protein-rich things like chia?

Thanks for any info.

[GFinDC]

Thanks for checking on there bars and posting their reply HotinC, I'd have problems with them too since they have oats. I used to do oats every day but after a while on gluten-free they started to cause symptoms. So no more oats for me. Lara bars are a good choice to sub.

[Cynthia Kupper, RD, CD]

I am the executive director of the Gluten Intolerance Group (GIG), which runs the Gluten Free Certification Program (GFCO).

I just want to set the record straight regarding whether GOOD GREENS bars have ever been certified gluten free by GIG. In its 11 October 2012 post, Good Greens states that its GOOD GREENS bars had been, but no longer are, certified gluten free by GIG. In fact, GOOD GREEN bars have never been certified gluten free by GFCO, therefore their use of the GFCO logo is in violation of Trademark license registration.

Good Greens’ statement to the contrary is false.

[Takala]

Oh, hello, GIG person above ^ !

re: 3) the "grain dextrins" - Noticed the link to the "Fruitrim" ingredient, STILL does not specify what the grain product it is that they call a dextrin, and mix with the fruit juice to create this ingredient, other than they claim it is NOT corn. Bad sign. If it is not corn, and it is a grain, that leaves the other categories of either wheat/barley or rice for the most common and cheapest grain sources. If it were rice, they'd probably be happy to put it on the label... just sayin'

[GFinDC]

I am the executive director of the Gluten Intolerance Group (GIG), which runs the Gluten Free Certification Program (GFCO).

I just want to set the record straight regarding whether GOOD GREENS bars have ever been certified gluten free by GIG. In its 11 October 2012 post, Good Greens states that its GOOD GREENS bars had been, but no longer are, certified gluten free by GIG. In fact, GOOD GREEN bars have never been certified gluten free by GFCO, therefore their use of the GFCO logo is in violation of Trademark license registration.

Good Greens’ statement to the contrary is false.

Wow, thanks for letting us know! I never tried them myself, but I sure won't be trying them now!