gf-soph

I spoke to someone at red rock today, and I was pretty impressed. She was aware of celiac and gluten issues, and was happy to give me a lot of detail about their processes. She said that they fry the chips, then add the salt and add a very fine spray of palm oil to help it stick. They don't have any corn or other additives in their salt, which is a bonus!

She was very clear that they only make one flavour at a time, and they run a wet wash of the lines between each flavour. They also test the lines for gluten before making the plain chips, and they are bagged away before any other flavours are made. She said that the only thing that could account for flavour differences was changes in potato varieties.

I was really impressed that they not only wash the lines, but test for gluten every time. I suggested to them that they make that information available on their website, as it's great to know that they are so thorough.

I think I have pinned down my cc to my morning coffee, so sadly that is now gone. Good to know I have red rock as my emergency backup when out and about!

Yep, just the sea salt ones. I'll ask about corn in the salt if you like, why not kill two birds with one stone. I eat potatoes regularly and I'm sure I don't have a problem with them, so it's really only a possible contamination issue I'm considering here. I also suspect shared machinery, I'll see if they'll give me that much info.

I do also eat piranha brand plain potato grills which are labelled gluten free and I haven't noticed any taste difference, but they aren't stocked as widely as red rock.

I will definitely post an update on the chips.

Hi all

Heads up - I'm pretty sure that the potato chips in question are an Aussie brand only.

I've been eating the plain chips as the ingredients are safe for gluten and my elimination diet and there's no 'may contain traces' warning on the pack.

However, a couple of times in the last few months I have noticed a slight aftertaste on them which I think is traces of the flavouring of the other types of chips, some of which contain gluten. At the time I thought I might be oversensitive to tastes as I am on a very bland elimination diet, but unfortunately my antigliadin levels have gone up a bit, so I'm reevaluating my previous assumptions!

I'm going through and rechecking all other possible contamination sources, but the chips are my only real likely dietary source, as the other couple of processed foods I eat are tested as gluten free at 5ppm.

I'm going to call their info line on Monday, but I was wondering if anyone had had adverse reactions to them, or had noticed differences in taste like I have?

Thanks

Sophie

There's 2 possibilities that I can think of, other than a simple banana intolerance.

Bananas contain a type of amine that people can be sensitive to. Amines are found in most meats (especially cured), cheese (especially matured or ripened), chocolate, and bananas. I can't remember all the amine sources all at the moment, look in to the RPA elimination diet or failsafe diet for more info. It's possible to be sensitive to only one type of amine, so you may have a particular sensitivity to the type in bananas. Amines in bananas increase as the fruit ripen, so if you are more sensitive to ripe or overripe bananas it may be of interest.

Fructose is a potential problem too. The fructose content decreases in bananas as they ripen, so if you had a problem with fructose you may notice your reactions are worse with under ripe or just ripe bananas. Many people with fructose problems can reduce their symptoms by adding some glucose to the banana. It has to be glucose as it assists with the absorption of excess fructose. Regular sugar doesn't help, as it is half glucose and half fructose already. I eat my bananas perfectly yellow - definitely no green, but no significant browning or bruising. I often freeze them in half banana portions to get the ripeness just right.

At the moment I am a bit sensitive to bananas, so I limit them to half a day and always eat them with about a tea spoon of powdered glucose. I tolerate them pretty ok this way. If I don't have glucose with them I get some itching, but I never itch with the glucose.

Hope that makes some sense!

I keep hearing that rice is one of the least allergenic of foods, but it causes extreme fatigue, indigestion and rapid heartbeat for me. It took me a long time to figure this one out.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced this with rice and if it got better with time.

I definitely have an intolerance to rice, I found this out while on an elimination diet, when I increased my rice consumption my digestion went crazy. I also had mood and concentration problems. This was caused by eating a lot of brown rice products, though I seemed to be ok with white rice before, so I'm hopeful that I might be ok with white rice. A few days after cutting out all rice I felt amazing, and haven't had the chance to reintroduce it yet.

I am on the FODMAP diet, and there are people who can tolerate white rice but not brown, due to the fructans in the brown rice. If you want to try it out, you could try a lower GI white rice like basmati or doongara clever rice, and see if you react.