Gluten Free Guide

If you are looking for an easy guide of what foods to avoid when cooking or eating without gluten, this is the list that I live by. I hope this is helpful.

Ingredients to avoid:

Grains
Wheat
Barley
Malt
Spelt
Rye
Kamut
Oats (unless specifically processed to be gluten free)

Other
(Modified) Foodstarch
Maltodextrin
Manufactured/Processed in a facility with wheat
Artificial flavoring (check with manufacturer)

Rules I go by

1. ANYTHING can have gluten in it.

2. Always check ingredients of any new product you use, any product with new packaging, or a new quantity of a product.

3. If there’s any doubt or question about an ingredient (ie: modified foodstarch (corn) ), don’t use it. Check with the manufacturer and get a definite answer or check online on both the company’s website and gluten free community resources that have been updated.

4. Check ingredients of products we use regularly, occasionally. Manufacturers change their ingredients often and without notice.

5. Read the entire ingredient lable. Check for allergy warnings at the bottom. A simple “Gluten free!” on the front does not guarantee that it is. There is no law against advertising specifically this falsely.

6. Hope for the best. You can’t be on top of everything. We can only do what we can.


Common misconceptions and questions

If you can’t have wheat, isn’t spelt okay? If it’s wheat that’s the problem then yes. Spelt is not gluten free. It just has smaller amounts of gluten in it than Wheat or Barley.

Why do some oats have gluten and some not? Oats, by nature are gluten free. But they are frequently raised with wheat and are cross pollinated with wheat as well as processed in the same mills, using the same equipment. Only oats grown and processed separately are considered gluten free.

I found a product that says gluten free but it has maltodextrin. Is it okay? Maybe, but since it’s a question mark, avoid it. Maltodextrin is made differently in Europe than in the US. One country makes it out of wheat, the other makes it our of corn. There’s no guarantee.