Gluten Free Tips

Hidden Gluten
If you have been recently diagnosed with a coeliac condition you know that you must now attempt to exclude gluten from all of your meals. This can be harder than it seems as gluten likes to play the game of hide and seek with you and there could be hidden gluten in seemingly innocent food products. Don’t worry, whilst initially this seems daunting you will find over time you learn where to look for all this hidden gluten and what food labels are commonly used to disguise the enemy.

Obviously, if you prepare your meals yourself at home you will be quite clear on what you putting in to the meal and you will be able to review the food labels to ensure that gluten is absent. The main issue comes where pre-processed foods are purchased at the supermarket and when eating out at restaurants. With preprocessed foods there are often differing terms used to describe the same ingredient and this can help to hide gluten. At the restaurant of course you will rely upon the waiter to advise you whether gluten is present in the meal and you may need to help the serving staff to understand where it can hide.

Some of the common ingredients to avoid and their are most frequently used descriptions are:-

Modified food starch. This is a real tricky one as sometimes modified food starch is quite innocent and on other occasions it actually represents gluten. There appears to be no known statutory requirement to clearly indicate the type of food starch used and if you see this item on the ingredients list the best action is to not buy the product.

Starches. This term has different meanings in different continents. It could represent gluten in Europe whereas starch is often used to describe corn in the United States of America. Once again if in doubt keep it out, you don’t want gluten in your meal.

Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein or Hydrolyzed Plant Protein. The situation here is improving in that laws are being introduced to require food producers to identify the underlying food plant source and that should help to establish whether gluten is hidden in the meal or not.

Dextrin. Dextrin can be made from several different grains including rice, tapioca, corn, potato or unfortunately wheat. You need to investigate further to see whether it gluten is present.

Don’t let this list put you off. The challenge of finding hidden gluten is greatest immediately after you have been diagnosed with coeliac condition and when you buy preprocessed foods or visit a restaurant for the first time. Once you have gone through the learning curve you will find that you develop your own set of preferred food products and places to eat where you are more comfortable that you can readily identify sources of gluten and ensure that they are excluded from your food.

The final point to note is that you should always be on your guard for hidden gluten reappearing in a product. Manufacturers often change their recipes without warning or restaurants can change their main chef unbeknown to you. This causes a requirement for you to check each and every time that there is no gluten in your food.