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"Hidden gluten" may be hiding in plain sight. You can protect yourself if you know what to look for.
If you have celiac disease, gluten allergy or gluten sensitivity, you need to forego breads and pasta or replace "regular" ones with gluten-free products.
And if you're living with gluten-eaters, also be careful about cutting boards, grills and toasters that have been in contact with gluten as they may be contaminated. If you're buttering gluten-free bread with a knife that's been used on regular bread, you can ingest gluten unawares.
Gluten shows up in some unlikely places, and under many aliases.
It can lurk in lunch meat, sausages, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken burgers and vegetarian burgers. It's harbored in baked beans, frozen poultry, cheese spreads, potato chips and dry-roasted nuts.
Many commercial marinades, sauces, salad dressings, soy sauce and mustards disguise gluten. Cooking spray, baking powder and cake frosting can be hotbeds for the stuff.
Gluten can be in soup, bouillon cubes and packets, in candy, chocolate and coffee substitutes. It's found in "regular" beer, ale and lager, as well as malted beverages and malt vinegar.
It may be in dairy products like sour cream, processed cheese and yogurt. It may be in non-dairy creamers.
Packaged rice mixes, cornbread mixes and pie fillings may camouflage the presence of gluten. Commercially prepared vegetables, with or without sauces, cocoa mixes and nutritional supplements can be suspect.
You may be drinking gluten in your root beer and chocolate beverages, and eating it in your pudding, ice cream and sherbet. You may be chewing it with your gum.
You may be seasoning otherwise benign foods with horse radish, taco sauce and chip dips containing gluten.
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) or modified food starch that are made outside the U.S. may have gluten in them.
Beware of caramel color. It's made from barley malt. Dextrin may be made from wheat. Dextrimaltose is made from barley.
Mysterious sounding ingredients may be masking gluten. Artificial color, brewer's yeast, emulsifiers, stabilizers, binders, vegetable gums, mono and diglycerides, fillers, glucose syrup, many hydrogenated oils, natural flavor and smoke flavoring, hydrolized vegetable protein (HVP), hydrolized plant protein (HPP) and textured vegetable protein (TVP) ... and this is not an exhaustive list though reading it may be exhausting.
Some medications contain gluten. Some pills are dusted with it and some capsules have it in the oil inside them.
Gluten seems like it's everywhere. And it is. But if gluten makes you sick, it's worth the effort to avoid it.
Resources:
Many Sources of Hidden Gluten May Surprise You
http://www.gluten-free-around-the-world.com/hidden-gluten.html
Code Words for Hidden Gluten
http://www.wellsphere.com/lyme-disease-article/code-words-for-hidden-gluten/998620
Where Is Hidden Gluten?
http://www.journey-with-crohns-disease.com/hidden-gluten.html
About Hidden Gluten
http://allergicliving.com/index.php/2010/07/02/ask-the-celiac-expert-about-hidden-gluten
Beware Of Hidden Gluten; What Is It And Where Can It Be Found?
http://www.gluten-free-for-life.com/hidden-gluten.html
Hidden Sources Of Gluten
http://www.celiacsolution.com/hidden-gluten.html
Visit Jody's website and blog at http://www.ncubator.ca and http://ncubator.ca/blogger
Add a Comment1 Comments
Informative and creates awareness about possibilities of "gluten"
October 19, 2010 - 8:41amanywhere. It is definitely worth the effort to avoid it.
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