One of the automated search routines I use to gather celiac-related news for my network of websites produced a fascinating headline this morning "But everything might contain gluten".
The article is on an Israeli website and contains a number of references to Jewish dietary practices and holidays that I know little about, but it was still easy enough to follow the main flow of the article, and it mirrors some concerns I've had for a very long time.
There are people in the celiac community who exhibit a great deal more caution and perhaps anxiety than some others. In a few cases it seems to reach a point that is possibly extreme. I have heard people with celiac disease talk about how they buy food products that are explicitly labeled "gluten free" and then contact the manufacturer to grill them extensively about every detail of the manufacturing process.
In the article linked above, an Israeli food manufacturer is being sued for 375 million (shekels?) because they sold candies that were expected to be gluten free but "may have contained gluten". The items were labeled "Kosher for Passover" and from the gist of the article we surmise this was expected to indicate they were in fact gluten free.
In response to incidents of this sort, Israeli firms, including the one facing a lawsuit, are increasingly adding labels that state "may contain gluten" to all of their products. This behavior does not serve the interests of people with celiac disease.
Here in the USA we are seeing a similar phenomenon, with products that list no ingredients that contain gluten, yet still have warnings like "made on equipment used with wheat, peanuts, shellfish" or "made in a facility that also processes wheat". Any day now I expect to read a label that says "This product was transported in a truck whose driver had a donut last week".
There certainly are people who report having reactions they associate with celiac disease when they eat foods that have been made in the near vicinity of other foods containing gluten. I am not convinced that these reactions are always a result of the autoimmune reaction that typifies celiac disease. There are people who do have actual allergies to wheat, and some of these people may also have celiac disease. But celiac disease is not an allergy, and it is not likely to cause an emergent, life-threatening reaction when a person with celiac disease accidentally consumes a small or large portion of gluten. It is miserable, it can trigger a chain of events that takes days or even weeks to pass, but for a person with celiac disease and no traditional food allergies, accidental exposure to gluten is not a life threatening emergency.
It is very wise for a person with celiac disease to get a good education on which food ingredients always contain or are likely to contain gluten. It may be advisable for some people who are more sensitive to an accident to take extra precautions, but really, the confrontational and militant attitude displayed by some people in the celiac community is obviously counter-productive. We are nearing a point where no food processing firm in the world will be brave enough to declare a food product gluten-free for fear of an immediate attack by militant food warriors.
Get over it people! Read the ingredients. If it does not contain gluten there probably is no gluten in there. If you get a tummyache or a bout of diarrhea don't buy that product anymore. But please, lighten up on the confrontational attitude. Your mileage may vary and your comments are welcome.
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If you look at the list of ingredients, the first one is corn starch. This is a highly processed carbohydrate and is likely to make your blood sugar bounce. It seems many people with celiac disease need to watch out for this. To help minimize this effect I used soy milk instead of water to mix the batter.
