Is Corn Gluten-Free?

Actually, there is a gluten protein in corn but it is not one we need to avoid. Even so, this is the reason that some restaurants will tell you that something on their menu made with corn is unsafe for us to consume. There is a high-end place in Atlanta that told me their cheese grits contained gluten. Over a year later I found out they were always gluten-free. Nothing changed about the dish, but a better-informed chef started working there. Higher-end places tend to use pure stone ground grits that are gluten-free, and not contaminated by wheat in the facility where they are produced.

Quaker brand grits were at one time, run on the same product lines as wheat products. The company representative I spoke to told me that they didn’t consider their grits safe for people with celiac disease or wheat allergy to consume. This was in 2006 and because the person I spoke to was quite rude, I never called to check on the status of their grits again. The last time I checked the Quaker grits label, it didn’t say anything about wheat, nor would the ingredients indicate that the product contains gluten. If you search ‘gluten-free’ on the Quaker website, you will not find a match for any information. That fact alone confirms that this is not a company I  care to support. The Jim Dandy grits label states “may contain milk and wheat”, due to the processing methods they use. Laura Lynn grits from Ingles are gluten-free, according to their gluten-free list, so that’s what we use at our house.

Both Quaker and Jim Dandy grits might be perfectly safe for people who can’t eat gluten to consume. It’s not uncommon for companies to make statements and add allergen warnings to their labels, due to them having large legal departments. Seriously, when you pick up a bag of peanuts and the label states “may contain peanuts”, you can understand the problem and it’s happening more and more these days.

It is common for people to tell us we can’t eat corn due to the gluten protein in it, but unless someone has an intolerance to corn, it is considered safe to consume. Part of the reason for this confusion is that there are actually three proteins that are unsafe for people with celiac to eat, but they all have different names. In order to simplify things for lay people like me, doctors decided to call the three different proteins (those in wheat, rye, and barley) all by one name – gluten. They must not have considered when deciding to do this, that corn gluten was going to get confused with the type we can’t tolerate.

Adding to the confusion, several years ago, a Butterball representative told me (and countless others) that due to the corn gluten in their frozen turkeys, I should only buy their fresh turkeys. At that time, Butterball turkeys (fresh and frozen) were gluten-free as long as you discarded the gravy packet that comes with them.

Ingredients often change so you need to check the labels of products, including your holiday turkeys, before purchasing them. Most turkey labels will have one ingredient list for the turkey and another for the gravy packet if included. We have enough to avoid without having people tell us we can’t eat corn due to the gluten in it.