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Pei Wei’s Gluten-Free Menu

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

If you are a fan of Chinese food, you are probably already familiar with PF Chang’s, which is a very large restaurant chain that offers a very impressive gluten-free menu. However, if you get tired of PF Chang’s you may want to check out their other restaurant chain, Pei Wei Asian Diner, which can be found throughout many states within the United States.

Official Website Menu Information: Pei Wei Gluten-Free Menu
Location Finder: Find a Pei Wei Location Near You

According to my research, Pei Wei Asian Diner offers five gluten-free choices, many of which have special instructions to give your waiter when you place your order. Below I’ve listed all five choices and the special instructions for your convenience.

Pei Wei Asian Diner’s Gluten-Free Menu

  • Vietnamese Chicken Salad Rolls – (order without Thai peanut sauce)
  • Asian Chopped Chicken Salad – (substitute lime vinaigrette dressing and no wonton strips)
  • Pei Wei Spicy Chicken Salad – (shrimp can be substituted)
  • Pei Wei Spicy – (choice of chicken or shrimp)
  • Pei Wei Sweet & Sour – (choice of non-battered chicken or shrimp)

Because ingredients can change, I’m also going to suggest you also check out the most updated version of Pei Wei Asian Diner’s gluten-free menu.

Had a chance to try out the gluten-free menu at Pei Wei Asian Diner?  Please leave your review in our comments!

As always, when dining out gluten-free, do your due diligence and make sure the staff understands your needs. There are very few restaurants that are 100% gluten-free, so cross-contamination is always a risk. If you don’t feel comfortable with what you are hearing from the staff, perhaps it is best to dine elsewhere.

For information about other gluten-free restaurants menus, check out our gluten-free restaurants page.

Are the Flu Vaccines Gluten-free?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

Though we can’t answer medical questions on this website, we want to discuss this particular issue, because the subject has been debated all over the internet of late. Plus, one of several readers who asked us about this actually works in the health care industry and can’t find help on the subject. Many people are reporting that if one has an auto-immune (which celiac disease is), one should wait for the N1H1 shot, as opposed to the nasal spray vaccine.

I determined that the above statement that is being spread everywhere warranted further research so I contacted two medical professionals, with extensive knowledge about celiac disease, for their take on the issue.

Dr. Peter Green, Director of  the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University and author of Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic had this to say:

People with celiac disease do not have a compromised immune system.  Their immune system is over active. The only increased risk is for pneumococcal infection due to compromised splenic immune function, hence recommendations for pneumovax vaccinations every 5 years.  Recommendations for flu vaccinations should be along the same guidelines as the general population.

Dr. Stephen Wangen of the Center for Food Allergies and author of Healthier Without Wheat also shared his thoughts on the subject with me –

Most people forget that celiac disease is an autoimmune condition. However, if you are avoiding gluten then in most cases the autoimmune condition has essentially resolved itself. Therefore you are no longer suffering from an autoimmune condition even though we still define these people as having celiac disease. So I would think that this is not a concern for people with celiac disease.

The CDC representative I contacted regarding the gluten-free status of the vaccines referred my query to the FDA. The FDA representative was not able to confirm the vaccines were gluten-free – or that they were not. They instead referred me to two pages on their websites and included instructions on how to find the information I was looking for. To say this is odd is an understatement. Why can’t someone just state whether or not these vaccines are gluten-free?

Information from the FDA’s Office of Public Affairs:

Here is the FDA page that lists all ingredients in all of the H1N1 vaccines, which you can view here.

For the list of ingredients you would need to do a bit more digging, starting here.

  1. Scroll down to Approved Influenza Vaccines.
  2. Select each manufacturer in turn.
  3. Under Product Information, select Package Insert.
  4. Under Package Insert, scroll to the section called Description.

As an example, for the first listed manufacturer, CSL, the ingredients are listed under Description beginning on page 8, at line 221.

Many millions of people are following a gluten-free diet in the U.S. for health reasons, though not all of them have celiac disease. Based on the coverage on the nightly news, the government is clearly determined that we all get these vaccines. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the government to tell us if the vaccines contain gluten or not, instead of making us read labels to try and figure it out for ourselves – period!

UPDATE: According to the Executive Director of the Canadian
Celiac Association, both Health Canada and the manufacturer
have confirmed that the H1N1 Vaccine is gluten-free. Thanks to Shelley Case for posting this information to the celiac listserv. It’s kind of pathetic no one in the U.S. government would confirm this for us.  

Have a question about the gluten-free diet which we haven’t covered yet?  You can now submit your questions here! (Note: All medical questions should be directed to your physician)

Should I Avoid Skin Care Products and Cosmetics that Contain Gluten?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

This is a tricky question – at least the part about skin care products is. The scientific answer about gluten in skin care products is that they can’t enter the digestive track from your skin so you don’t need to avoid products that contain gluten unless you’re going to ingest them. However, some people feel that skin care items that contain gluten affect their health negatively so they avoid using them for skin and hair care.

When it comes to shampoo, it stands to reason that someone (especially kids) might get some of it in their mouth when washing their hair, so some people avoid shampoos that contain gluten. Others simply avoid anything and everything that contains gluten. It can be difficult to do this because it’s hard to find companies that will state their products are gluten-free. Like with food items, this issue is improving, and some companies are better than others when it comes to confirming the gluten-free status of an item.

Though it’s more of a personal choice whether or not to avoid products for the skin and hair that contain gluten, there is no question that we need to avoid gluten in anything we know we’ll ingest. For women, that means lip liner, lip gloss and lipsticks need to be gluten-free. Everyone who is avoiding gluten for medical reasons needs to use gluten-free toothpaste, mouthwash, lip balm and dental floss. I’ve not heard of floss that contains gluten but when it comes to this pesky protein – anything is possible.

The companies that make personal hygiene products have stepped up their game over the last few years. Sometimes you can confirm the gluten-free status of these personal products faster than you can many food products. I find this rather perplexing actually, but in a good way. Most major mainstream brands of mouthwashes are gluten-free and many types of toothpaste are as well. These items usually have a toll free number right on the product so you can call the manufacturer from the store and inquire about ingredients before purchasing the item. I choose not to worry about gluten in my skin/hair care products (that I’m not ingesting), after speaking to several educated doctors about the issue – and listening to my own body. Everyone should do what is best for them, of course.

Finding gluten-free cosmetics can be rather difficult, depending on the manufacturer you’re dealing with. The toll free number for most companies is listed on their website. Arbonne and Nu Skin have many gluten-free cosmetics and Afterglow Cosmetics is a completely gluten-free product line. Wet-N-Wild is the lowest priced cosmetic line that makes gluten-free lipsticks that I’m aware of. At least the last time I contacted them, a company representative confirmed their lip liners and lipsticks were gluten-free. That does not mean that they are gluten-free today. Most cosmetic companies now keep a list of which of their products are gluten-free, but as with food items, the ingredients in products can and do change from time to time.

Most supplements that are gluten-free will marked as such on the label, though this will usually be included with a long list of things the product is “free from”. Medications can be checked here and at GlutenFreeDrugs.com. Recently, Cynthia Rudert M.D. of Atlanta suggested to our support group members that GlutenFreeDrugs.com was a great way to check the status of a medication in question. Each of these sites covers both over the counter and prescription medications.

Lately some of the larger drug store pharmacies have started keeping a gluten-free log of medications but I find it much easier and less exasperating to check online than to deal with an overly stressed pharmacist regarding gluten in medications.

Have a question about the gluten-free diet which we haven’t covered yet?  You can now submit your questions here! (Note: All medical questions should be directed to your physician)

Take Proper Precautions when Dining Out Gluten-Free

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff Leave a Comment

One of the biggest mistakes people make when dining out is trusting that all restaurants with gluten-free menus actually know how to safely prepare and serve gluten-free meals. It would be wonderful if this was the case but at present, it is simply not so. Why would a company go to the trouble of printing a gluten-free menu without also training their staff about safe gluten-free food service? That is something you need to ask the companies that are doing it.

When I ate gluten, I rarely ate at chain restaurants so when I was told that very few places were safe to eat out at gluten-free and they were all large chains, I was not exactly thrilled by the news. It was interesting that the first such place we tried did a good job several times on our take-out orders but couldn’t get my meal delivered to the table when we tried to dine in. In fact, they gave me a three-year-old menu. We should have left when that happened but live and learn as they say.

Because of my involvement in the gluten-free dining scene in Atlanta, I’ve come to a conclusion about why some locations of chains with gluten-free menus do an excellent job, and others locations (in the same chain) should cancel their gluten-free menu altogether. Almost every place that does a good job here with gluten-free service (large chains with printed gluten-free menus) has a gluten-free manager or employee – or a family member of the restaurant owner who has celiac disease.

Having a connection to someone who knows what gluten-free means, and the intricacies of safe food prep and service, seems to directly impact the level of gluten-free knowledge a restaurant has and the quality of service they offer. When you walk into a restaurant that has no such connection to someone living gluten-free, chances are no one there will understand their own gluten-free menu.

Here are some examples to consider. When dining at the Carrabba’s near us, our party of two ordered from the gluten-free menu. We discussed our salads being made in a clean bowl, with no croutons, etc. The server seemed to “get it” and then promptly returned with two bread plates and a huge loaf of gluten bread. That act proved she didn’t know as much as I’d given her credit for. When in Ocala, FL, we had the best experience we’ve ever had at a Bonefish Grill. The staff there ran rings around the staff at the locations in the Atlanta area, regarding gluten-free service. It was both shocking and amazing at the same time.

The most important thing you can do when choosing a restaurant is to confirm they know what they are doing in terms of gluten-free service. Generally, this is not something you want to do after you’ve been seated, but rather something you take care of before you ever leave home. It’s okay to just show up at a large national chain with a gluten-free menu and hope for the best, but it is not unusual for such places in more rural areas to have a hard time finding their gluten-free menu if they don’t get a lot of gluten-free customers.

Every chain with a gluten-free menu is not created equal and that is something we all need to keep in mind before choosing where we’re going to eat out. It’s unfortunate that every restaurant chain location with a gluten-free menu is not as fabulous as the Roswell, GA Outback Steakhouse – no doubt!

Let us know if you have experienced different levels of gluten-free awareness within the same chain restaurant with a gluten-free menu.

Carrabba’s Gluten-Free Menu

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

If you live in the United States, there is a good chance that you’ve got a Carrabba’s Italian Grill within driving distance of where you live. Although Italian restaurants tend to feature a ton of the typically gluten-filled pasta and pizzas, surprisingly the Carrabba’s Italian Grill restaurant chain does offer one of the more impressive gluten-free menus!

Official Website Menu Information: Carrabba’s Gluten-Free Menu
Location Finder: Find a Carrabba’s Location Near You

While visiting their official website, I was able to locate an online version of Carrabba’s gluten-free menu (PDF), which provides an impressive list of options for an Italian restaurant. The gluten-free menu includes any special instructions you will need to give your server when you place your order and also features an entire page of gluten-free beverages which are safe for someone on a gluten-free diet to consume.

Have you tried Carrabba’s gluten-free menu? Please write a quick review and share your experience in the comments!

As always, when dining out gluten-free, do your due diligence and make sure the staff understands your needs. There are very few restaurants that are 100% gluten-free, so cross-contamination is always a risk. If you don’t feel comfortable with what you are hearing from the staff, perhaps it is best to dine elsewhere.

For information about other gluten-free restaurants menus, check out our gluten-free restaurants page.