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Gluten-Free Diet

Glucose Syrup is Gluten-Free

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff 8 Comments

Is glucose syrup considered to be gluten-free? If you aren’t familiar with it, glucose syrup is a liquid sweetener found in many candies and other desserts that contains wheat starch. Obviously, anything with “wheat” in the name throws up some red flags to anyone following a gluten-free diet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it contains wheat.

As a result, over the past year or so there has been some debate over whether glucose syrup is considered to be gluten-free or not, so Sure Foods Living recently spoke with a dietitian to find out some additional information. In their post, they shared their findings, and I thought our readers would probably find this information useful, so I am providing a small excerpt:

Glucose syrup can be derived from a variety of starches including wheat. Corn is the most common however Europe uses wheat more frequently. The glucose syrups are highly processed and purified and R5 elisa tests have found the majority to contain very little residual gluten if any. The European Food Safety put out a report on the safety of glucose syrups. Here is the link for more info:

wheat-based glucose syrups

Based on the FDA proposed gluten-free labeling regulation a product can be derived from a gluten-containing grain such as wheat based glucose syrup and be labeled gluten-free yet the ingredients could say glucose syrup (wheat) provided it is under 20 parts per million (ppm). This will be very confusing for patients as we teach them to avoid wheat and yet a product like glucose syrup may have no or very little residual gluten and be labeled gluten-free.”

Click over to read the entire post!

Gluten-Free Diet: Do You Eat Oats?

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

I’m sure most if not all of our readers are following a gluten-free diet, so I’d like to get your thoughts. Do you eat oats?

There has been a lot of discussion about oats and where they fit into the gluten-free diet over the last few years, so the only real safe thing to do is to avoid oats when you start out and later introduce them once you’re comfortably on the gluten-free diet.

According to What to Feed Your Kids:

Whether to include oats on a gluten-free diet is controversial. Many oats are not gluten-free because of crop rotation – the same soil is used to grow wheat one season and oats the next. There are oats which are specially grown to be gluten-free, but according to Wikipedia even the gluten-free oats contain avenin (a protein very similar in molecular structure to gluten) that is “toxic to the intestinal submucosa and can trigger a reaction in some celiacs.”

Studies regarding people with celiac and their ability to tolerate oats are mixed. Some studies show celiac sufferers can tolerate oats which are free from contamination, but a possible reason for this conclusion is that those who can’t tolerate oats end up dropping out (biasing the sample) midway through the study.

There is also new research indicating a molecular basis for oat intolerance in patients with celiac disease. People with celiac who have the DQ8 gene seem to tolerate oats better than those with the DQ2 gene. I have the DQ2 gene so I don’t include any oats in my gluten-free diet. The Celiac Sprue Association tends to have zero tolerance risk profile and “recommends that excluding oats is the only risk free choice for those on a gluten-free diet.”

Click over to check out the rest of this post! Also, we’d love for you to share your experiences. Are you able to eat oats?

Do You Celebrate The Gluten-Free Diet?

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

I bet to most people that title probably sounds like an unusual question, but that question is something the gluten-free homemaker recently asked.

Obviously, the idea is not to celebrate having Celiac Disease, but instead to celebrate the fact that you’re living a healthy and gluten-free life!

The other day my 17-year-old son asked how long it had been since I was diagnosed. It will be eight years this fall. He said he thought we should have a party when I reached 10 years. A party? To celebrate finding out you have a disease? That’s not what he meant, and what he said was very encouraging to me. He thought we should celebrate the fact that I have learned to cope so well. He was old enough to remember the changes we had to go through, but he is very aware that much of the food he enjoys today is a result of my having to learn to cook all over again. While he knows that it’s hard, he sees a lot of good that has come from it, and he sees me as being someone who succeeded in the face of a big challenge. My thought was, it’s like climbing to the top of a mountain. You don’t celebrate the mountain, you celebrate the experience and the success of getting to the top. Celiac disease is still there and it’s pretty big, but I’m on top of it and enjoying the view. I hope you are too, but if you’re just starting out and the view from the bottom isn’t so great, be encouraged. The trail has already been blazed, and there are plenty of people to help you on the way. You can make it to the top and celebrate with the rest of us.

I think that kids always offer a fresh and unique perspective and am glad that the author took the time to share this.   Do you celebrate having Celiac Disease and the gluten-free diet that keeps you healthy?

The Truth About Celiac Disease and Oats

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff 1 Comment

There is a big question about whether people diagnosed with Celiac Disease can eat oats. Some studies suggest they cannot and others say they can. So who is right? The short answer is, they both are.

Oats do not contain the protein gluten the way wheat, barley, and rye do. So, if oats do not contain gluten, why should a person with Celiac Disease need to avoid oats? There are two reasons.

First, oats are often grown in close proximity to wheat and barley, both of which contain gluten. In addition, farmers rotate their fields so oats are often grown in the same soil wheat and barely have been grown on. Farmers also use the same equipment for the oat, wheat, and barley crops. This creates cross-contamination. So even though gluten is not found within the oat, it is on it and this can be just as harmful to a person with Celiac Disease. If oats were grown completely away from wheat and barley and farmers dedicated their equipment to only the oat fields, they should be gluten-free. It is possible to buy “uncontaminated’ oats from vendors who ensure their oats have not come into contact with gluten. But that does not mean that every person with Celiac Disease can start eating “uncontaminated” oats.

The second reason a person with Celiac Disease may need to avoid oats is that they may also have a sensitivity to avenin, the protein found in oats. Numerous studies have shown that a number of people with a sensitivity to gluten also have a sensitivity to avenin. Thus, when pure oats are consumed, they still exhibit the same symptoms as if they had eaten gluten. One study done in Norway found that even people who ate “uncontaminated” oats and didn’t show physical symptoms, still showed inflammation in their intestines. This study was done with a small number, 9, individuals, so the results are not 100% conclusive.

The bottom line, talk to your healthcare professionals if you think you might want to add oats to your diet. Most healthcare professionals recommend having your Celiac Disease under control before even attempting to add oats. Even then, they recommend eating just a small amount. The key is to make sure you are closely monitored.

You can read more about the Norway Study on WebMD.com.

Is Being Partially Gluten-Free Beneficial?

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

Definitely, the hardest part of being on a strict gluten-free diet is the adjustment period you go through as you get used to your new diet. Now, obviously, the gluten-free diet is 100% zero tolerance and even the smallest hint of gluten can cause extreme problems for many Celiacs but could be partially gluten-free be beneficial at all?

At least one person with Celiac disease doesn’t think so:

The answer is a little complicated. You won’t be able to tell if gluten is a problem for you unless you give up gluten 100% for 3 months. This is because it takes a while for gluten to get out of your system. By incorporating some gluten-free food into your diet– cereals, pasta, breads, snacks–you might realize being gluten-free is not only do-able it is is fun. Being partially gluten-free would allow you to change your eating habits gradually and to learn about living gluten-free. But you wouldn’t get the huge benefit of feeling better and having chronic problems potentially disappear.

Dr. Nancy O’Hara, who is an integrated doctor says if you can’t be 100% off gluten (or dairy) then she would rather see you on a different type of healing diet (The Body Ecology Diet, Gut and Psychology Syndrome Diet, Specific Carbohydrate Diet or a low oxalate diet.) People often go on a 85% gluten-free diet and don’t get better and so they decide the GF diet doesn’t work for them, when they might get completely better by removing gluten completely. A gluten-free diet is tricky because so much food contains hidden gluten. Oats, for instant, are not gluten-free unless specially labelled because they rotate crops and often grow oats in the old wheat fields. And soy sauce, rice crispies and Twizzlers all contain gluten. So unless you are reading every label and researching how to do a gluten-free diet, you might think you are doing a gluten-free diet but you really aren’t.

I’d love to hear what our readers think.   If you are 100% gluten-free and accidentally get a hint of gluten in your diet, how does your body respond?