Tag: Reading Labels

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Gluten Free? Double check your labels.

Check, check and check again!

It’s coming up to the crazy time of the year. But you know what is safe. You’ve bought it a hundred times. But why do you or your child have a reaction this time?

Yes, the manufacturers have changed the ingredients. It happens so often, with little or no notice. It’s time to check your labels.

It’s hard work being coeliac or having a coeliac child. We start off well reading the labels, but then as its something you buy on a regular basis, you don’t double check. And we need to especially at this time of the year!

It’s always good to check your habits this time of year, to double check the ingredients on the label, just in case that they have changed. Better to check in advance before eating than find out afterwards and be stuck at home near a bathroom or in bed.

But what are you looking for?

Check your labels. You are looking for anything that contains gluten.

A great acronym to remember is B.R.O.W.S which is for Barley, Rye, Oats* , Wheat or Spelt.

Any of them can be put into ingredients for food or drinks and are to be avoided at all cost by an individual on a gluten free coeliac diet.

For instance, barley can often be found in own brand supermarket colas or wheat can be in soy sauce.

Oats* are safe as long as labelled gluten free. However, even gluten free oats can cause a reaction in some Coeliacs. They contain a protein called Avenin which mimics gluten.

Learn to read labels

You know what you are looking for and you know that you need be able to read labels well. This can save you a fortune, as not everything you eat needs to be labelled Gluten Free.

Reading labels is key to managing this disease.

Here’s a link to a more detailed info on how to read labels. A label is there to tell you what is in the product & what it is made up of. Do remember that whilst you can scan a label, the scanners are normally behind a few days/weeks/months. A label ‘should’ always be accurate, uptodate & says what is on the tin (literally!). For further details see Coeliac UK advice on food shopping.

Some products use ingredients that are made up of other items too. They will always be stated on the label and their ingredients will read after them within brackets. Think of it like a book. There’s a title, a chapter title & the chapter itself to tell the story.

Sushi was being discussed yesterday in a Facebook group. Sushi has a long line of ingredients, with lots of components making up each sushi roll. So how do you read those?

Break it down

The label states everything that is in the product. The ingredients work from the most to the least.

Starting with the Cooked White Sushi Rice. In the brackets afterwards you have ‘water, white rice, rice vinegar’. That is what is in the rice. After anything that has more than one component to make it there will always be brackets showing what is in it. Further down the list shows that the soy sauce bottle is safe as it’s made of ‘water, soya bean, salt & vinegar’. But since the rice has wheat flour in the whole product, it is a big no.

I know that we will all be busy rushing around in the coming weeks, gearing up to get ready for the big day but do get yourself into the habit of stopping, checking and double checking before you put your usual into the basket. Far better to check in advance or before you or your child have eaten something that could ruin the next 24hrs, put you on tender hooks, or see you missing out on something that you were looking forward to.

Keep warm & keep well.

Happy Baking!

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Labels. Is it Gluten Free?

Reading Labels well....

Reading labels is key to Coeliac Disease.  If you can master those, you have the ability and confidence to make informed decisions.

I see on lots of Facebook groups, “can I have this”, “Is this safe”, “is this gluten free”.  Make life easy and learn to read food labels well & confidently.

Reading is now a key part of your coeliac or gluten free lifestyle.  My top suggestion is join Coeliac UK – you then have access to an online digital membership or receive a handbook. With membership comes access to two apps.  One for scanning labels and one for finding venues to eat at.

As a Coeliac, you need to cut out all items that contain gluten, or ‘may contain’ gluten/wheat. Remember the key word ‘B-R-O-W-S’ to help you recall the items you need to look out for on labels. These all need to be excluded from your diet: 

Barley, Rye, Oats, Wheat, Spelt. 

Anything with those items in will potentially cause a reaction and make you ill.  Being ‘glutened’ as it is known!  And the longer that you are off gluten your reactions may change/become more severe. 

Oats are an exception as they don’t contain gluten but a protein called Avenin which mimics gluten.  Oats must be processed in a wheat free factory and labelled as Gluten Free to be safe to consume for a Coeliac.  However, there are still a percentage of Coeliacs that react to oats regardless of whether they are Gluten Free or not.   If you have a reaction, you need to speak to your consultant.

Learn to read labels

Reading labels is key.  We have excellent food labelling in the UK which helps in spotting any item a Coeliac can’t eat.

  • Every label has to list every ingredient and component that makes up that ingredient.
  • They are always listed in order of the most to the least. 
  • Each ingredient component will be listed in brackets after it to show what it is made up of
  • If gluten or wheat is within the list of ingredients it should be in bold writing to show it is an allergen

In the example above, the label has percentages of an ingredient to show how much is in it, and if you look carefully after the 3rd ingredient, the Prawn Cocktail Flavour, it has brackets after it so that you can see what the flavour is made up of, what it’s particular components are.

A label will ALWAYS be up-to-date & overide a scanning app.  They are often updated later.

May Contains

Coeliac UK’s advice is to avoid may contains & one I agree with.  It’s like trying to guess which one box in one hundred boxes has a present in by sight alone.  Some packaging – such as Cadburys chocolate bars will state ‘may contain wheat’ or ‘may contain gluten’.   Some Coeliacs eat them, some don’t.   We don’t eat may contains, nor use them in baking or in our boxes.

Gluten Free

When an item says it is gluten free, that itself is a legal term and undergoes rigorous testing to be declared so.  As we are looking out for the key 4 allergens to remove from a Coeliacs diet, when you see Barley listed, it is obviously of concern.  “Ooh, we can’t have that, isnt that bad”.  But it says it is gluten free.  What’s the right answer?

Barley is one of the 14 allergens and is listed on labels to demonstrate that it contains that ingredient.  Some people have a Barley allergy on top of Coeliacs or separate to it. An item that is labelled Gluten Free will always be less than the 20ppm (20 parts per million) of gluten deemed safe for a Coeliac.

So if you are having a gluten free beer/lager, and it states Gluten Free but also states it has Barley in it, then the barley will be less than the specified 20ppm, it will have had the gluten removed though the various stages of fermentation / distillation and be totally suited for a gluten free diet.  BUT if you have a barley allergy, it is there to highlight to those suffering from a barley allergy that its present.

Understand the basics, and you’ll be fine.  But reading labels each and every time is key.  Manufacturers are always changing ingredients.  It’s always best to check.