Gluten Free Give and Take

Mainstream food companies both giveth and taketh away gluten-free products.

General Mills has announced that it will no longer be making a gluten-free claim on three varieties of its Hamburger Helper type meals.

Ironically for a company that has made a big splash with it's attention to gluten- free products, the announcement comes in the middle of Celiac Disease Awareness month.

Frito Lay, on the other hand, saw celiac awareness month as the perfect time to announce that the company will begin labeling its some of its chips "gluten free." The snacks have long been made with gluten-free ingredients, but the addition of the label will make it easier for gluten-free consumers to identify them. 

Even more important the gluten-free claim will be backed up with testing to  20 parts per million, the standard the Food and Drug Administration has proposed for gluten-free labeling. Lay’s Classic potato chips, Fritos Original corn chips, Tostitos Scoops! tortilla chips and Baked! Lay’s Original potato crisps will soon roll out with a gluten-free label.  A full list of products that the company is already testing to 20 ppm is on the Frito Lay website.

Meanwhile, General Mills said it's Cheesy Hashbrown, Asian Chicken Fried Rice and Asian  Beef Fried Rice Helper meals will no longer be made in a dedicated gluten-free facility. Although the ingredients will not change, the company says the meal mixes could be cross-contaminated with gluten.

To add insult to injury, the helper meals will now have a warning statement that they "May contain wheat."

Gluten-free versions of the meals may still be on store shelves - so stock up while you can. But be careful. Newer product not considered gluten-free could soon be on the shelf right next to the older boxes.

General Mills, which touts it's gluten-free commitment through a website devoted to gluten-free recipes and products, says this move is not a sign of reduced interest in gluten-free consumers. The company still has 300 products labeled gluten free.

But to me commitment means making choices that preserve the gluten-free nature of a product. How difficult  would it have been to keep making the helper meals in  dedicated plant? I suspect it's often easier to make a product in a way that does not put gluten free as a first priority. But doesn't commitment mean you do it even when it's harder?

I don't want to be overly harsh with General Mills. It was quick to get the word out about the change in production. And even without the helper meals General Mills remains a leader among mainstream companies making gluten-free foods. Their Chex brand cereals set an industry standard for how to easily and affordably convert an existing product to gluten free. The cereals are a staple in our house and I would be much more upset if Chex was the product getting its gluten-free label yanked.

It could be that the meals just weren't selling well, although the company did not make any mention of decreased sales in the announcement.
Instead, the company emphasized that its dedication to gluten-free goes all the way to the top, meaning the chief operating officer's wife, who has celiac disease.

If you have been following the gluten-free diet long enough, you know its not uncommon for a product that was gluten free to suddenly change or disappear entirely. Sometimes it's a change in how the product is made, others in the ingredients used to make it.

In the early 1990's Kellogg's  made a cereal called Kenmei Rice Bran that was labeled gluten free and snapped up by gluten-free cereal lovers. Then it was gone.

The fear that gluten-free items won't last hovers in the back of the gluten-free consciousness. It's why we all get nervous when stories appear that say gluten free is just a fad. We worry that when the fad passes, companies will pack up their gluten-free labels and go home. While that wouldn't matter to people who've tried the gluten-free diet and moved on, it would make things much harder for those who have celiac disease and gluten intolerance and will be gluten free for life.

Perhaps these fears are unfounded. Yes, Hamburger Helper meals are off our gluten-free list, but Frito Lay products are more assuredly on it.

It's just the give and take of the gluten-free world.

Amy Ratner

Cake Mishaps

We’ve seen the tallest gluten-free cake, we have the Cake Boss, Last Cake Standing and my Facebook page has all sorts of gorgeous gluten–free cake creations, but in my house it is all about cake mishaps. This is the time of year where my husband feels particularly “slammed.” My birthday, Mother’s Day and our anniversary fall within three weeks of each other. Luckily, the kids have been inspired by Food TV and help out in the dessert category for these events, but it is not without a pitfall or two.

The first cake mishap was an egg explosion. Cracking the eggs is a big treat because if all four kids are participating, there aren’t any cakes that call for four eggs! My youngest won the honor of cracking the egg and to this day no one can figure out how he did it, but he managed to get egg all over the kitchen. He says he was trying to crack it. The others swear he somehow squeezed it and egg went flying on the floor, the cupboards and the counter. Cleaning up raw egg is gross, so he is banned from egg cracking now.

The second cake mishap was flying chocolate cake. Typically on my birthday, I will suggest ice cream or something easy that doesn’t require baking. This year, I got specific. I wanted a double layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

I shook the dust out of my very professional cake pans and laid them out with the specific gluten-free mix I was requesting. My husband was in the kitchen prepping the fish for the BBQ, a couple of kids were helping out and I left for a few hours.

When I returned, there was one beautifully frosted chocolate layer. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful or diminish the finished product, but I know that the mix I picked specifically makes two layers. I must have been looking at it funny because I got the full story without asking.

My husband explained that he had flipped the two layers out onto plates to cool. He was frosting one and my daughter was frosting the other. He said he had never seen anything like this before, but somehow she managed to flip the plate with the frosted cake off the table and up in the air. It came splatting to the ground, frosting side down while shattering the plate. Ok then, down one cake platter and down one layer of cake.

The last cake mishap was Mother’s Day. The kids were in baking mode and all the ingredients for a gluten-free vanilla cake were in process…except for the vegetable oil. Apparently, I was out of canola or vegetable oil. I was really hoping they did not use olive oil; it’s great for some things, but not cake. I then noticed the open laptops on the kitchen table so I asked if they googled to find a substitute. My oldest daughter said that three of four recipe websites said to use applesauce. The fourth had said to use butter or applesauce, but since I was such a “freak” these days about nutrition they chose applesauce.

When we sat down for dessert, I started eating the vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and I mentioned out loud that I tasted a little cinnamon too. Gales of laughter ensued because we didn’t have plain applesauce and they had to choose between cinnamon or berry applesauce. Berry would have turned the cake an unpleasing shade of “tanish purple” they chose cinnamon. It was a little funky with the chocolate frosting, but it was a lovely way to finish up a Mother’s Day BBQ.

While all of these pros create towering gorgeous creations, my kids create some good memories. Each time we sit down for cake, each mishap is rehashed and exaggerated. My youngest will never live down the egg explosion.

Kendall Egan

A piece of gluten-free cake

Jules Shepard & John Forberger building the cake

In the end it was piece of cake that drew Food and Drug Administration attention to the critical need for specific rules for using a gluten-free label on foods.

Make that an 11 foot 2 inch cake assembled before a grass roots crowd of gluten-free enthusiasts in a downtown Washington, D.C. hotel.

Mike Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods, told the celiac disease and gluten intolerant audience at the 1in133 cake-building event that he has heard "loud and clear" that they want a definition for gluten free. "We absolutely understand why you are here and why it is important," he said. "We will get it done."

The FDA was supposed to approve a definition by 2008, but it's proposed 20 parts per million gluten-free standard has been in limbo for years. That leaves it up to individuals companies to decide what it means when they use a gluten-free label, from those that use rigorous testing to assure no gluten from cross contamination is in a food or get outside certification that includes testing to others that don't test at all.

Taylor said the delay in an FDA definition comes from a thorough scientific safety evaluation and peer review that has caused the FDA to take a hard look at the proposed 20 ppm cut off for foods labeled gluten free. While 20 ppm is still "on the table," Taylor said the FDA has been investigating whether lower levels should be considered.

When 20 ppm was proposed, the FDA said it was the lowest level for which there were scientifically validated tests that could consistently detect gluten in a wide range of foods. But testing has improved in the past few years, leading the FDA to examine whether it should look at lower levels.

"We want to get it right and we want it to be grounded in science," Taylor said. "This will be the basis for what it safe."

He predicted the FDA in a few weeks will finally release the long-awaited safety evaluation and open it to public comment.

While it's nothing new that release of the safety assessment is the next step in the long, arduous process of  getting a definition for gluten free, Taylor said the clamor for approval now has his attention. "Hopefully this will expedite it," he said.

Credit for the clamor goes to the organizers of the 1in133 cake event, which swelled from email and  Internet conversations between two people with celiac disease who had never met to a movement that has so far generated nearly 9,000 signatures on a petition to the FDA asking for action.

Couldn't resist taking pic with cake

It was all built around the publicity magnet idea of building the tallest gluten-free cake ever. And it was pulled off with spot-on planning and execution by Jules Shepard, owner of a gluten-free flour company in Maryland, and John Forberger, a gluten-free activist from New Jersey, with a little help from a lot of friends. Both could be found straddling icing-spotted eight-foot ladders as they worked feverishly to assemble and ice the tower of a cake right up to the last minute.

There had been a lot of guessing about how tall the cake would turn out to be. In the end it measured 11 feet 2 inches. Since "1in 133" had become such a rallying point for the gluten-free community, cake workers added another inch or so  before they took the cake apart to donate it to a Washington, D.C. soup kitchen.

Final height, appropriately, approximately 11'3.3"

Amy Ratner

GFL Celebrates in May!

We are so excited about Celiac Disease Awareness Month 2011 and we plan to celebrate for the entire month. We are launching our new E-Newsletter, glutenfreeliving express, mid way through May, so we would like you to sign up today! The sign up is on the home page.

We are also hosting a fun giveaway in celebration of National Celiac Disease Awareness Month! Gluten-Free Living is excited to announce TGIGF Fridays (Thanks Goodness It’s Gluten-Free).

Each Friday in May (May 6, May 13, May 20 and May 27) we’ll be giving away one amazing TGIGF Friday Fun Basket brimming with a huge selection of gluten-free products AND a one year subscription to Gluten-Free Living magazine!

Bob's Red Mill, Bakery on Main, Ener-G, Enjoy Life Foods, Gerbs Pumpkin Seeds, Mary's Gone Crackers, Pamela's Products, PureFit, Schar, Spangler Candy, and Surf Sweets are among the many great gluten-free brands that will be filling our TGIGF Friday Fun Baskets.

There are two ways to win:

§ “Like” us on Facebook and complete this sentence: “I love Gluten-Free Living because…”
§ Follow us on Twitter and retweet our post (make sure to include the #TGIGFFriday hashtag)

Each Monday, we'll randomly select a winner and message you on Facebook or Twitter for your snail mail address so we can start your subscription to Gluten-Free Living and send you your TGIGF Friday Fun Basket.

One last thing, we will be posting a new article to our website each week during the month of May. These will be common sense guides for anyone to download and use. Hopefully you will find them informative, practical and helpful in living a gluten-free life.

Thanks for participating with GFL as we help build awareness for celiac disease and celebrate the month of May!

Kendall Egan

Taking the gluten-free cake

Gluten-Free Living has been covering news about proposed rules for using the gluten-free label on food for almost 10 years.

We've had at least one story on the subject in almost every issue we've published since Congress first started looking at changes to allergen labeling laws in 2001. I feel confident saying there is no other publication that has devoted as much space to this critical gluten-free topic.

We've had some exciting moments in the process -- finally announcing passage of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act,  attending Food and Drug Administration hearings to help shape the proposed gluten-free definition mandated by the act and writing about the details of the gluten-free proposal when it came out.

But gluten-free labeling is a complex issue as anyone who starts to look into it will quickly find. And the task of trying to explain all the ins and outs of the label, as well as the detailed tests and studies involved, sometimes strained our writing and reporting skills.

And all the delays by the FDA have certainly strained our editorial patience. We have probably been rebuffed by FDA spokespeople more than any other media outlet on this topic.

But we have stuck with it, propelled by the belief that good labels empower gluten-free consumers. Since the gluten-free diet is the only the treatment if you have celiac disease or gluten intolerance, the ability to figure out what's in your food is the gear turning the wheels of your healthy gluten-free life.

So with this background you can imagine our excitement over the 1in133 event literally being baked up on May 4 in Washington, DC. The plan is to make the biggest gluten-free cake ever to draw attention to the FDA's delinquency in finalizing gluten-free rules.

Finally something that's fun for us to cover, easy to understand, with great photo opportunities to boot.

We love the creative juices flowing when Jules Shepard and John Forberger cooked up this public relations confection to get the attention of the FDA, consumers, food makers, members of Congress and anyone else who can't resist the spectacle of a 14-foot-tall gluten-free cake.

Shepard, owner of the company that makes Jules Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour, says a spectacle is exactly what she and Forberger, a gluten-free triathlete active on Twitter,  thought was needed to draw attention to the foundering gluten-free label. Right now the only US law that governs gluten-free labeling  is a general requirement that a label has to be truthful and not misleading.

"We thought we needed to do something," Shepard says. "We thought we could build a cake that would be a spectacle, but we wanted to do it with a purpose."

With the help of Lee Tobin, who launched Whole Foods Gluten-Free Bakehouse and chef Aaron Flores, Shepherd and Forberger plan to bake the cake, then assemble and frost it at the Embassy Suites Convention Center in Washington, DC. When it's all finished, it will be served to those who have come to hear a plea that the FDA get a precise definition for gluten free on the books.

The FDA came up with a proposed definition in 2008 that spells out what a food company would have to do before it could use a gluten-free label, including proving that the food has less than 20 parts per million of gluten. But the definition has been stuck in limbo ever since.

Meanwhile, work on the cake is already underway. Tobin has been baking about 100 full sheet cakes -- that's literally a ton of cake made with 180 pounds of Jules flour Shepard says -- at the bakehouse in North Carolina. The cakes will be frozen and shipped to Washington, where plans for a support system are being worked out. A scaffold of ply-wood tiers and PVC pipes will underpin the cake, which has to be perfectly level to stay up. Massive pastry bags will be used to ice the cake with 700 pounds of frosting, though fancy decorations will be kept to a minimum since there is not a lot of time to put the cake together. Work will begin at 11 a.m. and end at 4:30 p.m. so the cake can be served at a 5 p.m. reception.

The enormity of that challenge really hit Shepard when she saw an episode of Food Network's "Last Cake Standing" where bakers had to build a seven-foot cake in 12 hours. The gluten-free cake will be twice as high and has to be put together in about half the time.

"A lot of drama will surround the building of the cake," she says.

But the real drama behind the event is the need for better labeling for the ever-growing number of people who follow the gluten-free diet. The cake is the draw, but action on the gluten-free label is the point, Shepard says.

There has been some early success in that regard. The FDA contacted 1in133 organizers to say a representative will attend the event. Alessio Fasano, MD, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Celiac Research will speak. More than 2,500 people signed an online petition soon after the event was announced and more names are being added every day. In addition, at last count about 1,500 letters have been sent to the FDA and about 1,000 to the secretary of Health and Human Services.

Plans are being made to lobby members of Congress for improvements to allergen and gluten-free labeling during the day while the cake is being assembled. And funds are being raised to cover the cost of the event, which Shepard estimates will be about $10,000. Any additional money will be donated to the American Celiac Disease Alliance, an advocacy group. You can still donate, sign the petition or send a letter on the 1in133 website.

Gluten-Free Living and a number of other gluten-free businesses and individuals are actively supporting 1in133. We are hoping this event will really take the cake when it comes to improving gluten-free labeling.

Amy Ratner

Gluten-Free Pancakes

This morning I nearly missed an important meeting because I was making pancakes! It is spring break so our mornings have been nice and lazy. Luckily, I checked my blackberry fifteen minutes before the meeting was supposed to start and quickly responded that I was available.

I did have to wash the maple syrup off my hands and waddle upstairs to my office after stuffing my face with a stack of delicious gluten-free pancakes before settling in to discuss some upcoming features here at Gluten-Free Living (stay tuned…exciting stuff on the horizon).

During busy school mornings I tend to forget things like pancakes as a breakfast option, my kids leave the house by 7:30 am. Often during the school week, pancakes become a quick dinner option if we have an evening filled with practices or events. There is a huge selection of gluten-free pancake mixes and all of them are quick and easy to make. The good news is that most of them are so delicious that everyone eats the gluten-free variety so I don’t have to dirty two bowls with a GF and a non GF batter.

I like my pancakes with blueberries and real maple syrup. One son likes chocolate chips and no maple syrup. My celiac drowns his pancakes in maple syrup. One daughter likes bananas in her pancakes and the last daughter will go with the flow on whatever is being served. That customization is a very nice feature of pancakes.

What I should do during the school year is make the batter the night before and just have the add-ins ready to go. In the morning I could put the batter on the counter, fire up the burners and get the double burner griddle pan hot and ready. I can get eight pancakes going and then each kid could personalize with fruit or chocolate chips before the pancakes get flipped.

If I could just fix the pancake to maple syrup ratio for my celiac, I would consider this a viable and healthy breakfast option on a weekly basis!

Kendall Egan

False gluten-free claims – Go straight to jail

I don't know what in the cosmos conspired to bring an obviously unbalanced and seemingly evil guy and the gluten-free world onto the same path, but I think it's a really unusual situation. I’m talking about the story out of Durham, North Carolina in which a vendor re-packaged and sold wheat bread as gluten-free. Witnesses also said Paul Evan Seelig, 48, owner of Great Specialty Bread Co.,told customers he himself had celiac disease. The judge sentenced him to 9-11 years in jail and also ordered a mental evaluation as well as testing to see if he really has celiac disease.

This is a story that easily strikes fear in any gluten-free heart, but I think we need to take it for what it is - something really, really weird that is unlikely to happen again.

The one good thing that could come out of this would be if it helps move the FDA to legally define what gluten-free means on a food label. Right now the only thing the FDA says is that processors can't knowingly label foods as not containing something they do contain (or vice versa). Granted that legality is indirectly what caused Seelig to be convicted, but it is thin protection for the growing and needy gluten-free population.

If the FDA would just do what they were supposed to do in 2008 and define gluten free, we would all be better off. The definition would mean that if a product is labeled gluten-free, it must contain less than 20 ppm of gluten (the amount currently under consideration). Then a gluten-free label would mean the processor has tested the item and found it to contain less than 20 ppm of gluten.

Those of you who are new to labeling matters may wonder why a gluten-free label would be fine on items that might contain up to 20 ppm of gluten. That's because we live in a real world where it is impossible to make an item that contains zero gluten. Don't let anyone tell you differently and above all, don't despair. This has been true from the beginning of time and results in the ability to live healthy gluten-free lives.

Another aspect to remember is that a product that tests to less than 20 ppm of gluten actually contains somewhere between zero and 19 ppm of gluten. Four years ago when the FDA proposed 20 ppm as the cut-off amount, testing at lower levels was not considereed accurate.

These days, tests can go lower than 20 ppm of gluten and it seems many processors who are currently testing use one designed to test for 10 ppm of gluten not only because they can, but also to make sure they are well below the 20 ppm cutoff. Doctors assure us that when we eat foods with this potential amount of gluten, we stay healthy. And since scientific research has not identified a medical reason to go lower, the FDA seems to believe that defining gluten free at a lesser number would put an unnecessary burden on food makers.

With these thoughts in mind, let’s forget Seelig, hope his time in prison benefits everyone, including Seelig himself, and get behind the effort to encourage the FDA to get off the dime and define what gluten free should mean on a food label. Go to
1in133.org for information on that effort.

Ann