Step 1: The Bad List

 It is time to identify all of the lurking gluten that is out there and free your life of it. You can’t get well if you don’t know what is making you sick and if you don’t learn how to avoid it.

What is gluten and where is it hiding?

Gluten is a protein. I am not going to get into the whole sad history of gluten and why it has become our enemy. It is not important while you are sick. What is important is getting you well again. Gluten is hiding EVERYWHERE. Or so it will seem at first. We will begin with the most obvious places to find it and work our way down.

Grains

Wheat is the grain most well-known for its gluten-content. Also on the bad list are rye, barely, spelt, and

oats.

There are places where these grains are hiding under different names. Semolina, for example, is wheat by another name. You need to cultivate an awareness for exactly what things are. You have to ask yourself before putting something in your mouth – “What’s a semolina? How would that grow?” And if you don’t know the answer, don’t risk it.

Now it is difficult and it takes time to cultivate that awareness, so I will give you the heads up on some of the trickier places where these grains like to hide out.

Yogurt

Any yogurt that has a flavour other than “plain white yogurt” is a product to be suspicious of. Mainstream yogurts are all flavoured with “barley malt extract” but the “barley” is sometimes left off the label. Anything that says “malt” on it means that there is barley in there unless it specifically says otherwise. We’re supposed to assume that malt means barley.

Ground pepper, icing sugar, baking powder

These are all potentially hiding wheat in them. It is added to these products to help them not go clumpy while they are on the shelf. It never shows up in the ingredient list on the label though. Don’t eat any of these products unless they are specifically labelled “gluten-free” or “wheat-free.”

Alcohol, vinegar, mayonnaise, salad dressing, flavour/natural flavour, extract, colour

All of these words mean the same thing: fermented grains. Now, there are many people who will tell you that it is safe for Celiac patients and people with gluten-sensitivity to eat and drink grain products once they are distilled. The gluten content is “below the acceptable percentage” and “no longer dangerous.” There are many more people who will tell you that as people experienced with living with Celiac disease, there is no such thing as an “acceptable” or “safe” percentage. Even if small doses do not make you sick or barely make you sick, they are still harming your intestinal flora and it can still result in cancer after only a few years.

Not all alcohol has gluten in it. There are many alcohols made from safe grains and other plants. Potato vodka, wine, brandy, tequila, and cognac are all safe alcohols to name a few. The problem is that the alcohols used for food ingredients and vinegars are usually wheat based or a mixture of corn and wheat. If a company cannot tell you what kind of alcohol their vinegar is made from, then it is a safe assumption that it has wheat in it. Mayonnaise and salad dressing are just some of the products with wheat vinegar commonly hiding in them. 

Flavour, extract and colour do not have vinegar in them, they contain pure alcohol. Even something labelled “pure vanilla extract” is generally at least 30% alcohol, and that alcohol is almost always wheat derived. Flavours are usually extracted using alcohol, so anything labelled as a flavour, colour or an extract should be treated as wheat unless the company can tell you precisely what it is. 

I have come up against this odd problem of companies telling me that it is a “secret ingredient” and they cannot disclose its nature. They will usually assure me that it has no gluten in it: an empty promise since most of the world doesn’t know what gluten is and where it is hiding. The laws are beginning to change and companies will soon HAVE to disclose all of their ingredients, but we are not there yet.

Maltodexterin

This is barley. It is pretending not to be since there is more word added onto the word “malt” but don’t be fooled. It is still gluten.

Prepared icing, sprinkles and other decorating supplies

We already went over icing sugar, but you may not have made the leap to prepared icing. It also has wheat hiding in it. Sprinkles, candy, puddings, and gels or other non-food foods like these sometimes don’t even have ingredients on them for some reason. I guarantee they have colour in them. If the company can’t tell you exactly what’s in them, then toss ‘em.

Now let’s take a step into the kitchen

You need to clean out your cupboards, toss the now illegal products and scrub out any lingering gluteny residues. A little bit of flour goes a long way.

You also need to clean out that refrigerator and freezer. Throw out the ketchup and mustard (vinegar), probably the salsa, the salad dressing and mayonnaise, the yogurt: anything that has ingredients you don’t know what they are. You need to always know.  Now that you’ve thrown out everything bad, you need to throw out some more. Anything that is open in the fridge that a utensil might have gone into. Peanut butter, jam, honey, etc. If there is any chance that it has crumbs in it or that any gluteny substance has ended up in there, then it needs to go. 

Those are not the only things you need to do to get your kitchen fixed.

Now look around the room. Gluten is not a germ. It is not a virus. It cannot be “killed.” The usual methods of cleaning are all geared at germs and yucky things that can be overpowered with the right cleaner. Gluten is not like that. And there are things in your kitchen that cannot be cleaned. 

The scrubbing sponge

It is absorbent. There is no hope for it. It is absolutely filled with gluten. Try not to even touch it very much as you throw it in the trash bin.

Your wooden spoons

Or anything else that is made of wood. If you have a wooden cutting board, it needs to go too. I promise you, there is no way to redeem it. Put it into the box with all the food you’re getting rid of and whoever is inheriting the food also gets a cutting board. If it is “special” for some reason other than for cutting things, then hang it on a wall somewhere you will get to keep it and see it but won’t have to touch it.

If you have wooden handled knives, or salad tongs, or bowls or whatever – get rid of the wood!

Cork

Same story. You might have a pot holder that is cork. It needs to go.

The moral of this story is that anything crafted from a porous substance will have gluten permanently entrenched inside the grain. If you ever want to be well again, it all has to go.

Products

We’re almost done with the kitchen. Just one more thing. Your dish soap. Read the ingredients. Any alcohol in there? Is it made from wheat? Mine was. It took me a year and a half to realize that the SOAP was making me sick. You’re not supposed to eat dish soap, obviously, but it does happen. It is on everything you eat with and it finds its way into your system.

Implement these changes, purge your lifestyle and home of all the nasty, lurking gluten, and you will be one huge step closer to getting better.

Next Up: So what’s left? Learning what is good to eat on a Gluten-Free Diet.