The Zeer Blog

Deciphering Mixed Messages On A Product’s Packaging. What’s Really Gluten-free?

While looking through some of the new products uploaded this week to the Zeer Database, I found a product that to me, struck me as a perfect example of a product that is labeled as gluten-free but contains some questionable ingredients: Michael Season’s Honey Chipotle Multigrain Chips

For someone newly diagnosed, a similar product might be difficult to comprehend. They may ask, “How can products like this, which contains ingredients I’ve been told to avoid, still be gluten-free?”

The truth is many dieticians advise their patients starting a gluten-free diet to take the strictest, safest route to recovery and avoid any products & ingredients that are questionable. As a person begins to understand the diet, many people begin to discover there are many gluten-free products that are safe, but hidden in their grocery store.

At Zeer, we have a very specific process that helps people cut through these mixed messages on a products packaging.

Determining the Problem Areas

Let’s take a look at the product in question: Michael Season’s Honey Chipotle Multigrain Chips. These light and crunchy chips are the gluten-free equivalent of Sun Chips (which contain wheat and therefore are not gluten free).

It contains ingredients such as natural smoke flavor, natural flavors, maltodextrin, & oats - four ingredients that we’ve singled out as ingredients that those with Celiac Disease should know more about .

Since the manufacturer states, in text printed on the product package that the food is gluten free, we have set the gluten free safety status as “labeled as gluten free.”

We do this because some products contain questionable ingredients, but contain less than 20 parts per million (ppm) of gluten and therefore, under the new standard proposed by the FDA, would be considered “gluten-free.”

However, it’s understandable to remain cautious. This is your body and your choice. You want to be certain that this product is safe for you.

Our number one goal at Zeer is to help people get the product information they need to make their own decisions. Even if a product is labeled gluten-free, we always try to display all the information we have available so you can see where questionable ingredients clearly.

Zeer can help decipher mixed messages on a products packaging.

As you can see from the image above, these chips contain natural hickory smoke flavor, an additive that can utilize a gluten-containing grain or by-product in the manufacturing process. Since the product is labeled gluten-free we can assume that the Hickory Smoke Flavor used did not utilize a gluten-containing ingredient such as Malt Flour in their process.

But what about oats? We have labeled the ingredient oats as red because although oats do not contain gluten naturally (they contain the protein, avenin), they likely have been contaminated by exposure to other gluten-containing grains such as wheat, barley, or rye during manufacturing. However, there are gluten-free oats available on the market that manufactures could use instead of cross-contaminated oats.

Products that use gluten-free oats will usually be labeled gluten-free, which is why we don’t hard-code oats as yellow which means “may contain gluten.”

Since Michael Season’s has labeled this product as gluten-free, we can assume that the oats used in this product are certified gluten-free oats.

As you can see, Zeer makes it easy to review all this information, prepared by a team of Celiac Disease advisors, quickly and easily so you can make the decision if this product is right for you.

July 28th, 2009 Posted by Shannon S. | Uncategorized | 2 comments