Hershey's

I was happy to come across Hershey's statement of allergens and gluten free foods today. You can find their Information about Special Dietary Concerns on the General Nutrition Information page. Here is what they say:

Allergens – An allergen is food or food component that can result in an adverse reaction involving the body's immune system. The Hershey Company strives to provide its consumers with accurate, reliable ingredient statements upon which consumers can make their purchase decision. The Hershey Company ensures that the ingredient statements are accurate, and that any allergen statements placed on the label is understandable.

Gluten Free- a food bearing this claim does not does not contain the protein from a wheat, rye, barley, spelt, kamut, triticole, farina, vital gluten semolina, malt vinegar or protein derivatives of these foods. The Hershey Company strives to provide its consumers with accurate, reliable ingredient statements upon which consumers can make their purchase decision.

Hershey's brands include:

5th Avenue
Almond Joy
Breathsavers
Bubble Yum
Cadbury (in the US, this is Kraft in Canada)
Chipits
Dagoba
Eatmore
Glosette
Good & Plenty
Heath
Hershey's
Ice Breakers
Jolly Rancher
Kit Kat
Mauna Loa
Milk Duds
Mounds
Mr. Goodbar
Oh Henry! (in Canada, this is part of Nestle in the US)
Pot of Gold
Reece's
Rolo
Scharffen Berger
Skor
Snacksters
Take 5
Twizzlers
Whatchamacallit
Whoppers
York
Young & Smylie
Zagnut
Zero

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General Mills

Here is General Mills' response to my questions about gluten ingredients and cross-contamination:

We can assure you that if the ingredient label does not list wheat, barley, rye, or other sources of gluten, then the product would be gluten-free. Sources of gluten are listed on the label even if the source of gluten is part of another ingredient (such as flavoring or spice). Due to product reformulation, ingredients for the same product can vary from one package to another. You should, therefore, always use the ingredient list printed on the package or label to provide you with the most current and accurate information.

And here is a list of General Mills' brands to help with your shopping:

Betty Crocker
Big G cereals
Big T Burgers
Bisquick
Bugles
Cascadian Farm
Cheerios
Chex
Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Diablitos Underwood
Fiber One
Frescarini
Fruit Snacks
Gardetto's
Gold Medal
Good Earth
Green Giant
Häagen-Dazs
Hamburger Helper
Jus-Rol
Kix
Knack & Back
La Salteña
Lärabar
Latina
Lucky Charms
Macaroni Grill
Monsters
Mountain High
Muir Glen
Nature Valley
Old El Paso
Pillsbury
Pillsbury Atta
Progresso
Total
Totino's / Jeno's
Trix
V.Pearl
Wanchai Ferry
Wheaties
Yoplait
Yoplait France

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M&M Meat Shops

Here is a positive response I received from M&M Meat Shops along with a pdf listing all of their gluten free foods...There are lots of options :) Enjoy!

Thank you for taking the time to contact us at M&M Meat Shops Ltd. It is always a pleasure to hear from our customers.

Customers with dietary restrictions, especially related to food allergies, sensitivities and intolerances, represent a growing portion of our customer base. In order to serve these customers better, we realize that accurate information on all ingredients in our food products, beyond the standard label declaration, is needed. With this in mind, we have requested of all our suppliers to search their ingredients for any sources of the eleven food ingredients commonly known to cause allergic reactions or sensitivities. The eleven food ingredients are peanuts, tree nuts, shrimp/shellfish, fish, milk, eggs, MSG, sulphites, gluten/wheat, sesame and soy. Their individual responses have been compiled into our Product Information Manual. As well, if the manufacturer identifies a significant risk of cross contamination with one of these ingredients, it is identified as present in our listing for that M&M product.

A copy of this Product Information Manual is available behind the counter of every M&M Meat Shops' store. It lists presence/absence (as identified by the manufacturer of the food) of the eleven protein ingredients that commonly cause allergic reactions. Gluten/wheat is included in this listing. Therefore, the Product Consultants at any store will be able to check for the presence of gluten/wheat in any product that is of interest to you either over the phone, or in person.

Our stores also have access to a searchable nutrition and allergen database for all our products. Product Consultants are able to provide you with a printed list of our products without certain allergenic ingredients such as gluten/wheat. In a recent search, approximately 175 of our 476 products do not contain gluten/wheat. This list can be generated at your local M&M Meat Shop stores but is not available from our website. For your convenience, I have attached a copy of the list of our products that do not contain gluten/wheat.

In addition, our web site provides the nutritional information and individual allergen information for our more than 400 products at www.mmmeatshops.com, although complete ingredient listings are not available.

I hope you will find the above information useful. Thank you for shopping the M&M way.

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Eden Foods

Eden Foods has a great selection of gluten free foods available, including canned beans, chili, condiments & sweeteners, soy milk, juices, oils & vinegars, pasta, snack foods, supplements, tomatoes and more. I am very impressed with the detail about gluten free foods that they provide on their website, and the company in general. Here are a few quotes:

What We Do
Provide the cleanest, most nutritious foods & accurate information about them, their uses and benefits.

Why We Do It
To have good food for ourselves, our children and grandchildren, and to make it available to you and yours.

Are you getting that warm and fuzzy feeling yet? If you're not quite there yet, keep reading. Here is their detailed statement on gluten free products:

What Eden Foods means by 'Gluten Free' is:

1. Eden's full ingredient disclosure, and requirement of such from all secondary suppliers assures that there are no ingredients that contain, nor are derived from wheat or any other gluten-containing grain.

2. Eden Foods is highly proactive toward food safety, sanitation, and the prevention of allergen cross contamination as exemplified by our ongoing participation with food safety programs such as HACCP (Hazard Analysis at Critical Control Point) and AIB International audits.

3. Eden routinely tests for gluten in foods that are listed as 'gluten free'. Our gluten free confidence is not solely based on testing, but also on good manufacturing practices and meticulous handling.

4. Occasionally Eden Foods changes ingredients or suppliers and this may affect the 'Wheat Free' or 'Gluten Free' status of our products. If this should occur we immediately update our "Wheat Free and Gluten Free List" to reflect any change.

5. While extremely unlikely, it is conceivable that EDEN products listed as 'gluten free' could become affected with miniscule amounts of gluten. Please use common sense depending upon your level of sensitivity and feel free to contact us about specific Eden foods.

For a full list of Eden's gluten free products you can visit their website.

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Sunkist

Sunkist Fruit Snacks are gluten free :)

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Tootsie

With Halloween coming up I've been looking into which confections are gluten free. I have found a number of products that are actually labelled gluten free, such as Sunkist Fruit Flavored Snacks and Mini Fruit Roll-Ups (yeah!), and I have been looking into different companies labelling policies such as Nestle, ConAgra, Allan Candy, Unilever, Kraft (Cadbury, Maynards) and Frito Lay.

One big one for Halloween is Tootsie. Here is what their website says about gluten:

At this time, all of our confections are gluten free with the exception of Andes cookies. We do not use wheat, barley, rye, oats, triticale, spelt or any of their components and that includes our dusting on our conveyor belts. We do use corn and soy products in the manufacturing of our products.

It's great to have so many options this year :)

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Phase 6 - Scour the Stores and Start Baking!

Now that you have the basics, and the not-so-basics under control it is a great time to start experimenting with baked goods. Whether you choose to buy your gluten free bread and cookies or make your own, there will be a lot of trial and error. I'm hoping that I can minimize some of that for you, and save you some money along the way. Over time I will be posting all of my favourite store-bought foods and all of my favourite recipes and cookbooks to try and help you in your journey. I am quite particular in what I call "great", "amazing", or "fantastic" foods. I never thought I would use those terms with gluten free food but I now know that they exist and I want to share my findings with you.

The first store-bought gluten free baked goods that we purchased were very disappointing. Everything was dry and crumbly, and tasted terrible. We experimented over and over, and it got quite expensive. I finally attended a meeting organized by our local Chapter of the Celiac Association and some of the presenters there had brought in some home-baked goodies to share. There was also a local vendor, Judy's Magic Mixes, who had brought in some freshly made bread, cakes and even a pizza! It was at that meeting that I had my first tastes of great gluten free specialty foods. What a relief! I collected a few extra cookies to take home to PapaBee (still not trusting anyone else to make food for BoyBee), and then the gentleman from Judy's Magic Mixes caught me adding a corner of his loaf of bread to my stash…he asked what I was doing and I thought I was in trouble for a moment until he took what remained and gave me most of what was left! It was so exciting to take these goodies back to my family.

There are quite a few great foods available on the market nowadays but they are not always easy to source. I am a great supporter of purchasing gluten free products online (more on that in a later post), but the very best foods you can get are going to come straight from your kitchen. I've done a lot of experimenting with recipes and had many poor results. It was such a relief when things started to turn around. My advice is to hang in there, stock the most common flours and starches, and try to find a trusted source for recipes (maybe me?). Oh, and once you have found a place to buy a given item it is a great idea to record where you got it. It is hard to find a store that carries everything so my products have come from 5 or 6 different stores. I wish I had written down where I got certain ones as they were not all easy to find!

To start you off with your shopping, find two or three recipes that look great and start searching for ingredients. I found that every time I found a new recipe it would call for an ingredient that I didn't have yet so I started buying them all, whether I needed them at the time or not. Over time you'll learn which items are most useful to and you can stock up then. One final tip...If you know of a cookbook with a lot of great recipes that uses a pre-made mix, make a big batch - it is a wonderful time saver.

Here is a list of what I tend to stock...

Most frequently used:

- brown rice flour
- white rice flour
- almond flour/meal
- tapioca flour/starch
- arrowroot starch
- potato starch
- corn starch
- corn flour
- amaranth flour
- chickpea flour (aka garbanzo bean flour)
- buckwheat flour
- sorghum flour
- xanthan gum
- baking soda
- baking powder

Less often:

- sweet rice flour (aka glutinous rice flour)
- quinoa flour
- hazelnut flour/meal
- coconut flour
- flaxseed meal
- guar gum
- millet flour
- potato flour (different from potato starch)
- quinoa flakes
- teff flour
- cornmeal

Phase 1 - Start Eating
Phase 2 - Remove the Obvious Gluten
Phase 3 - Try Some Gluten Free Grains
Phase 4 - Eliminating Cross Contamination in the Kitchen
Phase 5 - Removing Other Hidden Sources of Gluten

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