Tips for the Gluten-Free Shopper

Whether you are a newbie at shopping gluten-free or an old hand at it it seems that there are always more product to discover secretly are harboring gluten.

In fact it can be down right frustrating at times when a beloved brand re-formulates their recipe and all of the sudden it contains wheat. Sometimes, however, this is not the result of re-formulation but of greater label transparency. What used to hide under the auspices of "spices" now is being called out for what it is: wheat flour.

Half a decade ago Forbes magazine published an article contributed by the Hartman Group projecting gluten-free product sales to go up $2 billion over the next couple or years. Well meet the projected future. One out of four homes purchases gluten-free foods (to be clear the homes are not the entities actually doing the purchasing that would be a scary future I hope Alexa never makes that possible). 25% is no drop in the bucket percentage! And thankfully food producers have caught on, some in the way of now declaring wheat on their labels others by re-formulating their recipes to brand their original item as gluten-free or made without wheat products. Which is great news, no?

It is great news, yes. However, this swing in product recipes and labeling shed light on a set of challenges celiacs and the gluten sensitive have to face everyday... paranoia. Products on the shelves are always changing sometimes they rebrand to warn you of this but sometimes the package looks deceivingly identical.

How does a gluten-free shopper face this?

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Know how to identify red flag ingredients

It is a good idea to keep a complete list of glutenous red flag ingredients with you when your out grocery shopping or dinning. If you find an ingredient listed you cannot identified look it up then and there or make a note of it to research later.

I am posting a blog series on identified these red flag ingredients. Each post will contain a list of a specific category of ingredients (grains, meats, condiments, etc.) you can print out or bookmark as a handy shoppers' reference card. To find more blog posts on this topic, navigate to the Life After Gluten blog page, in the side bar labeled "Categories" click "Starting GF Diet."

Happy shopping friends!
Tamara Green