As if we didn't have enough problems.........

[jlbattin]

We have ordered hams and turkeys from Burger's Smokehouse before, so I emailed them to find out the status on gluten free, soy free, dairy free, and egg free......................

Here's the response I received:

Jari,

While our cure is gluten free, we cannot guarantee the meat will not be exposed to gluten. Many manufacturers of the vinyl for the vacuum seals are “dusting” with gluten-containing flours to keep them running smoothly through the machinery. USDA requires food production companies to list possible allergy-related ingredients, and we do list the ingredients that are required by USDA. They are also soy free, dairy free, & egg free.

The sweet brine our City Hams are cured in has the following ingredients: water, salt, sodium lactate, brown sugar, cane sugar, sodium phosphate, sodium diacetate, sodium erythorbate, hydrolyzed corn protein, sodium nitrite, & dextrose.

We appreciate your inquiry, and hope this gives you all the information you were wanting.

Christy Gish
Burgers' Smokehouse
Customer Service
800-705-2323

So, really? We have to worry about the packaging also? WOW! When does it end?

[HappyBird]

Jari.....

You must be very annoyed and disappointed, thanks for sharing with us.

I simply won't eat anything not prepared in my wn kitchen. I 'm not surprised at all about what this company has told you. Your post confirms my suspicion about cross-contamination, human error etc. in food processing and manufacturing. There is hardly a handful of gluten free products I haven't reacted to.

I'm even suspicious of plastic dishes we use for storage, residue on crockery and glassware from the dishwasher. Smell your dishes as they come out the dishwasher - the dishwasher detergent smell remains even after rinsing cycle. That means something is still clinging to the dishes - possibly bad for us with allergies.

Big business and manufacturers have just one concern - profit margins. Just look at the mahoosive
11 000 000 vehicles Volkswagen have owned up to tinkering with exhaust emissions. It's fraud on a massive scale. The food processing compainies are probably doing similar.