McD's...gluten free afterall.

[Lucy]

Hi everyone,

Sometimes when on the road, we have to stop at a fast food place, and since it doesn't happen very often -- like once a year, I usually just get a burger patty with veggies and bunless, and a small thing of fries to replace the bun, so I won't feel hungry.

(Did get some contamination there outside of a small town on last Fall's trip, however, but that's not the point of this post.)

I'm just posting to let everyone who needs to know know that the first real glitch to the new labeling law for persons with allergies to wheat and gluten sensitivity has been demonstrated with the proclamations that McD's fries contain gluten. As it turns out, they are just following the letter of the law in reporting gluten, which states that if one of the major allergens is used in the processing, (even though it's technically no longer in the product, by the time it gets to the food), then that allergen has to be listed as an ingredient. In actuality, the recipe hasn't changed at all since last year, so persons who are merely gluten free shouldn't have a problem with that particular issue.

On the other hand, I DO have issues with ANY transfats being in them as the amount of that should be ZERO, but that effects everyone whether they have allergies or not.
The things I've read thus far don't address the dairy issue, so now, I'd like to find out if the same applies to the casein -- is it completely gone by time to eat as well?

I'd really like to post the e-mail I got from a former president of CSA today, but will have to get someone to post it for me. These folks have been in contact with GIG and one of the main dieticians who've helped restaurants like Outback get their GF menu up and running. You will immediately recognize the name of the dietician if you have done much study on the gluten free diet.

Let me know what e-mail address to forward it to if you are reading this now, and I'll send it to you if can do that. Perhaps it should really be put in the dietary treatment section. If no one's "home," I'll forward it on to Wayne per usual so that he'll see it later tonight. I just thought that since this is going to be a hot issue, I'd try to get it up a little quicker.

Now, I'm more concerned about other foods that I do eat more of being labelled incorrectly, but then I rarely eat highly processed foods anyway. Could be that when the suppliers list gluten or another antigen for me on their label, that that will make a restaurant tell me that I can't have something that I might could have, etc. We'll see what happens.

By the way, article in today's Chronicle is a good example of how a bunch of stuff can be thrown into an article from several different directions that may or may not have anything to do with one another, and give the appearance that something devious is going on, for example. The author even quoted someone that we have no idea who she is, so why should we care what she has to say with no listed crudentials, and celiacs don't even know who she is?

Kinda glad I dropped the paper recently! Wish I had the WSJ coming here again as I found them to report things accurately, and do lots of homework before they wrote their in depth stories -- that is when the stories were about things that I knew much about.

I did overhear just enough of a local reporter's morning news report about the subject, but didn't hear whether or not she told the whole story or not. Hopefully, a correction will be made soon.

Like I say, it's not the fast food joints that concern me, because I prefer to eat less processed foods with less chance of contamination, but it's the possibility of things that are really ok being unnecessarily removed that bothers me which the glitch in the law may cause.

What has everyone else been hearing in your local and national media?

Yours, Luce