<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
 Lisa <[log in to unmask]> says:
 
> Has anyone else found out that salad bars are sprayed with MSG? I
> just read a posting on this and am now wondering if I should be avoiding
> them (soon to be eating only the furniture in resteraunts...ooops, no
> that is made from wood probably has gluten in it) :)
 
And Gary talks about rum and brandy having gluten in them... :-(
 
OKAY, BOYS AND GIRLS, IT'S TIME FOR FOOD CHEMISTRY 101!!!
 
I'm sorry for shouting, but this diet is tough enough without all
kinds of (mis-)information being spread around.
 
Salad bars are often sprayed with SULFITES to keep things from
turning brown. If you are an asthmatic, sulfites can be bad news :-(
The solution to this is to eat at places that do *not* spray their
salad bars (e.g. Sizzler and Soup Plantation - some of the chains in
my area that do not permit their bars to be sprayed). The more likely
problem at a salad bar is the *dressing* - many of the salad places
are starting to use low-fat mayo in their dressings, most of which
have modified food starch in them. This also means that the
"prepared" salads like cole slaw and potato salad are now
out-of-bounds. Simple solution: make your own salad
dressing out of the olive oil and rice vinegar provided... Also, FYI,
MSG does not have "gluten" in it - in this country, it is usually
made from beets; however, sufficient MSG in and of itself can be bad
news for Caucasians. MSG is usually added to *cooked* foods to
improve the flavor of marginal ingredients - adding it to raw foods
doesn't do anything, as it is the action of the MSG during cooking
(heating) that improves the flavor of the food. [MSG is mono-sodium
glutamate - just because it contains the letters "glut" does not mean
that it has gluten in it!]
 
Also, the fiber that holds wood together is cellulose, not gluten.
[EnerG foods sells a purified cellulose, MethoCel, for use in baking
GF goodies.]
 
Alcohol... last I checked, *brandy* was distilled from wine (grapes)
or other fermented fruit juices. If grapes have gluten in them, we're
*all* in trouble. Likewise, rum is distilled from cane sugar. If you
are having a problem with either of these beverages, check the source
of the caramel coloring, or buy the "white" (clear) versions.
 
The solution to all of this is to become informed consumers.
Obviously, these posters, and a few others I've read lately, have not
had even the most rudimentary science education. The easiest way to
solve this problem (in the U.S., at least), is to head directly for
your local community college and take *at least* two years of college
level chemistry, (inorganic and organic - a year each) and then head over
to the food science or home economics area and take
a course or two in where food comes from (alternately, you could sit
down for a few evenings with a book like the _Joy of Cooking_, which
describes food sources and preparation in gruesome detail.).
 
Again, sorry for the lecture, but I'm getting awfully tired of the
mis-information propagating around here by people who haven't a clue.
 
karen
Karen M. Davis, Davis & Associates                             818-892-8555
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