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Hi List,

I heard from a number of people who wondered if the drug manufacturer I
called had confused glucose with gluten.  One person said that a
customer rep once said to her "gluten-free -- that means you can't have
any sugar right?"

I've had similar responses from company representatives when I've
called, so I decided to do some research at the FDA site. Apparently,
glucose syrup CAN be derived from wheat in the US. Here's what the FDA
had to say....

Code of Federal Regulations defines glucose syrup:

Sec. 168.120 Glucose sirup. (a) Glucose sirup is the purified,
concentrated, aqueous solution of nutritive saccharides obtained from
edible starch...

(c) The name of the food is ``Glucose sirup''. When the food is derived
from a specific type of starch, the name may alternatively be ``______
sirup'', the blank to be filled in with the name of the starch. For
example, ``Corn sirup'', ``Wheat sirup'', ``Tapioca sirup''. When the
starch is derived from sorghum grain, the alternative name of the food is
``Sorghum grain sirup''. The word ``sirup'' may also be spelled ``syrup''.

Unfortunately, the FDA states that when the food is derived from a
specific type of starch it MAY be alternatively listed as (fill in the
blank) not that it MUST be listed as....so we need to check.

I've written to dietician Shelley Case who has written one of the best
celiac resource guides I've ever read (Gluten-Free Diet: A Comprehensive
Resource Guide) and she's going to contact some food scientists she
knows to see  whether there can be any protein left in the syrup after
it has been processed.

I'll post her response when I hear back.

Best wishes,
Lani K. Thompson
Gluten-free Food and Drug Databases for Palm
www.clanthompson.com