<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> This is a warning to those of you who buy anything at the bulk food department of your local grocery store. I recently purchased unsweetened baking cocoa powder at the bulk department of one of our local stores (Tops, for those of you who shop in the Ithaca, NY area) and had a severe reaction to GF brownies made out of it. I suspected the cocoa, as it was the only change in an otherwise great recipe, and tried an experiment: I cooked some powder on the stove with water, to see if it would thicken, indicating the presence of wheat flour or some other starch--and it came out as thick as a cooked pudding. Apparently this stuff had been cut between 30 to 50% with (probably) flour. I talked to the store manager, who is willing to refund my purchase price, but who attributed any contamination to customers switching scoops (the flour was not located near the baking cocoa). I suspect that this adulteration was no accident, since there was a huge barrel of the cocoa, and it looked pretty uniform in color. Moral of the story: I would strongly urge all of you following a gf diet to avoid purchasing bulk foods if they could contain flour (or other glutenous substances) without being readily visible. I guess it is still OK to buy my walnuts in the bulk department, but I'm getting skittish about other things like dried fruits. Is the contamination of cocoa something we have to worry about with commercial products? By the way, I have consumed my fair share of things made with unsweetened baking cocoa in the past and never ever had the slightest reaction, so I am sure that this is not some formerly hidden reaction to chocolate! Laura Johnson-Kelly Ithaca, NY USA [log in to unmask]