<<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 [log in to unmask] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- this .signature under construction (the quote I want is buried on my desk!)