<<Disclaimer:  Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

The two notes regarding Bugles are not inconsistant.

Commercial manufacturers frequently use the same processing and packaging
equipment for many different products.  Often it is not financially feasable
to thoroughly clean this equipment between runs for different products.  One
shining example is breakfast cereal packaging; a normally gluten free
product such as 'puffed rice' might use the packaging machines just used for
'puffed wheat'.  The first portion of the 'puffed rice' run will be
contaminated by the dust and residue that remains in the machine from the
'puffed wheat' run.  To the "normal" consumer, this poses no problem and is
probably never even noticed.  To a celiac, it can spell disaster!  That is
why it is so important to understand not only the ingredients in a product
but ALL aspects of the processing used by the manufacturer.

Since the run size for Bugles is sizable, contamination from a previous run
would probably be limited to less than 1% of any Bugle run.  Thus the
statistical chance of getting a contaminated package is something less than
1 in 100.  That could easily explain why Albert Fornace has not gotten a
reaction but Judee might have troubles.

It is good to know that some of the manufacturers (GM for one) are finally
accepting the fact that cross contamination is a valid concern for celiacs
who want a 100% G/F diet

Mike Jones has delved much deeper into this problem of cross contamination
due to manufacturing and packaging processes than I.  I would suggest you
contact him if you have further questions or comments relating to this type
of contamination.  Let's face it, it doesn't matter whether the gluten comes
from an ingredient or from a manufacturing and packaging process, you still
are ingesting a toxic protein:-(

Joe S. Warren
Titusville, FL 32796-3902