<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
In the thread "'help from chemists' & soy sauce",
which addressed the safety of soy sauces that contain
lysed gluten, Jim Barron <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
> "Peptides" are fragments of proteins.   Technically there is no gluten as
> gluten is the unfragmented protein.     But your immune system does not
> react to the proteins as a whole - it reacts to small portions of them!
> So unless the protein is ALL fragmented into VERY small fragments  (no
> larger than about  a dozen or so amino acids* ),  your immune system can
> react to the fragments just as readily as it can to the whole protein  (as
> long as the fragment is long enough to contain the entire antigen - and
> they are QUITE small).
 
What is it about gluten that is toxic to the celiac?  Is
the problem caused by the body's immune response to fragments
of the gluten proteins, or is the immune response
mounted to counteract something else that is bad
about the gluten (as a whole or in parts)?
 
Note that I'm not questioning the wisdom of Jim's advice,
which is certainly enough to turn me away from
Soy Sauces and other products that contain "broken-down"
gluten.  His comments just lead me to the question about the
source of gluten toxicity.
 
Best,
David Tanzer ([log in to unmask])
New York City