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I am feeling inclined to toss out my views for dissection. . .
 
Unfortunately, it is true that we cannot rely upon product labels to
determine what is "safe" and what is not.  However, the prevailing attitude
here seems (and perhaps I skim too much) to be that more regulation is
needed with regard to the labeling of food.  I do not believe this to be
true.
 
Most of the companies that produce the foods we know to be GF are relatively
small companies.  I know nothing of the relative cost of producing GF foods,
but the cost is probably somewhat higher, especially when you take issues of
cross-contamination into consideration.  Smaller companies tend to have
higher costs anyway because they cannot purchase ingredients in the massive
amounts a company like General Mills can.  So producing GF food is
relatively expensive to begin with.  This is reflected in the price we pay.
 
Now let's add legislation mandating "complete" listings of ingredients on
every product.  Every bit of legislation requiring some new, higher standard
costs every manufacturer of every affected product some money.  In this
case, extra costs would be incurred in such areas as package design; changes
to the ingredient listing because the usual tapioca starch was not available
for this batch; stepped up controls to make sure this week's product that
contains wheat starch does not get accidentally packaged in last week's
packaging that doesn't list wheat starch; and increased liability when such
an error does occur.  This would further add to the cost of producing our GF
foods and, more importantly, could actually cause some of the smaller
manufacturers to go out of business.
 
Perhaps some standards regarding the labeling and advertisement of a product
as "gluten free" would help, but that would involve a government determining
a "safe" level of contamination which (undoubtedly) would allow for "trace"
amounts of gluten to be present.  I think even more confusion would be the
result, particularly depending on the "acceptable" level of contamination
and the tendency for some companies to take advantage of a designation that
might get them more of market share.
 
In the US, consider that the FDA has acceptable levels of contamination
involving a wide variety of substances generally considered to be inedible.
Imagine what might be "acceptable" when it comes to a product our lawmakers
have been eating and feeding to their children for years.
 
We have the beginnings of the answer in the many GF support groups and in
this list.  We share experiences with various products and, thus educated,
we can make our decisions about what to eat and what to avoid.  We share
information on companies that do produce GF food, and thereby provide more
business for those companies that will help keep them in business.  Among
us, we are getting to know who the "good guys" are and whom we cannot trust.
As more and more people become aware of (and are diagnosed with) conditions
such as CD, maybe the "big" companies will finally listen to the sound of
our money going elsewhere.
 
Shawn Anderson
 Juneau, Alaska
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