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

Today, Al Rosenberg <[log in to unmask]>, following up on the excellent
detective work of Marilyn Deacon<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Nature's Path Quality Assurance Manager ... "Guaranteed gf"
>Honey'd Corn Flakes ... may have been made using vanilla in grain based
>alcohol....  She claims that there is only 10% alcohol in the vanilla
>extract which is then heated in the production.  Their current recipe
>calls for 5 grams of vanilla in about 700,000 grams of corn flakes.

>Whether this tiny residue amount will trigger symptoms is
>the question.  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

My personal opinion is that the vanilla in this product is fine for
Celiacs, but I come at it from a different route than others may (and I
am a parent, not a medical expert).

The topic of how much gluten per day a celiac can tolerate was brought
to the attention of the cel-pro experts some time ago.  Their discussion
can be read in the MXGLUTEN file at
   http://rdz.stjohns.edu/library/medic/celiac/index.html
Generally, most felt that 10 milligrams per day of gluten would be
acceptable, and many felt 100 milligrams per day was in an uncertain
range.  To put this into perspective, whole wheat bread is about 10%
gluten by weight, and 10 milligrams of gluten can be found in 1/500th
of a slice of bread.

In practise, I do not use the 10 mg lower limit from the cel-pro
discussion.  I strive to have no gluten in my celiac son's diet.
However, there has to be some point at which the amount of gluten is so
small that it ceases to be a concern.  For example, if there was one
molecule of gluten per ton of product, shouldn't that be OK?

In the case of Honey'd Corn Flakes, according to Al's post, 5 grams
of vanilla flavoring is added per 700 kg of cereal product.  If my
calculations are correct, that means a 60 gram serving of cereal would
contain 0.43 milligrams of vanilla (5 g vanilla / 700,000 g cereal *
60 g per serving * 1000 milligrams per gram).

Al then said that only 10% of the vanilla is alcohol, so
0.043 milligrams of alcohol per serving.  Let's take the worst case and
assume that the alcohol has as much gluten as whole wheat bread (10%,
it certainly would be much less).  Then a bowl of Corn Flakes would
have 0.0043 milligrams of gluten in it.

Stated another way, if a person ate this cereal 3 times a day for
100 years, they would consume 100 * 365 * 3 *.0043 = 470 milligrams of
gluten.  The total for that person's entire life would be about the
amount of gluten in one-10th of a slice of bread!  If anyone feels my
calculations are incorrect, please write to me at <[log in to unmask]>,
but it appears to me that the gluten in Honey'd Corn Flakes is so minute
as to be effectively zero.

While in theory I would not feed my son anything with gluten in it, this
is close enough for me.  In prior emails I reviewed Imagine Food's
analysis of Rice Dream beverage, which concluded that a quart of the
drink could have as much as 5 milligrams of gluten per 240 ml serving.
It would take over 1,000 bowls of Honey'd Corn Flakes to get to
5 milligrams of gluten.

Bill Elkus
Los Angeles