<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
The New Shopping Guide
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All USA members of TCCSSG should be receiving a copy of our newly
updated shopping guide along with this newsletter. It is similar in
format to last year's guide. It contains no information dated prior
to March 1995, and much of it was gathered within the last four
months. Non-members (in the USA) can obtain a copy by mailing a $10
check, payable to TCCSSG, to: Marcia Campbell, TCCSSG Shopping Guide,
34638 Beechwood, Farmington Hills, MI 48335.
Often we are asked about brands that don't appear in the shopping
guide. Are these brands not GF? The answer is, we don't know.
You'll notice the shopping guide does contain a section with specific
brands that are not GF, according to the manufacturers. If a brand
does not appear in that list, nor in the list of products that are GF,
it means either: 1) the company failed to respond to our inquiries
(half of them don't), 2) we didn't write to them or the address was
bad, or 3) the company responded to our inquiry, but was unable to
give us a list of GF products.
Note that the focus of the shopping guide is products which can be
purchased in grocery and health food stores. We do not include
products which are strictly sold via mail-order. A list of mail-order
GF vendors is included in each new member packet that we give out; you
can contact these companies to get their current catalogues and price
lists.
Here are some other common questions we get about the shopping guide:
Q: Why is there no information from Kraft or General Mills?
A: Kraft will not provide a list of GF products in writing. Some
people have had success in calling them regarding the GF status of
a specific product, but that is as far as they will go. General
Mills does not consider any of their products to be GF, due to
cross-contamination problems. They are listed in the section
under "Companies with No GF Products".
Q: If a product is in last year's guide, but isn't in this year's,
does that mean we should not use it anymore?
A: Not necessarily. It could be that the manufacturer didn't answer
our letter this year. If the information was dated prior to March
1995, we would have discarded it. Or the manufacturer might have
decided not to provide GF information for publication. In that
case, you may wish to contact the manufacturer or look at the
ingredients and judge for yourself if the product is safe; or you
may wish to play it safe and avoid the product.
Q: Should we throw last year's shopping guide away?
A: Absolutely. It is old information, and there are products that
have been intentionally removed from this year's guide because
they are no longer GF.
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