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At 01:20 PM 9/7/01 -0400, Lani K. Thompson wrote:

>Today Buitoni-Contadina (part of Nestles) told me that they are no
>longer maintaining a gluten free list and can't even give any
>information out over the phone because "There are so many things that
>could contain gluten...."
>
>This concerns me since it's happened to me with a couple of companies now.

Relevant to this, I spoke to someone yesterday at Quaker company about
Quaker oats, because more than one person has written in the past to say
that Quaker oats were GF. The first woman I spoke to knew very little about
the problem. Since she started by saying that oats had "oat gluten" in them
(actually they have avenin, not gluten) I asked to speak to the supervisor.
The supervisor returned my call and was a dietitian who was reasonably
knowledgeable about celiac. She told me that the likelihood of wheat
contamination of the oats was  quite high and shouldn't be eaten by
celiacs. But she also told me that Quaker co is soon going to begin
labeling all the ingredients in their products, including secondary
ingredients. And she also said several other companies are going to follow
suit soon. That's good news for us.

I will add that I had had severe reactions to oats in the past, but I ate
some oat bars here on the island by a lady who does gluten free baking.
They had "organic oats" in them, but they were also grown here on Whidbey
island where there is no wheat at all. They'd never caught a whiff of
wheat. They didn't bother me at all, for those who are interested in trying
oats if they ever find a source that is not contaminated.

-vance