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Hello,
I did not get many responses regarding my post about McCanns and Bear Naked 
oats after having consumed McCanns for 3 moths and getting excellent blood work 
results recently. I
wrote to Bear Naked and got no response. McCann's sent me this discouraging 
reply:

"All McCann's oat products are processed in a dedicated oatmeal mill that 
handles only oatmeal. In the supply chain between farm and mill, there is a 
possible cross contamination with other grains, such as wheat and barley but we 
reckon that the level of non-oat grains to be less than 0.05%. Cleaning equipment 
within the milling process would remove the vast majority of these grains 
along with other elements such as stones, straw etc.
But we cannot guarantee that McCann's oats are totally gluten free and we 
recommend that consumers use their own judgement as to whether they wish to use 
our oatmeal or not. Many celiacs can tolerate our oatmeal products without any 
adverse effect but they may not suit those who are particularly sensitive. 
Modified food starch is gf approved if it is manufactured in the United States. 
According to the FDA report today, McCanns will not be acceptable as GF with 
the new standards they are proposing.."

And these responses from Listserve:

"Neither of those companies oats are not considered gluten free due to 
probable contamination.   This topic has been considered not long ago.   You may 
want to search the archives.    It has also been discussed on the SillyYaks 
groups on the Yahoo Groups if you happen to have subscribed to it."

"That is SO encouraging!   Thanks for posting.   I, too, am trying the same 
experiment and have had no adverse reactions to McCann's in the last two months 
of trial."

"McCann's is famous for contamination.   There are better sources of GF oats 
in the U.S. and Canada. For instance   glutenfreeoats.com that tests less than 
2 ppm for gluten, which is basically undetectable."

"My   daughter eats the Maple flavored instant oatmeal from McCann's and she 
has never had a problem. I am not celiac but both she and her dad are and I 
have had the Bear Naked snacks and was wondering if some of their granola was 
gluten free as my daughter loves granola. I've not yet tried to call to check it 
out."

"Don't forget that you'll need to test for anti-avenin antibodies, not just 
anti-gliadin as those only detect reactions to wheat. If you also did TTG, you 
want to aim for zero, but at least 1/2 of "positive" shows minimal damage (TTG 
isn't always positive with damage, but the higher the number when it is 
positive, the more damage). None of the commercial oatmeals you are choosing are 
remotely gf - McCann's states they are "mostly" under 500PPM and the others 
regularly test at about 1% or more wheat."

"Regarding your reference to flavors with "malted rice" as if that meant not 
GF:   it's my understanding that malted rice, or malted corn, etc are all GF, 
i.e., the term "malted" is applied to things other than barley malt, and does 
not of itself mean a gluten source."

"Regarding "modified food starch", I agree that it makes me nervous when it 
doesn't list the source.   Of course, if source is wheat, it now (since Jan 
2006) has to be mentioned on the label, in some form, either in parentheses right 
after the "modified food starch" or elsewhere as
an allergen source. (still a problem about the transition time allowed for 
companies to conform to new labeling requirement.) And the modified food starch 
can come from corn or rice, etc.   If it's a US source & product, the 
presumption is that the MFS is from corn - but I know that a lot of us are still 
skeptical."

Thanks for the replies.
Peter Marino
President, THE SILLY YAK SHIRT COMPANY
www.silly-yak.com
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