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Folks,
 
All the concern about labelling food that is gluten free will not,
I'm sorry to say, work in the USA.
 
My wife is a celiac, and we've had an interesting experience in
discovering things about food/drug/whatever consumable you choose processing
in the USA.  We have determined that:
 
1.  All manufacturers seem to buy things like 'flavorings' from third
party places such as IFF.
 
2.  They do NOT know what is in them, and they claim that they cannot
find out.
 
3.  They are selling us products that we have no idea what is in them.
 
4.  Even if we could determine if the product ingredients are gluten
free, we have no way of knowing if something like wheat starch is
used on cellophane or plastic packaging to keep it from sticking together
in processing.
 
I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the only thing that we
can do to protect ourselves from this kind of attitude and behavior of
food and drug processors is to do as much as we can ourselves.  Consequently,
we're forced to do all our own food prep (not a big deal really) - if you
buy foods like rice and such in 25 or 50 pound bags, even if there is gluten
in the packaging you're going to get LESS than if you buy it in smaller
amounts, to buy NOTHING with added 'flavorings' or anything else, and
to try and use the purest ingredients available.
 
Of course, I find that places like health food stores (which supposedly
sell pure ingredients) are often terrible - after all, 'whole wheat'
is so healthy that it seems to be added to EVERYTHING.
 
It's a bitter pill to swallow, but let's face it:  American government
and food industry are NOT interested in making us or keeping us well.
They want us easily controlled, and they want to as maximizing the amount of
money they can squeeze out of us, which means quick, cheap and dirty
food processing and lax governmental controls over these basic industries.
It's as simple as that.
 
Is it annoying to have to do so much for oneself?  You bet!  On the other
hand, I would say that my wife and I both look younger than our ages..
probably because we eat better food.  So there are benefits.
 
Nathan
--------------------
Nathan Justus
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http://www.exit109.com/~nathan/