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

This is a warning to those of you who buy anything at the bulk food
department of your local grocery store.  I recently purchased
unsweetened baking cocoa powder at the bulk department of one of our
local stores (Tops, for those of you who shop in the Ithaca, NY area)
and had a severe reaction to GF brownies made out of it.

I suspected the cocoa, as it was the only change in an otherwise great
recipe, and tried an experiment: I cooked some powder on the stove with
water, to see if it would thicken, indicating the presence of wheat
flour or some other starch--and it came out as thick as a cooked
pudding.  Apparently this stuff had been cut between 30 to 50% with
(probably) flour.  I talked to the store manager, who is willing to
refund my purchase price, but who attributed any contamination to
customers switching scoops (the flour was not located near the baking
cocoa).  I suspect that this adulteration was no accident, since there
was a huge barrel of the cocoa, and it looked pretty uniform in color.

Moral of the story: I would strongly urge all of you following a gf
diet to avoid purchasing bulk foods if they could contain flour (or
other glutenous substances) without being readily visible.  I guess it
is still OK to buy my walnuts in the bulk department, but I'm getting
skittish about other things like dried fruits.

Is the contamination of cocoa something we have to worry about with
commercial products?  By the way, I have consumed my fair share of
things made with unsweetened baking cocoa in the past and never ever
had the slightest reaction, so I am sure that this is not some formerly
hidden reaction to chocolate!

Laura Johnson-Kelly
Ithaca, NY USA
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