<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Dear Listers, I've decided to call this "straw-poll" to a halt now and report. Everybody must be aware that this is in no way anything more than a start. The numbers MAY be an indication, but everyone who contacted me is what is known as "self-selected". This may (but not necessarily will) introduce what is known by the scientific word "bias" into the results. Bias in this case simply means that the results may not properly represent what is actually happening. This is like the situation with the Consumers Association collecting data on cars and owners problems with them. The people who respond are much more likely to be dissatisfied than satisfied and to report many more problems than the average owner would. About the only thing you can get from these is that certain models of car have demonstrably more problems than others (and even this may contain some bias). OK so these "results" are not going to tell us very much. In fact they are almost exactly what I would have predicted except that the "Yes"s are somewhat fewer than I had expected. I had some 65 mails regarding this issue. Several were from people pointing out some of the problems of what I was doing. Thanks very much, as it happens I did know about this, but it was good of you to take time to make sure. Of the replies, some were for more than one individual, so I am simply going to report numbers and then comment. I had replies for 64 coeliacs. 19 reported reactions, 33 reported no reactions and 12 don't know. Nearly half of those who report reactions report that they get these reactions from vinegars which can only be non-GF if they are contaminated - eg cider vinegar, wine vinegar, rice vinegar. (I presume all experienced coeliacs will know the difference between X vinegar and X-flavoured vinegar). With only one exception those who reported reactions classed themselves as sensitive to super-sensitive coeliacs. (We also had several of the latter in the NO category) Almost all reactions were reported from North America, although I have had reports from 6 countries. More than one "DON'T KNOW" (don't risk vinegar or don't risk distilled vinegars) came from the small group outside of North America. Several people reporting no reaction have had that demonstrated by biopsy. At least two of these considered themselves very sensitive indeed. One lister reported buying vinegar from a health food shop which marked the source as wood chips (I was not aware that Wood Alcohol - the precursor to "methylated spirit" - could be purified enough to use for food purposes). My comments would be that there is evidence that some people definitely suffer often quite serious problems with vinegars. These may be due to "gluten" in its most general sense but could at least as likely be due to another intolerance/allergy reaction. Certainly the position I would take from this is that those who really miss vinegar have a fairly good chance of being able use it in their food. I'd advise the use of wine or rice vinegar personally (but then I'm a bit of a foodie anyway). I think the stance that it is not GF is misguided and lays an unecessary load on the majority who do not suffer any reaction from it and would suggest a modification of this stance giving the pro's and con's and letting coeliacs have enough data to make up their own minds. For the research community out there a whole area of research beckons!! Regards to all David David J Walland University of Bristol Radiation Protection Adviser [log in to unmask] Tel +44 (0)117 928 8323 Fax +44 (0)117 929 1209