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What is Gluten Free?
These days, just about every food you can think of has a gluten-free alternative, from bagels to pasta to Girl Scout cookies. Heck, we've rounded up our fair share of gluten-free pizza, pancake, and muffin recipes.
However its prevalence has resulted in a lot of misconceptions. Gluten-free is often thought of as a fad—or broadly associated with being "healthy"—and not everyone stops to think about what it actually means or why one should or shouldn't eat it. We're here to clear up what gluten is, who should avoid it, and what it really means to give it up for good.
Gluten, which means “glue” in Latin, is a protein that’s mainly found in wheat, rye, and barley. It helps things like pizza dough and pasta keep their structure, and for most of us, eating it is no big deal. But that's not the case for everyone.
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Gluten Free Ingredients
• Wheat
• Durum
• Farro
• Graham
• Einkorn Wheat
• Rye
• Barley
• Brewer's Yeast
• Wheat Starch
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Eating Out!
If possible, go to restaurants that have a gluten-free menu. The most trust-worthy of these have certification or training though one of the celiac disease support groups. When that’s the case, you know the restaurant is knowledgeable about gluten-free dining and has made an effort to create options that use gluten-free ingredients prepared in a way that prevents cross-contamination. A number of national chain restaurants and local individual restaurants have this kind of certification.
Always tell your server you have celiac disease or gluten intolerance and need to avoid anything with wheat, barley or rye and most oats, including flour, breading, soy sauce or teriyaki sauce, and seasoning that might contain flour. If you are ordering a salad or other topped item note that you cannot have croutons or any topping made with bread or breading.
