A coffee shop near my house just put up a big sign saying “We now have gluten free lattes”
Aren’t all lattes gluten free? I know for a fact that espresso and milk do not have any gluten in them.
Marketing.
Either stupid marketing or funny marketing, depending on the awareness of the shop.
Or possibly funny because it’s stupid.
Partially. Gluten occurs in wheat and related grains, and we are seeing “gluten free” labels on things that seem, on the face of it, ridiculous. Part of the problem is that gluten has long been used as an additive that was classified by the FDA as GRAS, so it didn’t explicitly appear on product labels. So it CAN be in some things which seem totally unrelated to wheat, barley or rye, and it might be a worthwile claim in those cases. That doesn’t stop food manufacturers from trumpeting “gluten free” on product types that never did have gluten in them.
Gluten intolerance may eventually stop being the “medical condition du jour”. Since there are no indications that gluten poses any risks to people without that condition, this will probably die down, and there will be some fine print on products intended to be read by the people with the condition, much like the “may have been processed by the same machinery as tree nuts” fine print on a lot of products for people with serious nut allergies.
Sorry, stopped reading at gluten free…
Actually, flavored lattes may indeed contain gluten, so it’s possible this shop recently switched to a brand of flavoring syrups that are gluten-free. (Some caramel syrups, e.g., use barley, while other brands don’t.)
As long as it’s GMO-free. Can’t have those GMOs floating around in coffee and milk.
Sugar has long been labeled “fat free,” and I recently saw some labeled “gluten free.”
I know three people with celiac disease, and one person with a wheat allergy (he can process wheat in his gut, but gets a skin rash). Everyone else I know who stopped eating wheat or made their children stop eating it claims it affects their mood. It’s hard to argue, and at any rate, someone who goes “gluten free” is probably eating more food home-cooked from scratch, so if there is any truth to what they say, it probably has to so with that. The more pre-fab gluten-free foods appear on the market, the more likely you will be to lose that effect.
As far as improving children’s behavior, I’ve noticed that when parents make their kids go gluten free for behavior issues, the parents start paying more attention to the kids. They involve them in choosing foods more more to try to make the limited diet more appealing, they involve them in food prep, they make more homemade treats, and soforth. I’m sure that the extra attention has a lot to do with the behavior changes. Again, pre-fab gluten-free foods will make this go away.
That will probably be the death of the fad.
Adding to what people said above about the flavorings and such:
I’ve actually found that most things that are naturally gluten free will proclaim that they’ve always been been gluten free, rather than imply that it’s something new. Of course, that’s in prepackaged foods, and not an actual restaurant.
Though I do note the sign says that they have them, not that all of them are gluten free. That implies they will be selling a special gluten free latte. That’s some extreme marketing if it’s all gluten free.
My bad!
A lot of flavoring has gluten-containing ingredients. I’d rather that it be clearly labeled if it’s gluten-free. There are a lot of ingredients with gluten that’s are called something other than “wheat,” and a person who actually has gluten intolerance or celiac can be laid low by the amount in a beverage. Some have the luxury of not caring; I have a family member who has a serious reaction to gluten. Additional labeling allows that person to eat out occasionally.
Moderator Note
Then it was rather pointless to post anything. Sparky812, let’s refrain from remarks like this in the future.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Starbucks was kind of notorious for having gluten in some of their beverages, good luck guessing which ones. Here’s an article about the time they suddenly added gluten to the “Light Frappuccino” beverages.
It’s possible the shop you saw did have gluten in some of their lattes. It’s also possible they feel safer declaring that they are gluten free since the government set down some regulations about exactly what that means. A lot of companies weren’t willing to commit before that.
These foods, if labeled correctly, will say “a gluten free food” or a “fat free food” if they naturally contain no gluten or fat. The reasoning by the FDA is that you mislead people by calling your brand of sugar “gluten free” or “fat free” indicating you have done something to the food to make it that way vs the other brands. So you must indicate that it is a characteristic of the food, rather than your particular product.
I know nothing about coffees, so this may be impossible, but I know that in many places there are glutens in the prep areas that can contaminate other things that wouldn’t usually have gluten. So you might have a shop separate out those work areas or equipment and then have no more gluten contamination.
For example, if you make a cookies and cream milkshake then make a vanilla milkshake and use the same blender, you might be contaminating the vanilla shake. If you then got a second mixer that you never used for the cookies and cream, you could then say that the vanilla shake was gluten free, where before it wasn’t. (Of course, lots of restaurants will just say that something is gluten free in its ingredients not preparation.)
Are there people who are that sensitive to gluten?
From my best understanding, no. There are people who have a wheat allergy which can be life threatening. This is different from a gluten sensitivity, which is currently being abused as an issue from several viewpoints.
How sensitive is “that” sensitive?
Uh, yes. I’ve been with people when they got food they were told was gluten-free, only to have it cause debilitating diarrhea. For example, a drink at Starbucks which, on discussion with the manager the next day, was found to be made from a concentrate with gluten.
Don’t let the current “wheat belly” fad diminish you understanding of and empathy for people with real diseases.
How did they know it was due to gluten?
Yep.
My daughter had all kinds of problems that they thought were all related to some kind of gastric disease and they kept treating her for all kinds of things, and nothing helped. Then someone finally got the bright idea to test her for allergies. It turned out that she was allergic to corn and gluten, and a whole bunch of other things.
For quite a while, she had to eat things that were gluten free and didn’t contain corn syrup, weren’t fried in peanut oil, etc. Basically, that eliminates 99.99 percent of the food out there. So we spent a small fortune at the local health food shop. If she drank a soda (contains corn syrup) she would end up throwing up and writhing on the floor in pain later. Same with anything containing gluten. It would take days for it to get out of her system.
Finally, after eating a diet full of tasteless crap food for a very long time, we reached a point where we could slowly introduce things back into her diet. Thankfully, she managed to grow out of the gluten allergy. As long as she eats things in moderation, she no longer has to worry much about gluten free or stuff that contains corn. She still can’t eat anything containing nuts though.
But yes, she was that sensitive. If she ate a slice of bread that wasn’t gluten free, she would be miserable the next day. She doesn’t drink lattes, but if she did and the syrup contained gluten, this would have triggered a reaction as well.
It took extensive allergy tests to figure out exactly what things were bothering her.