# Gluten-Free Vodka? Really? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** liquor-alcohol\ **Created:** [June 1, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346 "2015-06-01T15:36:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/41 "2015-06-02T04:01:13Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > I take it nobody in this thread so far has Celiac or knows anyone with that disease. > > My best friend has it. It is certainly not psychosomatic. Crafted to remove gluten is meaningless for Celiac sufferers. Its still just as damaging to them. It takes one microscopic trace and you suffer intestinal damage and are sick for weeks. > > Gluten sensitive is another discussion, but for those with Celiac this is immensely important and shouldn’t be trivialized. I used to work with a Celiac sufferer. Before gluten avoidance was a fad for the masses. He preferred tequila. 100% agave only. ETA: Yes, small amounts of gluten would produce dire symptoms which he had the good taste not to describe in detail. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/42 "2015-06-02T06:47:28Z")
Popcorn actually is 100% whole grain for real. It’s very rich in fiber, and it provides a surprising amount of protein to boot. If it isn’t all smothered in fat and salt, it’s the healthiest snack in the world short of raw veggys. Luksusowa wódka\* from Poland is the real deal. Made from 100% potatoes and filtered to within a micrometer of its life. Affordably priced too. \*Pronounced VOOT-ka. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/43 "2015-06-02T14:46:20Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > I take it nobody in this thread so far has Celiac or knows anyone with that disease. > > My best friend has it. It is certainly not psychosomatic. Crafted to remove gluten is meaningless for Celiac sufferers. Its still just as damaging to them. It takes one microscopic trace and you suffer intestinal damage and are sick for weeks. > > Gluten sensitive is another discussion, but for those with Celiac this is immensely important and shouldn’t be trivialized. Nobody’s trivializing it, but there’s not any real way that proteins are going to make it through the distillation process, which is literally gently heating the mash and letting chemical compounds vaporize and recondense somewhere else. Gluten and other proteins are going to stay put in the pot- they don’t have a gaseous phase that would make them distillable. So marketing things like vodka as “gluten free” is marketing stupidity of the worst kind- the sort that takes advantage of earnest people’s ignorance. It’s about as silly as low-fat salt, or water as having 100% hydrating ingredients. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/44 "2015-06-02T15:05:52Z")
I like the “Gluten-Free” water idea…surely that is true. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/45 "2015-06-02T15:39:54Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Labeling meat gluten free makes more sense to me than say orange juice or lemonade, both of which I’ve also seen labeled that way. Oranges and lemons don’t eat grains, but cows and pigs probably did, so I can see people wanting to be reassured that what their food ate won’t make them sick. Wait wait, WHAT? Are you trying to tell me that gluten, a protein, can survive not just being disgested (generally fatal to most proteins in the first place, since they are broken down to amino acids) but being dispersed through the bloodstream and stored as fat or used as building blocks for other cells? And somehow, it’s still ‘gluten’? That seems absurd to me. We’re not talking about some indigestible trace element here, we’re talking about a complex protein. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/46 "2015-06-02T16:11:03Z")
> [@Chauve](#): > > I checked a few sites. It seems to be kind of taken for granted that the 20 ppm limit is arbitrary and not adequate for some extremely sensitive people. But in five minutes of looking I couldn’t find links to the kind of research you wanted; so I captured something and threw it up with a qualification just to move the issue beyond the point of pure anecdote (but not to the scientific research threshhold that you want). > > Me, I’m gluten-sensitive so I see the literature. But not sensitive enough to have at my fingertips the kind of research you want. I’m not gluten sensitive, but I was curious. There is an article from the [Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2036.2008.03669.x/abstract;jsessionid=DE1F8EFB8C2BE2BA7524E00DE3CDEE94.f03t03) journal: > [@](#): > > Results  Thirteen studies (three randomized controlled, one cohort, two crossover, and seven cross-sectional) met the inclusion criteria. The daily amount of tolerable gluten varied widely between studies. Whilst some patients tolerated an average of 34–36 mg of gluten per day, other patients who consumed about 10 mg of gluten per day developed mucosal abnormalities. The effect of the consumption of ‘gluten-free’ products with different degrees of gluten contamination was also inconsistent. > Conclusions  The amount of tolerable gluten varies among people with coeliac disease. Although there is no evidence to suggest a single definitive threshold, a daily gluten intake of \<10 mg is unlikely to cause significant histological abnormalities. So it seems that less that 10 mg per day is probably not going to cause problems, not a lot of research has been done. It could be that more research occurs and shows that for some celiac sufferers, that trace amounts could affect them, or it could show that it’s psychosomatic. There is another article I found on [the American Journal for Clinical Nutrition](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/1/260.1.full) that specifically states that “some patients are more tolerant than others”. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/47 "2015-06-02T16:18:18Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > No one is denying that Celiac disease exists. There was some question if gluten levels below 20 ppm can trigger symptoms. I haven’t seen any research indicating it happens, so I’d be interested if you are aware of any. It’s hard to find solid numbers. I was in a GQ thread on it a few weeks ago, and it looked like all they can really say is that somewhere between 6 and 100 mg is where damage appears to show up in the villi. The extremely difficult thing is that Celiac disease targets the small intestine, and the only way to tell if the small intestine is being damaged is to do a biopsy. (At least, that’s my understanding. The biopsy is the only way to diagnose Celiac.) ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/48 "2015-06-02T16:29:53Z")
Oh FFS. No one questions the need for GF products for celiac disease patients or those allergic to wheat. I’ll even throw in people who are sensitive to wheat or gluten. What everyone is rolling their eyes at are the crunchy yummy mummies who embrace every bullshit health trend out there and claim that it has cured everything from bad skin to neurological problems. A few years back, these people did Atkins, and then organic and oh, they also did the Zone and South Beach and detoxes and cleanses the grapefruit diet and apple cider vinegar as the cure for everything and the godawful cabbage soup diet and Slim Fast. Forty years ago they were obsessing over the fat in eggs and butter. > [@Chronos](#): > > If a gluten-free diet has benefits for a non-Celiac person, it’s just for the same reason that any fad diet works: It causes them to pay more attention to what they’re eating. When people tout their weight loss from a gluten-free diet, I want to yell, “It’s because you’re not eating an entire food group!” ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/49 "2015-06-02T16:32:51Z")
It works on the same principle as [asbestos-free cereal](http://xkcd.com/641/). ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/50 "2015-06-02T16:33:13Z")
If this needs to go into its own thread, fine. But this one has been slightly hijacked, so… 20 ppm is trace. **Airbeck** says his friend is so sensitive, even if he has trace amounts “then we’re talking weeks of suffering and months of eating safely to start healing the damage.” I don’t know of anyone with Celiac disease, and know nothing about how it impacts the body. But if **Airbeck** ’s description is true, how on earth does anyone survive childhood with the disease? I find it hard to believe that I wasn’t exposed to gluten in massive amounts (well, amounts that would twist a Celiac sufferer into knots) and never knew it. Hell, if I happened to be allergic to peanuts, I would have been dead before I hit 7. (I think I had PB&J for an entire year, on white bread.) If trace amounts require months of clean living, and watching your complete food intake, just to get over the symptoms, how much would be required to kill a person, or put them in the hospital for months on end? ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/51 "2015-06-02T16:42:10Z")
> [@bump](#): > > So marketing things like vodka as “gluten free” is marketing stupidity of the worst kind- the sort that takes advantage of earnest people’s ignorance. It’s about as silly as low-fat salt, or water as having 100% hydrating ingredients. Sort of. By (current) law, vodka made from a gluten-containing grain **cannot** be labeled gluten free. It doesn’t matter if it contains no detectable gluten; the TTB says it is not a gluten-free product. So labeling a potato-based vodka as gluten free might still be all about the marketing, but I’d say it’s marketing genius, not stupidity. And it’s rooted more in the ignorance of the TTB and FDA. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/52 "2015-06-02T16:42:25Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > If this needs to go into its own thread, fine. But this one has been slightly hijacked, so… > 20 ppm is trace. **Airbeck** says his friend is so sensitive, even if he has trace amounts “then we’re talking weeks of suffering and months of eating safely to start healing the damage.” > > I don’t know of anyone with Celiac disease, and know nothing about how it impacts the body. But if **Airbeck** ’s description is true, how on earth does anyone survive childhood with the disease? I find it hard to believe that I wasn’t exposed to gluten in massive amounts (well, amounts that would twist a Celiac sufferer into knots) and never knew it. Hell, if I happened to be allergic to peanuts, I would have been dead before I hit 7. (I think I had PB&J for an entire year, on white bread.) > > If trace amounts require months of clean living, and watching your complete food intake, just to get over the symptoms, how much would be required to kill a person, or put them in the hospital for months on end? Celiac disease is not like a peanut allergy. It’s not an allergy at all. It’s an auto-immune response that causes the body to attack its own cells and damage them. If a Celiac sufferer eats gluten, his body will attack his small intestine and damage the villi. This causes the intestine not to function properly, which leads to all sorts of nasty, uncomfortable, and serious side-effects. But it doesn’t just kill people. It causes certain deficiencies and it causes seriously painful and unpleasant symptoms much of the time. And it can increase likelihood of cancers, I think. But it doesn’t cause anaphylaxis the way an allergy can. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/53 "2015-06-02T17:10:08Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > [Celiac disease] is not an allergy at all. It’s an auto-immune response that causes the body to attack its own cells and damage them. That’s pretty much the definition of an allergy. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/54 "2015-06-02T17:21:56Z")
> [@bup](#): > > That’s pretty much the definition of an allergy. No it’s not. Not at all. If anything, an allergic reaction is the opposite of an autoimmune reaction in that it is reacting to/attacking foreign bodies. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/55 "2015-06-02T17:44:47Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Sort of. By (current) law, vodka made from a gluten-containing grain **cannot** be labeled gluten free. It doesn’t matter if it contains no detectable gluten; the TTB says it is not a gluten-free product. Homeopathic vodka. Whoda thunk! ---
**Author:** ![Celidin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Celidin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celidin)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/56 "2015-06-02T18:38:07Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > how on earth does anyone survive childhood with the disease? I find it hard to believe that I wasn’t exposed to gluten in massive amounts (well, amounts that would twist a Celiac sufferer into knots) and never knew it. Hell, if I happened to be allergic to peanuts, I would have been dead before I hit 7. (I think I had PB&J for an entire year, on white bread.) > > If trace amounts require months of clean living, and watching your complete food intake, just to get over the symptoms, how much would be required to kill a person, or put them in the hospital for months on end? Celiac’s (and by extension doctor-diagnosed gluten sensitivity) are auto-immune diseases, and like many other sensitivities, certain types of allergies, etc, exactly how much gluten is very much dependent on the person. Anecdote: my wife is a diagnosed gluten sensitive and probably has full Celiacs, the test for it came back negative, but she (at her doctor’s recommendation) was already on a mostly-gluten-free diet at the point, and the [tTg-iGa test](http://celiac.org/celiac-disease/diagnosing-celiac-disease/screening) looks for antibodies in the blood and you need to be on a gluten-containing diet for them to show up right. The GF diet has helped her significantly, and she’s gotten so sensitive to gluten since that she’s never bothered to spend the few weeks on a non-GF diet to confirm the test since the treatment is … to go on a gluten-free diet. Anyway, she was diagnosed in her early twenties, but likely had the sensitivity for years - misdiagnosed as lactose intolerance, irritable bowel, and an allergy to other various things. **How can you live with it?** The [symptoms](http://celiac.org/celiac-disease/symptomssigns) include things like “chronic diarrhea” and “constipation” and “fatigue” and “ADHD” - all of which could be misdiagnosed very easily, especially prior to the current “fad” of the last few years. It’s a [long-term](http://celiac.org/celiac-disease/what-is-celiac-disease) disease and takes years-to-decades to do enough damage to kill you - but can lead to things like diabetes or MS or chronic migraines and cancer. Luckily, a lot of the damage will [eventually heal itself](http://celiac.org/celiac-disease/treating-celiac-disease), assuming you catch it soon enough. For the record, here’s the study that seems to have been what established the 20ppm (or 20mg/kg) threshold: [http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2012/11/27/ajcn.112.047985](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2012/11/27/ajcn.112.047985) > [@American Journal of Clinical Nutrition](#): > > Objective: The objective was to evaluate the proportion of CD patients at risk of mucosal damage due to the consumption of GF products in 4 European countries (Italy, Spain, Germany, and Norway). > … > Conclusions: The adoption of a single gluten threshold (20 mg/kg) for gluten contamination is suggested. GF products in Europe constitute a very safe option for patients with CD. The dietary follow-up of CD patients should focus on other potential sources of gluten contamination. (CD = “celiac disease”, explained elsewhere in the abstract then what I quoted). That study and [other research](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/1/260.1.full) does point out though that individuals are sensitive to differing amounts and that less than 20ppm still may be enough for some individuals to experience a reaction. ---
**Author:** ![akrako1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@akrako1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akrako1)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/57 "2015-06-02T21:02:55Z")
cholesterol free vodka would be nice too! ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/58 "2015-06-02T21:16:30Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Sort of. By (current) law, vodka made from a gluten-containing grain **cannot** be labeled gluten free. It doesn’t matter if it contains no detectable gluten; the TTB says it is not a gluten-free product. So labeling a potato-based vodka as gluten free might still be all about the marketing, but I’d say it’s marketing genius, not stupidity. And it’s rooted more in the ignorance of the TTB and FDA. Clever marketing in that it both sets their product up as safe, and the competitors as unsafe. But it’s fundamentally taking advantage of ignorance and fear, as opposed to any inherent superiority or differentiation of the product itself. In other words, there’s nothing special about the vodka that makes it more or less gluten free than any other vodka, other than it skirts the TTB’s stupid regulations about the subject by not being made from certain grains. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/59 "2015-06-02T22:19:59Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > there cannot be ant gluten in any vodka. Time to get in on the ground floor of the ant-gluten-free diet fad. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346/60 "2015-06-02T23:27:26Z")
Since I am allergic to wheat I am grateful for all the people who are “faddists” and giving up gluten for weird reasons. Because, as a result of this, gluten free products (aka wheat free products) are now available in many places like Target and Walmart. And Glutino brand cookies are delicious. Without the gluten-free “fad” I would not have access to all these products. So, leave those folks alone; they are helping those of us who are truly unable to eat wheat. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-free-vodka-really/721346.md?page=4)