# Gluten in Distelled Beverages **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 17, 2014, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414 "2014-07-17T23:20:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/21 "2014-07-18T18:41:14Z")
> [@Fishtar](#): > > Yeah. But, I think the less than 20ppm number has more to do with laboratory equipment, than with some safety threshold. People with bad Celiacs should never eat gluten in any amount (an auto immune disease not an a allergy and it only molecule + one T helper cell could start a cascade). But lab equipment is only so sensitive, and 20ppm is about as low as as it is practical to go. In other words, less than 20ppm really means ‘gluten free, as far as we can tell’ > > Which is why some with the disease have a tough time. Unless you grow and process all you own food, it is impossible to avoid gluten altogether. We can test down to “\<5ppm” with the sandwich R5 ELISA, and indeed some people wonder if we should reset the “gluten free” claim down to that level. So far, the science hasn’t shown it to be necessary - \<20ppm and \<5ppm don’t have clinically significantly different outcomes. But science, it is always a-changing, so next year (or next month) guidelines may change. ---
**Author:** ![Fishtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ed655f/32.png) [@Fishtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fishtar)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/22 "2014-07-18T19:44:31Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > We can test down to “\<5ppm” with the sandwich R5 ELISA, and indeed some people wonder if we should reset the “gluten free” claim down to that level. So far, the science hasn’t shown it to be necessary - \<20ppm and \<5ppm don’t have clinically significantly different outcomes. > > But science, it is always a-changing, so next year (or next month) guidelines may change. True enough, the difference between 5ppm and 20ppm is not worth much fuss. Antibody tests do not work well on fragments. So if ELISA shown less than 5, Mass Spec might show greater than 20 on the same sample… At that level everything gets a bit dodgy… ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/23 "2014-07-18T20:31:57Z")
> [@](#): > > I suggest…even the small percentage of those with genuinely-diagnosed and serious gluten issues can be a lot more relaxed about it You suggest wrong. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/24 "2014-07-18T20:55:15Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Those with Celiac Disease are recommended to choose foods under 20ppm. That’s the threshhold for being able to label something “gluten free”. Of course, one must use some common sense. I would not suggest drinking a beer with 19ppm while eating a chocolate bar with 18ppm and snacking on a bar snack with 17ppm. Y’know, math. It adds up. And since we don’t know how far under 20ppm “gluten free” foods and drinks are, if you’ve got Celiac…well, better safe than doubled over in pain in the bathroom knowing you’ve just raised your risk of colon cancer, dermatitis herpetiformis and diabetes by getting glutened. Not exactly. If you drink two beers with 19ppm gluten, you still only consumed 19ppm. However, the 20ppm was based on an assumption of normal consumption and a study that indicated that 10mg of gluten per day did not cause problems. ---
**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:** [July 18, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/25 "2014-07-18T20:56:36Z")
> [@susan](#): > > You suggest wrong. Possibly. But check back with me when the mania passes and we’re talking about the very small number of people actually affected and a medical consensus that isn’t occupied with time on talk shows. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/26 "2014-07-18T20:57:17Z")
> [@tim-n-va](#): > > Not exactly. If you drink two beers with 19ppm gluten, you still only consumed 19ppm. However, the 20ppm was based on an assumption of normal consumption and a study that indicated that 10mg of gluten per day did not cause problems. Thanks for clarifying. I realize the way I wrote that was kind of confusing. Yes, “it adds up” was meant to refer to the total number of gluten molecules, not their dilution. 🙂 ---
**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:** [July 18, 2014, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/27 "2014-07-18T22:07:33Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > If she’s a genuine celiac disease sufferer (CDC: 1 in about 5700 people) Where are you getting this stat? This is way off anything I’ve ever heard. The rate I’ve seen is 1:120-150. Higher in non-Hispanic whites and higher in women than in men. ETA: The stats I’m using are in the US. I don’t know about non-European non-US prevalence. ---
**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:** [July 18, 2014, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/28 "2014-07-18T22:29:05Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > The rate I’ve seen is 1:120-150. Higher in non-Hispanic whites and higher in women than in men. That’s what the current consensus of studies indicates, yes. Incidence - whether of occurrence or diagnosis is not clear - has risen about four-to-five-fold in the last few decades. I cannot locate the references I had for ca. 1:4500 occurrence, but they were from valid studies. I’ll withdraw the claim, but let’s all meet here in five years or so and see how much was fact and how much was (frankly, marketing-driven) hysteria/fad. ---
**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:** [July 18, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/29 "2014-07-18T22:30:49Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > That’s what the current consensus of studies indicates, yes. Incidence - whether of occurrence or diagnosis is not clear - has risen about four-to-five-fold in the last few decades. > > I cannot locate the references I had for ca. 1:4500 occurrence, but they were from valid studies. I’ll withdraw the claim, but let’s all meet here in five years or so and see how much was fact and how much was (frankly, marketing-driven) hysteria/fad. You think diagnosis via endoscopy is hysteria or a fad? I’m confused by what you’re saying. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/30 "2014-07-18T22:31:58Z")
1 in 5700 is very much out of date, as estimates go. [That’s from pre-2000](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/588631_3), when better testing became available and atypical Celiac Disease (without GI symptoms but with iron deficiency, osteoporosis, short stature and infertility caused by gluten intake) was recognized as another form of Celiac Disease. [Four years ago, it was 1 in 100 in one study.](http://www.mayo.edu/research/discoverys-edge/celiac-disease-rise) [1 in 141 in a study done in 2012.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850429) [University of Chicago estimates it at 1 in 133 in the general population, and 1 in 56 among those who have symptoms.](http://www.uchospitals.edu/pdf/uch_007937.pdf) 3 million Americans. That’s as many as have Diabetes (and there is quite a bit of overlap - 6% of people with diabetes also have Celiac Disease.) Is there a lot of faddish, eye-rollingly irritating anti-gluten propaganda? Absolutely. But Celiac Disease - diagnosable Celiac Disease - has a prevalence in the US that’s not to be ignored. And it’s about the same in Western European countries. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/31 "2014-07-18T22:58:05Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Get 'er hot enough quick enough and anything will evaporate. 😉 > > But yes, while I’m too lazy to look it up, I suspect it’s going to be somewhere after the evaporation point of the glass that makes up the still. 😃 No, gluten will not evaporate at any temperature. It is a protein. It will break down into components that are not gluten, long before any of those components evaporate. The components themselves are to be found in all proteins. It is only the particular arrangement of them in gluten to which gluten sensitive people react. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/32 "2014-07-18T23:07:37Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I’m just armchair speculating here, and I follow your logic, but I thought distilling - where we let stuff steam off _removed the water_ but left the other stuff. No, you have it backwards. In distilling, the alcohol (and certain other volatile organic compounds that give it flavor), boil off before the water. Your whiskey, vodka or whatever is condensed from the alcoholic vapors that boil off first (plus a small amount of the water which is allowed to boil off and is condensed with it). Most of the water, (plus any low-volatility solid dissolved in it) is left behind as a waste product. Any gluten that is in the original mix (and I doubt whether there is much there in the first place - it is not very soluble) will be left behind too (and, very likely, will mostly have already been broken down, or at least denatured, by the heat). ---
**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:** [July 18, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/33 "2014-07-18T23:22:38Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I’m confused by what you’re saying. That even 1% occurrence - which is still by estimates and sampling - does not justify the sweeping fad for gluten-free products. I have severe MIC\* sensitivity, you see. - Marketing-Industrial Complex. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/34 "2014-07-19T00:13:48Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Possibly. But check back with me when the mania passes and we’re talking about the very small number of people actually affected and a medical consensus that isn’t occupied with time on talk shows. 🙂 It’s a date, but not for beer. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/35 "2014-07-19T00:17:34Z")
I’m not aware of any commercial distillation that would transfer gluten. A short-path setup could transfer it via an aerosol. That also doesn’t bar other sources of contamination. ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/36 "2014-07-19T00:21:29Z")
It is a double edged sword. I was diagnosed via biopsy eight years ago and it was difficult to find foods labeled gluten free. Now they are everywhere, including things that are naturally gluten free. At the same time, the fad aspect can lead to people not taking it seriously. FWIW - I did not seek a diagnosis based on GI symptoms, it was just an elimination of options for some liver issues. In retrospect I understood why I was sick at seeming random times. ---
**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:** [July 19, 2014, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/37 "2014-07-19T05:36:19Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > That even 1% occurrence - which is still by estimates and sampling - does not justify the sweeping fad for gluten-free products. It’s roughly half the population of Jews in the US. Do you sneer at the availability of kosher foods, too? ---
**Author:** ![JayRx1981](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/71e660/32.png) [@JayRx1981](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JayRx1981)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2014, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414/38 "2014-07-19T08:54:00Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > That even 1% occurrence - which is still by estimates and sampling - does not justify the sweeping fad for gluten-free products. > > I have severe MIC\* sensitivity, you see. > > - Marketing-Industrial Complex. Why do you care? Are you a non-celiac, non-gluten-sensitive individual being forced to live on gluten-free products? Given WhyNot’s University of Chicago link, we’re talking roughly the same number of people dealing with diabetes. We’re talking more individuals with celiac disease than those with Epilepsy (2.7 million), Parkinson’s Disease (1 million), and Rheumatoid Arthritis (2.1 million). Oh, and if you’re unlucky enough (me) to be diagnosed after 20 years of age, you have a 34% chance of developing another auto-immune disorder on top of your celiac. Further, my suspicion is that this link is JUST in reference to celiac, not inclusive of those with a gluten sensitivity, nor of family members of those with celiac who go gluten free to support their kid/sibling, who also benefit from a wider variety of known gluten-free (within the limits of testing) products. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gluten-in-distelled-beverages/693414.md?page=1)