Last fall at the height of the Ebola scare, “South Park” did an episode called “Gluten Free Ebola”. Unfortunately, the title was the funniest thing about the episode.
So-called glutinous rice contains no gluten, same as regular rice. In this case the word glutinous is used in its original Latin meaning of sticky, gluey, and is not a reference to gluten. Its stickiness comes entirely from a type of starch.
Pretty sure Shalmanese is right. There’s a Japanese food product called seitan that is gluten washed from wheat flour. The residue is wheat starch which is food and is used in dim sum amongst other things.
Well, when they began to realize what a goldmine this “gluten-free” nonsense was, they just put all that extra gluten in to all the stuff that doesn’t have gluten in it to begin with. Then they take it out again and “Presto!!” You now have access to gluten-free chicken breasts, gluten free 24-packs of waters, heck, even gluten free lubricating gel, for those intimate moments.
The problem with that, from the standpoint of someone with a gluten sensitivity, is that it would be nearly impossible to be sure all traces of gluten have been removed from the starch.
It depends on the degree of sensitivity. The codex standards define gluten free as under 20 ppm. Anything labeled codex wheat starch should have been washed sufficiently to be under 20ppm. Some people will still react at this level but a lot of people will not.