Xanthan gum - coeliacs beware

[RogerS]

Interesting article here.

http://www.foodsmatter.com/allergy_into ... 05-12.html

My wife who is very coeliac couldn't work out why recently she'd been feeling pretty rough. All the symptoms of eating gluten. Turns out that the M&S Free From bread she'd been getting stuck into is loaded with xanthan gum. She did the research, found this article and others, cut out the so-called Free From bread and bingo...sorted.

 

[bugbear]

Interesting article here.

http://www.foodsmatter.com/allergy_into ... 05-12.html

My wife who is very coeliac couldn't work out why recently she'd been feeling pretty rough. All the symptoms of eating gluten. Turns out that the M&S Free From bread she'd been getting stuck into is loaded with xanthan gum. She did the research, found this article and others, cut out the so-called Free From bread and bingo...sorted.

Wow - that article is severely anecdotal, and packed chock full of loaded language.

Whatever you may think about the very wide use of a gum derived from a cabbage-rotting bacterium in food manufacture,

The actual evidence, amidst all the boo-yaa appears to be:

A post from Wendy Cohan on celiac.com suggests that xanthan gum

It's possible they're right, but this article is based on emotion and prejudice. I would try to find a better source of evidence.

BugBear

 

[RogerS]

Y'know....when I posted this I put money on you posting in your usual denigrating, negative and down-putting style.

Yes, it is does have 'loaded language' but the underlying science is there ...if you can be bothered to look for it.

If by posting this I can alert at least one coeliac sufferer to double-checking whether they are eating anything with xanthan gum and to see if eliminating it will alleviate any symptoms then that's good enough for me.

You, on the other hand, can live up to your username.

 

[dickm]

To be slightly less confrontational, but equally anecdotal, my daughter is severely coeliac and uses xanthan gum a lot, without any ill effects.
And to lighten the tone a bit............ she got fed up with paying through the nose for small quantities and somehow found a place that sold it in bulk from returned or lost shipments. Got a couple of kilograms of this white powder in a poly bag, and then wondered whether it was actually what it was claimed to be. She has a fully equipped lab, so ran it through one of the analysers to check. It was fine, but the analyser has a library of spectra as a guide to new users, with a list of suggested items for each spectrum. The nearest thing to the spectrum that it could offer from its library was............ chipboard.
Which probably explains why most gluten free stuff seems to taste like that.

 

[SammyQ]

Dick, as a fellow father to a coeiac daughter, I viewed your post with some glee and unhesitatingly passed it on to Ness. Made my morning!

Sam

 

[RobinBHM]

Xantham gum is used in lots of low fat prodcucts like salad crame etc, mayo etc -I dont know it could be allergen

I find it irritating that there is a trend now for these gluten free diets and claims of wheat intolerance.

Im sure Coeliacs must find it irritating, I know some Coeliacs cant tolerate any gluten and become very ill if they eat any, its not a lifestyle choice for them!

 

[dickm]

You are so right, Robin. Daughter gets really incensed at people confusing genuine coeliac disease with lifestyle choice examples. But was very pleased when we we took her to the cafe on the campus here and when she ordered gluten free, the chef came out and asked her which she was, as they couldn't claim absolute absence of gluten since there was only one kitchen and wanted her to be aware of this. In fact, it was fine.
But there is another aspect; the American coeliac society, presumably because of the litigous culture there, is so overcautious in its recommendations as to be useless. If a product can't be guaranteed to contain no components that might have been grown within 10 miles of a field of wheat, it's not gluten free! So in essence, coeliacs shouldn't eat.