Avoiding gluten when you have celiac disease may not always be as easy as it seems. Many of the basic foods you may use on a daily basis may have gluten in them and you may not even know it. There are a number of ingredients that contain undeclared gluten or may be at risk for cross contamination. It is essential if you have celiac disease that you root out all these sources of gluten or you may continue to have symptoms despite thinking that you have removed all the gluten from your diet. In fact this sort of hidden gluten is the number one cause of continued symptoms in most patients.

You can of course eat most whole foods that are naturally gluten free, but eventually you are going to want a sauce or condiment and it is these types of products that you must be very careful with. Gluten is used for a number of different reasons you would not think of, it is a binder, a texture enhancer and it is used to thicken sauces. Flour is often also used to keep things from sticking to each other or the conveyer belts or molds during processing, this is the reason why most candies make it on the list of non-safe foods even though their ingredient list does not list any gluten.

Ingredients you should be on the lookout for are things such as anything with the words malt, bouillon, fillers, or hydrolyzed in it. Additives such as flavorings and colors can also contain gluten and so can many spices where wheat is used as an anti-clumping agent. One of the things that make it so difficult for people with celiac disease is that while companies are required by law to label products with ingredients they do not need to include the ingredient list or source for the ingredients they use.

This means two things; first you do not know if the ingredients they use have gluten in them and while they may have been ok and gluten free 3 months ago, there is nothing guaranteeing they have not changed vendors and that the new products they use do have gluten in them.  This requires vigilance on the part of the celiac consumer, to continue reading labels and contacting companies, or to find a reliable regularly updated list on the internet.

Alternatively you can shop for these sorts of products at a health food store most of which carry full lines of gluten free products. While this may be a bit more expensive, it requires less effort and comes with the peace of mind that what is labeled gluten free will not make you sick.