Gluten Free Jelly Beans!

I recently came across some pretty amazing jelly beans produced by Gimbals, a San Francisco based company. I’m a big jelly bean fan in general, especially the ones which come in all sorts of crazy flavours, so I was very happy to find jelly beans which are not only yummy but also 100% gluten free and celiac friendly!

All of their candy is free of the 8 most common allergens as are their factories so there is no chance of cross contamination in their products. There are no peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, gluten, soy, fish or shell fish in any of their products so if you can’t eat any of these things you can still enjoy these jelly beans.

They make seven different varieties of jelly beans and jelly bean hearts. They are all really yummy but the gourmet jelly beans are still my favourite and I find it very difficult to stop munching on them once I start.

Green & Black's

Today I found myself wondering whether Green and Blacks chocolate is gluten free. It’s a brand I sort of forget about for a while then remember when I see it in a store or a friend offers me a chunk. This time I decided to do some research so that I know whether or not I can eat it next time the opportunity arises. I was always a big fan of their butterscotch chocolate bar in pre celiac days. And their ice cream, especially the one with caramel and hazelnuts! But is it safe for me to eat now? Is Green and Blacks Chocolate Gluten Free?

If you’re in the UK or Ireland  you can look at their nutrition page for a list of which products contain gluten and other allergens. It appears that most of them do not contain gluten. According to this list it’s only their biscuits which contain gluten, none of their bars or ice creams. Fantastic! The packaging of some of their products states ‘ May contain traces of cereals’ which sounds as though there may be possible cross contamination issues. I emailed Green & Blacks UK. This is the response I got.

All Green & Black’s chocolate is made on a site which uses cereals (rice, oat, wheat, barley and rye flours) and we therefore cannot guarantee that our products are free from gluten traces as there is a small risk of cross contamination.

‘Manufactured in a factory that handles cereal ingredients’ is the statement that you will find printed on the majority of our bars. However, we have recently moved to an alternative allergen labelling and will be using ‘Contains’ statements for products where allergens are included within the recipe for that product and ‘May Contain’ when that allergen is present in the factory environment and therefore there is a risk of cross contact. Therefore, to represent the risks of possible cross contamination of gluten within a non gluten-containing product, the following statement will now be used on newer versions of the wrapper, which you may have spotted already on the shelves:

 ‘May Contain traces of cereal.’

I would like to take this opportunity to outline for you the procedures we have in place to minimise the risks of gluten cross contamination in the factory. We take into account the scheduling of wheat containing products and we clean the lines by flushing chocolate through until there is no trace of the previous lines chocolate in the new batch. We are confident that this procedure significantly reduces traces from previous production, although as I’m sure you can appreciate, the only certain guarantee of absence would be on a gluten-free site.

For those of you in Canada, the nutrition page suggests that all of the products they sell in Canada do not contain gluten.

As usual the US version of their site makes it much more confusing for consumers to figure out whether or not their products are safe for them to eat. From reading the label the ingredients appear to be the same as those in the UK and nothing throws up a red flag. Again, whilst they probably don’t contain gluten ingredients they may be affected by cross contamination and I would recommend calling them just to be on the safe side.

But which of these chocolate bars are safe for coeliacs? According to Cadbury’s UK website a whole bunch of their products are gluten free. In their ‘Nutrition’ section you can search by dietary requirements to find out which products are safe for you to eat. One of these buttons is ‘Gluten Absent (Suitable for Coeliacs)’ You can also search by multiple requirements if you’re looking for something that is for example both gluten and nut free.

Twirl, Crunchie, Fudge, Curly Wurly, Flake. Coeliacs can still enjoy these and many more. Yay! Many of the Cadbury’s easter eggs are also on this list.

If you’re looking for the gluten free status of Cadbury’s chocolate manufactured in the United States, check out my Hershey’s post as they are responsible for Cadbury’s chocolate on this side of the pond. I don’t think they do much more than creme eggs and mini eggs though. In many big cities in the States you will find stores which import Cadbury’s chocolate from the UK which for a Scot living in the US is great news. I can find many of my old favourites and I can also feel safe knowing these are gluten free and safe for me to eat!

San Francisco seems to import quite a lot of Cadbury’s in from the UK to sell in specialist candy or British stores so now I know which bars to look out for

Drumsticks!

Barratt's shrimps are gluten free!

So I don’t know about you but personally I’m a huge fan of sweets (or candy if any Americans are reading this!). Since I was kid I could easily have gone without crisps and chocolate if it meant I could delve into a big bag of pic n mix. I think we should all take a moment of silence here to remember Woolworths….

The ability to buy a bag filled with not only all of the best sweets in the world but also those which we hand picked ourselves,using the scoops of course!, was extremely exciting. This activity of sweetie choosing never lost it’s charm..until I was diagnosed as celiac that is. The fun of scooping was now overshadowed by the threat of cross contamination.

Bananas and shrimps, fizzy cola bottles, white mice, those little rainbow sprinkled white chocolate things, pink pigs, gummy cherries, allsorts, jelly babies, fried eggs, teeth and fangs, dolly mixture and so the list of tasty sweets goes on. The crazy thing about it is that many of these great sweets are in fact gluten free. If only there was a way to buy bags of our favourite sweets without them having come in contact with those which aren’t gluten free.

Enter A Quarter of. Coeliac sweetie lovers do not fret! I recently discovered a great website which does exactly this.  What excited me most is their ‘Gluten Free’ search button to help us see what’s safe. When you click on ‘Find sweet that are ‘gluten free’  247 products come up. 247 people! Included in this selection are hard sweets such as kola cubes, rhubarb and custard and gummies like turtles, caterpillars, sharks and pythons. I was over the moon to see my favourite sweet of all time, the foam shrimp, is also on the gluten free list. Last week, a quarter of sent me a few samples of my old favourites. Included was a bag of foam shrimps and fortunately they are still as delicious as I remembered! Foamy, sweet, scrumptiousness! The Jelly Babies and foamy bears were pretty awesome too. Oh how I love my sweeties.

A quarter of, you may be the best website there is, other than this one of course. Enjoy fellow sweet toothed celiacs!

With candy wasabi

Candy Sushi!

As much as I’m not a fan of Kellogg’s (as none of their products are gluten free as yet) I looked to their recipe for Marshmallow treats as they thought they may know something about quantities when making these things. I used Kallo rice cereal and Haribo marshmallows. I didn’t use any butter in my recipe as I didn’t feel it was necessary.

Ingredients (makes both Maki & Nigiri)

• Gluten free rice cereal (approx 225g)
• Marshmallows (approx 200g)
• Gluten free candy in the shape of fish
• Gluten free worms or other long and thin candy

How to make Maki

• Melt 200 grams of marshmallows into a medium pot
• Add 225 grams of rice cereal to melted mallows and mix until cereal is covered (Add extra cereal if there are more than enough mallows)
• Scoop mixture onto foil covered tray
• Flatten mixture into flat rectangle shape
• Take jelly worms and lay across mixture
• Roll mixture into a circle and cut to create maki

Use remaining mix to make Nigiri

• Take small amount of cereal/mallow mix into your hands and roll into sushi rice shape
• Top with fish candy to look like nigiri
• Serve and enjoy!

Dots

Junior Mints

In the States, a large number of the candy and chocolate snacks that you find in stores are produced by Tootsie Roll Industries. A lot of the snacks associated with going to the movie theatre like Junior Mints, Dots and Sugar Babies are also made by Tootsie Roll, which always has me wondering which ones are safe for me to eat…

Which Tootsie Roll Industries products are gluten free?

Well… according to their website the answer is all of them!!

The Healthy Living section of their site states this:
Nutrition Labels and Allergen Information:
Tootsie provides the most accurate and updated ingredient statements for each of its products. Consult the Nutrition Chart for each product to determine whether a candy or gum fits into your dietary plan.

All Tootsie products are:

• Gluten-Free
• Peanut-Free
• Nut Product-Free

Tootsie does not use wheat, barley, rye, oats, triticale, spelt, or any of their components, either as ingredients or as part of the manufacturing process.

Corn and soy products are used during the manufacturing process.

Razzles

Tootsie Roll calling...

I wanted to ensure that this information is update and covers all Tootsie products so I gave their consumer line a call. I was a little concerned with the statement that all of their products are gluten free when I saw that they make Andes Creme de Menthe cookies! No one was available to speak to me at that time so I left a message on their answer phone explaining my query and asking them to call me back.

30 minutes later I received a call from a cheery lady. She confirmed that all Tootsie Roll products are gluten free. I asked about the cookies and she said that they although they use the Tootsie Roll name, they are produced by a different manufacturer. She explained that if a product is manufactured by Tootsie Roll Industries then it will say this on the label and this product will be gluten free.

UPDATE: Feb 13th 2012: As I wrote this post a while back I wanted to report that Toostsie Roll Industries still provide the same information regarding the gluten free status of their products. The only difference is that they now mention that Andes cookies are their only gluten containing product. Great! The fact that they do not use wheat, barley, rye, oats, triticale, spelt, or any of their components, either as ingredients or as part of the manufacturing process is pretty great news for celiacs!

All Tootsie products are:

• Gluten-Free (All Tootsie products are gluten free except Andes cookies.)
• Peanut-Free
• Nut Product-Free

Tootsie does not use wheat, barley, rye, oats, triticale, spelt, or any of their components, either as ingredients or as part of the manufacturing process.

Corn and soy products are used during the manufacturing process

Butterfinger

Baby Ruth

I called Nestle North America to find out which of their candy products are gluten free.

This is the list I was given….

• Nestle Baby Ruth
• Nestle Nips
• Nestle O’Henry!
• Nestle Raisinets
• Nestle Sno-caps
• Nestle Bit-o-honey
• Nestle Butterfinger
• Nestle Goobers
• Nestle Milk Chocolate
• Wonka Pixy Stix
• Wonka Laffy Taffy
• Wonka Fundip

I asked if they could also email me a copy of this list, which I received the following day.

http://nestle-consumerservices.casupport.com/eglutenfree.pdf

With this list I also received this email from a Nestle customer representative explaining how they consider the gluten free status of products. I found this very interesting and reassuring to hear that products must also be free of any possible cross contamination before they are considered gluten free.

Dear Ms. Emmerson,

Thank you for contacting Nestlé® Chocolate and Confections.

We consider “gluten free” to mean no gluten ingredients are in the product, whether directly added, or potentially present due to cross-contact. In other words, if a product label has an allergen advisory statement such as “made on equipment” or “facility that also processes wheat etc… “, we do not consider that product to be gluten free.

UPDATE (13th Feb, 2012) Today I spoke with Nestle customer service again. They are much more pleasant and helpful than some other companies I contacted today. They emailed me a copy of their most recent ‘Gluten Free Products’ list and it looks as though it’s still the same products which are safe. This information they say  includes products which to the best of their knowledge are not made with ingredients derived from wheat, oats, rye or barley, nor are these made on equipment which processes products containing wheat, oats, rye or barley ingredients. Sounds pretty good.

http://nestle-consumerservices.casupport.com/eglutenfree.pdf

Reece's peanut butter cups (by Hershey's)

Last week I called Hershey’s….

I explained to the man who answered my call that I was looking to find out which of their products are gluten free as this is not apparent on their labelling.

He gave me this short list (confirmed as gluten free by Hershey’s corporate Headquarters):

• Original Hershey’s Kisses
• Milk chocolate bar (1.55 size)
• Milk chocolate bar with almonds (1.45 size)
• Coco
• Baking chocolate
• Chocolate chips
• Chocolate syrup

My response of ‘Are these really the only products you have that are gluten free?’ was met with an explanation that Hershey’s do have other products where none of their ingredients contain gluten but as these haven’t yet been checked?!? they cannot be added to the gluten free list.

I was told to check the labelling on any products not on this list as there shouldn’t be any hidden ingredients. If a product contains rye, wheat, oats or barley it will be stated on the label. If there is the possibility of contamination of one of these grains this will also be included on the labelling.

Sooo, basically, if there are no obvious glutenous ingredients and no cross contamination warning then we can assume that the product is gluten free.

I took the man’s advice and looked at the back of a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup (made by Hershey’s) wrapper…there were no obvious glutenous ingredients and no cross contamination warning. According to Hershey’s customer service that means I could safely eat this but can I really trust them if they are not willing to put it on their ‘gluten free list’ and officially confirm that this product is gluten free?

My question to you Hershey’s…..’Why would these ‘assumed’ gluten free products not be on your gluten free list if they are in fact gluten free?!?!?

UPDATE: (March 2012) I called Hershey’s again and was given the same gluten free product list as above. Clearly their customer service people haven’t been given any new or updated information regarding the gluten free status of products because I was given almost word for word the same spiel as the last time I called. Again I was told that many of their other products are gluten free but they can’t confirm this?!? In products with no gluten containing ingredients Hershey’s have procedures in place to eliminate the chance of cross contamination. This sounds good but we celiacs need a more confident list of gluten free products from your company rather than just leaving us to read the labels and figure it out for ourselves.

This information is also relevant to Cadbury’s chocolate in the US as it is manufactured by Hershey’s.

UPDATE: (April 3rd, 2012) It looks as though Hershey’s have finally updated their gluten free list to include more products! This list was updated only a couple of days ago and now includes products like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Almond Joy and Mounds bars. Fantastic!!

Hershey’s state that ’For your convenience, the current products listed below have been fully evaluated and qualify as gluten free using standards proposed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Please note this list is not all inclusive as we have other gluten-free confections.’ So these products listed should contain less than 20ppm and be safe for celiacs. Thanks, Hershey’s!

I was very happy when I discovered that Walgreens, the US pharmacy chain which can be found at various locations across the country, labels all of their own brand candy with allergen information. The great news for Coeliacs is that most of their candy is gluten free!

Their selection includes hard candy, soft candy, mint candy, fruit candy, sweet candy and spiced candy. If it’s gluten free, it’s labelled as ‘Gluten Free’ and if it contains gluten, this will be clearly marked on the nutritional information….simples

More Gluten Free candy

Gluten Free candy at Walgreens

Walgreens also sell Sweet Time candy, again most of which is gluten free and labelled so.

GF Orange Slices

GF Jelly Beans

GF Red Fish

If you find yourself in the mood for something sweet and sugary and you can get yourself to a Walgreens, there will be a large gluten free variety awaiting you….