Posted by kathryn in Gluten-free and Q & A Thursday

Last question for this week:

I’ve just been told to eat a gluten-free diet, but what actually is gluten? I had assumed it just meant I needed to avoid wheat, but now I’ve been told there are a whole lot of other grains I also have to steer clear of – why is this?

Gluten is a protein – well technically it’s a mixture of proteins. The gluten in wheat is made up of gliadin and glutenin. It’s found in a number of different grains – wheat, rye and barley.

If you’re trying to avoid gluten, then you need to avoid these three and all their derivative products. Wheat, rye and barley are commonly used foodstuffs and crop up in a whole range of foods – which makes going gluten free that bit more challenging. So you need to start reading labels!

Note – there’s a whole lot of misleading information out there about gluten, mainly based on a confusion over the term. For more information on this, see Gluten-free Girl’s post.

For information here in Australia, have a look at the Coeliac Society website.

26 July, 2007