Gluten free stuff

Yeah is true. In pizza or bread shops they have the kamut option ( GF ) or the 5 grains unbleached option you can pick from ( adding 1 euro )
But they cannot guarantee that there won’t be traces of gluten accidentally in them.
There are though restaurants that keep it 100% GF, and they are quite popular nowadays

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I’m going to bake this one tonight. I’ve tried other gluten free bread recipes and absolutely hate them. Talk about difficult to find ingredients! https://www.drberg.com/blog/the-healthiest-bread-in-the-world

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My first year in TW I loved adding that kind of crap to most of my noodle soups. Niiiice. Don’t get why sometimes they come with peanuts though.

How many Taiwanese that think diarrhoea is normal, are actually suffering from a gluten attack?

Ill admit, when eating local and get the runs.and.cramps I blame it on cleanliness as most do. But food.poisoning generally isn’t so short lived, and often isn’t as forgiving. maybe its the wheat? Though I would say I cut out oils in foods, especially eating out, and never feel sick eating noodles. But those times I do get oily as all hell “food” I’m in bad shape. When I cook noodles, or make brea at home vs eating out, no worries. Get that oily slime dish out, feel horrible.

Can’t eat 85, donutes etc bread (oil cake) anymore, shame as its yummy on the tongue, but horrible to swallow

To help vegetarians get more protein.

I don’t think people think it’s normal.

And how would gluten cause diarrhea? I’ve never heard of this.

Many a folk feel runny BM are the Norm here, I was shocked to hear it at first, but after years of too many witnessed accounts I now believe them when they say runny stools are the norm, even healthy. I agree its common, but not necessarily healthy.

I may be way off on the gluten thing. Doesn’t the whole gluten reaction make people run for the toilet though?

It might be a claim of gluten free people. But I’m not so certain about all that they claim. There are people with legitimate intolerance to gluten like the people with celiac disease mentioned. The others that claim it, I think a good majority are making it up or having placebo effects from cutting gluten. Seeing there’s no legitimate ways to test for it…I’m not so inclined to believe gluten is this awful thing.

I find it funny that the product description is smaller than GLUTEN FREE
This obviously sells better that way. No wonder they are putting it on anything these days.

I just realized I’m gluten intolerant a few months ago in my 60s. I had been having a lot of stomach issues, aching joints, itchy blisters, and various other problems that were getting worse and I put down to some kind of autoimmune disease since they flared up at the same time, but I never suspected gluten. Then one day I ate a huge baozi and it got stuck in my gullet all day. I had a fever for 2 days and my skin turned yellow, plus all the other problems intensified. Still I only suspected gluten allergy and after the symptoms died down, I ate a cookie which brought them back again. A couple of weeks later, I had the problem again and didn’t know why since I ate nothing with gluten. Then my wife confessed she cooked something for me in the same pan she used to warm up a baozi (after I told her doing that might kill me.)

Gluten allergy can be just as dangerous as peanut allergy. It’s not always caused by celiac disease but those that have celiac have to be especially careful as the tiniest hint of gluten destroys their intestines over time. Some people might go gluten-free because they think it’s more healthy or want to feel special. I don’t want to feel special, I just want to eat and don’t go in for food fads at all.

Taiwan is an awful place for anyone with food allergy because there is a serious lack of awareness about allergies and cross-contamination and people don’t rate honesty very highly. Almost nothing here is labelled gluten-free (even at Costco) and all packaged food is suspect unless labelled because everything contains wheat fiber. Even dried fruit is often dusted with flour, which is not listed as an ingredient. Flavored potato chips, frozen french-fries at Costco and almost any soup contains wheat. Even plain oats and soy can’t be trusted unless they specifically say gluten-free because of cross contamination.

Did you see the post right above yours? There are indeed many gluten free options out there now a days. Whether they are honest is another question, but many are labelled gluten free.

Sounds like pretty compelling anecdotal evidence. Have you got some tests to confirm coeliac disease? I think the gold standard is small bowel biopsy.

bdog: No, the test for celiac doesn’t work if you have already stopped eating gluten. Apparently, you can be allergic without having celiac and I hope that’s the case with me. Allergies can suddenly pop up later in life.

Explant: Yes, there are tons of gluten free products these days, just not in Taiwan. If anyone knows where to get this stuff in Taiwan, I would love to know. My local health food store has a box of oatmeal 220nt for 500g, but that’s all. I ordered from iherb one time but now there is no free shipping so it’s expensive. I guess there is always rice, rice and er… rice.

There’s IgG tests which will pick up that you have some sort of immune response to the gliadin protein or ttg. That’s one thing. But then there’s actual full blown coeliac where your intestines are scarred. You need medical testing to differentiate, because the latter is significantly more serious.

Yes, that’s my understanding but they say the celiac test doesn’t work if you already stopped eating gluten and I don’t want to go back to munching bread just to take the test, knowing what it does to me. In either case, the only treatment is to avoid gluten, which I’m going to do anyway.

@xiangzihan thta post above ours is in taiwan. Its fairly easy now.

Carrefour, rt mart, Px mart welcome, Jasons etc etc. They all have, Just maybe the really old local shops less so. Even those red china stores (baihuo/wu jin) that tend to sell cheap garbage often have numerous basic gluten free things.

Alternatively, even if they dont market gluten free (our company doesnt) you can check the ingredients list whicch will list any wheat related items.

I checked Carrefour, PX and Jasons in Taichung they have none of these items and virtually nothing labelled gluten-free. Checking ingredients isn’t reliable for reasons I mentioned before. It has to be certified (labelled) gluten-free. Of course, any store sells gluten-free foods like rice, bean noodles, and fresh vegetables.

water is gluten free (spoiler: it always was)

Sorry to hear that. I have seen them commonly. I usually hang around pingdong kaohsiung, tainan, chaiyi, taidong, hualien and north taiwan where i see them all the time like the picture posted above.

Honestly i am shocked taichung wouldnt have them. Do you speak mandarin? If so, ask the staff, they are there to serve in big chains, get them to show you. I be its common th ere as that region has a huge market for health food related stuff. Second only to the north. Still bigger than kaohsoung/tainna, Regardless how they think they are getting better in recent years.

As an aside, the ingredient list is WAY more accurate than the gluten free advertising posted above. Based on FDA law. So i would trust ingredient lists more than front packaging bullshit, without question. At least trust more, its the only thing that is ultra strict. The only thjng being more strict is the manufacturing companys details. That all said, taiwan still has loads of corrupted businesses straight lieing to customers. This has unfortunately led to more laws without more dilligence in FDA sectors. Which has really started to slit the throats of small businesses whilst not doing F all about the large ones that are the root of the issue. butthat is the staus quo for all industry in taiwan, so shouldnt be surprising…only appalling.

The big issue with allergies here on labels is the lack of declaring “this factory also manufactures …” soy, peanut, seafood etc. which isnt yet enforced on labels that much, but its coming thankfully.

In the end, dont buy the big bright letters on the face side of packAging. Only read ingredients. If thet are a lie, everything else is as well on the face side ofthe label :wink:

Thanks for the advice. I will keep looking.