My Grocery Cart
About 3 months ago I was in the market as usual, doing my weekly grocery shopping, in the second to last row: the freezer section. I wanted my weekly fudge pop indulgence. I grabbed the package in the backity back!! The most frozen one I could find, and decided to blog this wonderful gluten free treat. I realized I had never blogged about this fudge pop being gluten-free, and how silly of me to keep this tid bit to myself. So I grabbed my phone to take a picture of the front and back of the box. I gasped! omg, omg, omg. I starred at the ingredients. MALT FLOUR. Yikes! No way! It can't be. How come I never noticed this before? Did the ingredients change? Was it always like this? Something had to have changed and then to top it off I noticed at the bottom of the ingredients list: CARAMEL COLORING (yes, sometimes derived from corn, and yes always check, but I have a serious reaction to Caramel coloring, and many other Celiac's do as well)...I never had any symptoms. But then I stopped there, dead in my tracks. I recalled having mysterious symptoms, figuring it was gluten, but unable to figure out from where...I always check the ingredients....
As it turns out, I had neglected to check the ingredients. I want to assume, that I must have assumed they were fine and gluten-free. For the life of me I cannot figure out why I made such a stupid move. Never assume.
I can't even tell you how many months with even the possibility of years on and off!! did I eat The Original Fudgsicle 40 calorie pops. It was the best evening snack ever! And I used to eat 2. Forever I promoted The Fudgsicle to friends and family. And here all this time I thought it was Gluten-free. Always. Never a doubt in my mind.
Once I saw the word Malt, I googled it. Malt Powder, and does it have gluten like I think it does? It does. I actually found a few blog posts where other Celiac's experienced this same incident. There were even posts dated back to 2009. So it looks like in this case I am the fool, because clearly Malt powder has been in these babies for quite a while.
The moral of the story? Check. Always CHECK. Even if you are an expert, a Doctor, A beginner, A friend, A family member, A boyfriend who knows everything or a fellow Celiac. Check. There are times when we experience Cross Contamination or what I like to call Slippage. There are going to be times that you slip, completely unintentional. Mystery symptoms are a constant and consistent reminder to get yourself in CHECK. If you are having symptoms and are on the gluten-free diet, re-check what you are eating.
Happy Gluten-Freeing!
xoxo Julie
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