My husband and I both are feeling icky after yesterday's meal. We didn't eat much all day, and everything else was gluten free. Our meals for the day consisted of:

an apple for breakfast

and for lunch/dinner we had a hamburger with bun (Bob's Red Mill gluten-free Bread Mix), some avacado, onions, tomato, mayo (Best Foods), corn on the cob, and some sweet potato fries (I baked with some olive oil and spices).

green tea to drink

That's all we had, so the only thing that I can see that would get us sick is the bread mix. I have about 10 other bags of different flours from them that I haven't used as I just started trying to do my own gluten-free baking. I've read that some others on here have gotten sick from BRM products before. Was it just the bread mix, or other flours of his too? They were the only gluten-free flour products that were available locally. We're driving down to the city that I bought all of it from, today. It's a 4 hour trip, so I want to take it with me to return if the others will make us sick too.

Thanks everyone for the help!

In our house we would feel icky if we had so little protein.

Hi,

Sorry you aren't feeling well. I don't use Bob's myself, as I've seen several on here that have had problems with it.

I know that they make both gluten and non gluten products and the ones labeled "Gluten Free" are made in a different room than the others.

I think you'll find that some can eat their products fine, and others can't--not much help, I know, but a lot of this is finding out what you, as an individual, can tolerate and what you can't.

I use Ener-g flours and potato starch--they are available on-line.

Have you considered it may be the yeast in the product? I have a yeast intolerance and cannot eat any breads that contain yeast. Had to give up beer too
And the funny thing is I discovered the yeast intolerance before I found out I was gluten intolerant.


"Grains, yeast …
It is generally recognised these days that white flour does not have a high nutrition value. Less well known is the fact that most grains, like wheat, rye, oats and barley, contain the protein gluten, and people’s tolerance to this varies. Where there is a high intolerance, this can lead to celiac or abdominal disease, causing diarrhea and symptoms of vitamin deficiency, until the gluten intolerance gets discovered. "

"Another aspect of eating bread, pastry and drinking beer or fermented drinks is the growth of yeast. The consumption of many products containing yeast and sugar can alter the balance of the intestinal flora to the advantage of yeast, of which candida albicans is the most well known. Added to this, if antibiotics have been taken, then the balance is thrown off completely, which often shows up in bloating and itching, and in alternation between diarrhea and constipation, and related infections of the skin and nails."

Try contacting them....
In reality they can't guarantee gluten-free... companies that say they can are probably lying because stuff can always happen they miss or can't control. (I suppose if they charged $20 a mix its possible but given the way it grows and is transported its hard to be 100%)
To me its more how they respond and how much effort they make. If they ask you to send it in its a good sign, you might be asked to send in the bag etc.

At least if they do this they are serious... I guess if not then they are not?

oops: Forgot to say...
It could be all sorts of things, it might not be gluten, could be a tummy bug? It might be another intolerance (soy?) and it could be CC. You could have some lost gluten somewhere in the house like a hoover?? or it could be something you touched? Someones pet you handled eating gluten etc. etc.

This is one of the most frustrating things for me when I'm SURE I couldn't be glutened but am...

Bob's has two facilities: a gluten-free one and a non-gluten-free one. If a package says gluten-free, it is made in their gluten-free facility. Their soy flour is not made in the gluten-free facility so it does not say gluten-free because there would be a possibility of CC.

Some flavors of Tazo's green tea have... gluten.

Watch out also for seasoning mixes with spices that have mystery ingredients or use grain based fillers.

The only Bob's Red Mill product I've reacted to was the quinoa flour, which was a bummer, because it tasted really good, but it was definitely that after tested it for the third time by making flour and water tortillas and eating it by itself.

That's right, if you go to the Bob's Red Mill website and read their story (I have checked out their whole site) you would find that their gluten-free products are made in a different facility from the gluten items. So, if it says gluten-free, it is just that.

I agree that with mixes, there are a lot of possibilities other than gluten that could cause a problem.

I have a package of their 'homemade wonderful bread mix' (I haven't made any yet, because I really shouldn't have a lot of the ingredients). The ingredients are:
Garbanzo flour (beans cause intestinal distress for me), potato starch (same thing with potato), corn starch (a grain, I don't do well with grains), sorghum flour, tapioca flour (I don't tolerate it well, either), turbinado sugar, fara flour (don't know what that is), xanthan gum, potato flour (potato again), sea salt, guar gum, soy lecithin (a problem for many), yeast packet.

So, even though there is no gluten in this mix, I know I would react to this bread for many reasons. I am intolerant to most of the ingredients to some degree!

I might still bake it for my husband, because I am making him (with limited success) gluten-free in this house. The reason he still brings gluten foods into the house is, that I am not baking him bread. At least that is what he claims is the reason.

So, I hope that if I manage to bake him bread and cookies that he will stop bringing gluten foods in.

Thanks ladies,

The green tea that I drink isn't Tazos (but thanks for the head's up), it's Bigelow. I'll check again, but I think it's safe.

I looked at the symptoms for yeast, but the only ones that we have are also the ones that a gluten intolerance can cause, so it's hard to say. I checked out what you have to do for the diet, and I've done something similar in the past when I did Atkins. I ended up with uncontrollable D. My body doesn't do well on that low of carbs.....and incidentally too low of fats gives me the exact opposite reaction.

I don't think it was CC, but I guess there's always a possibility. We didn't get it from anyone else as we weren't around anyone to get it from. I'm pretty sure that we got everything gluten out of our home and we all eat the gluten-free diet. My pans are ok, as are my utensils and appliances. I really think it's something in the mix, but not sure what. I guess we'll just have to see as we use the other flours and such.

This can be quite frustrating at times. I commend those of you who have been on this for years, especially when the gluten-free products were scarce.

That's OK and the best they can do and avoids CC in the mill but it doesn't help with the field itself or the bulk transport... this is pot luck...
My thoughts on this are that Rice is good because it doesn't grown in the same environment as wheat (or barley/rye) ... and quinoa is good for the same reasons but other grains can be contaminated in the field by outliers... when crops are rotated or just mother nature (birds etc.) bringing in seeds as nature intended (poop).

The risks are smallest in areas with mono-agroculture but this is (unluckily for us) usually the most chemically enhanced. The same goes for transport, the more the transporters carry in terms of diversity the greater chance of CC.


I totally agree, the more in a mix the bigger the chance of one product being CC'd.

Thanks for all the responses. I think I've finally narrowed down what might have caused the D. We got sick this time using the Gluten Free Pantry mix. There were only a few of the same items in both mixes. One item stuck out as a culprit to the problem, guar gum. Apparently it has a laxative effect on some people.....and lucky us appear to be part of the "some". We'll know for sure when I can make some bread without it. I have a Pamela's and an Arrowhead mix. The Pamela's uses xanthan gum (which I guess can also have the laxative effect, but not as common), but the Arrowhead has neither. I think that should help determine the cause. I have to admit, I'm pretty scared to try the Pamela's though.

This is always a problem because there are so many unknowns. A big one for me is that a lot of stores seem to think that all specialty flours belong together so the pure wheat gluten goes next to or on the shelf above the gluten-free packages.

Good thing those packages never leak isn't it.

Thing is, using a different mix doesn't rule out CC. Now if you make some of your own mix, using separate ingredients to duplicate one of the suspect products, but leave out the guar gum in one batch and include it in another, then you'll have everything identical except the binding agent. I'd also try using baking powder instead of yeast.

It may take a few trials to figure out the culprit, but better to do that now than to keep getting sick at random, and not know why.

You're right. It irks me that at our store they have a lot of the Bob's Red Mill products. I would like it if they'd have the gluten-free ones on one side, and the gluten ones on the other. But of course, they couldn't care less. The gluten and gluten-free ones are right side by side and above or below each other.

Which shows that while the store managers have finally realized that money can be made from people with gluten intolerances, and they carry gluten-free products, they didn't bother finding out anything about celiac disease itself and don't care. It is all about money, as always.

Well, then send them a message that they'll understand, like go to the manager and say you're not buying the products unless they keep them on a separate shelf. Maybe start a petition? Do they have a bulletin board in the store? Get every member of a local Celiac support group to call them?

If the items don't sell, they'll stop carrying them.

i just did a trial run on Bob's...

had the Quinoa and the Creamy Rice Farina....both did not do the best with me; although they did not destroy me; they did not fully make me feel right; bad gas, breaking out. i know it was them as see i was very specific and doing ok with this other Quinoa (no bad gas with that) til it ran out; then wanted to experiment with Bob's. seeing as how i had seen this post and was messed for the longest time and could not figure it out--thought it was carbs in general, candida flaring out of control--i wanted to give myself reassurance. i'm still messed but Bob's makes it worse decidely so. and well it is cleanse time again. no carbs at all. thought it was just the Rice stuff like i had intolerance to rice as i had seen that before some could certain grains but not others...

i wonder if Bob's changes machines. i need to research Quinoa and how it is harvested. i mean do they plow the wheat then go across the street and plow the quinoa with the same tools; ugh---should check to see how Quinoa grows and the whole process. talk to Bob's--can anyone help out?