Happy Easter!

With a few words about controversial ingredients

Everyone has favorite holidays, and one of mine is Easter, for both religious and secular reasons. What’s not to love about bunnies and chicks, chocolate, and the arrival of spring? Easter comes with its own special celebratory treats, but for anyone on a gluten-free diet, that means it also comes with some confusion.

Back when I was first diagnosed with celiac disease, I was given a list of foods that I couldn’t eat. This was 20 years ago, and some of the information turned out to be wrong. But because of this list, for years I believed that I couldn’t eat oats or glucose syrup. Fortunately, that bad advice has been updated. Oats don’t contain gluten, though they may be contaminated with wheat during processing. The distillation process involved in making glucose syrup kills gliadin, the problem protein in wheat. This makes glucose syrup safe for celiacs, though it is still unsafe for anyone with a wheat allergy.