Home > Celiac Travel Blog > Gluten free quinoa flakes? Warning! ‘The Health Store’
Gluten free quinoa flakes? Warning! ‘The Health Store’
Published 24 October, 2006
TweetQuinoa flakes are great for making quinoa porridge , a warming, filling gluten free breakfast.
But beware, not all quinoa flakes are gluten free, even if they look that way.
When I wrote the above recipe for quinoa porridge, I wasn't aware of the gluten content, but the next day I had dermatitis herpatiformis (DH) on my hand.
(I'm like a human gluten test kit - if I have gluten, I get DH, so I know when I've been poisoned - pretty handy really - geddit?)
Anyway, I checked back on my food diary, and I noticed that I had unexplained DH after a few days eating my homemade quimby bars, which as the name suggests include quinoa flakes.
And so proof positive - the quinoa flakes I had (brand: 'The Health Store') were not gluten free. When I looked the packet didn't actually say 'gluten free', which I should have checked. And of course with any milled product (i.e. flakes) you need to check they use a gluten free mill. So now I'm on the lookout for truly gluten free quinoa flakes - if you know of any, let me know!
Update: A friend called 'The Health Store' and was told that wheat is used in the same area as their flakes are manufactured. The Health Store does not mark their products with a warning, although they are not marked gluten free either.
