If you have celiac disease, you need to maintain a gluten-free diet to stay healthy, but shopping for foods without gluten can be a challenge. Here are some tips to help you avoid gluten-containing foods and find gluten-free foods in your grocery store:
Become a label-reader. In North America, it is the law that food that contains gluten must say so on the label.
Choose naturally gluten-free foods. These include fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, meat, poultry, fish, seafood, dairy products and certain grains such as rice and (pure) oats.
Look for foods that contain the following gluten-free grains: rice, corn, (pure) oats, soy, millet, teff, sorghum, buckwheat, quinoa, and amaranth.
Be careful when buying prepared foods such as those that come in cans, boxes, jars and other packages. Make use of various on-line and published resources to assist you in finding and buying prepared and packaged foods that are gluten-free.
Because they contain gluten, avoid the following products:
Barley malt, malt extract, malt syrup, and malt vinegar
Soya sauce (unless made from non-gluten-containing food sources)
Modified food starch if it is derived from wheat
Brewer’s yeast
Products that do not specify their content
Take your child along. If you are shopping for your child with celiac disease, if they are sufficiently mature, bring them with you (some of the time anyhow) as you shop, and make it into a gluten-free learning experience for them.
