Spelt

[GFSarahSmiles]

Has anyone ever encountered a health food store saying that spelt is GF? I was appalled to find that one place around here says that spelt is okay for Celiacs, first saying that it is GF and then when I asserted that spelt IS wheat, she said, "well, it's very low gluten, so it's okay." A friend who went there prior to me said she had the same problem. She was told they had a lot of GF bread and when she asked for help, the guy said "oh yes! We have lots of spelt bread!" When she corrected him on the non-GF nature of spelt, he said "well, it's real easy to tell if you will react to it. All you do is put a little bit in your mouth and hold it in your upper lip for a minute. If your nose runs, you're allergic to it, if it doesn't then its safe to eat it." I saw an ad for a cooking class through this place and they advertised a gluten-free cooking class which taught you how to cook with GF flours and grains, and spelt was on the list.

Needless to say, this is very dangerous. People who are new to the Celiac world would probably not even question it if a salesman told them spelt was okay. HOW CAN WE ELIMINATE THIS MYTH???
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Sarah
Birthday: December 6, 1982
Gluten-Free Birthday: March 2, 2004
Remission & Dx Confirmed: March 30, 2004

[lynda]

wow
good to know thanks

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LYNDA

[aklap]

I have not personally experienced this, but I have heard it happening. It's sad...because like you said...if a newbie got that information - they'd be wondering why they are not feeling better.

Again...Reason #432 as to why these boards are so valuable!!

I guess I am lucky. 2 of the 3 health food stores I go to are run by celiacs (with other intolerances).

Maybe one thing that could be done is to talk to the healthfoods store and see if a display could be setup for a day. Maybe hand out GF cookies or GF snacks and give out flyers with ACCURATE info. Such as the ones found here at GIG: http://www.gluten.net/infopackets.html

I did that at city wide cookie baking contest last year (and will do it again this year). The response was quite amazing!
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Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa