Gluten-Free Bread

 

This is something on which you might like to take a watching brief.

The Codex allows 200 ppm of gluten in food, before it can be called gluten free. As not a particularly sensitive coeliac who needs gluten-free food, I still find that this level too high and welcome proposals that would reduce this limit to 20 ppm.

But!

There are two methods for measuring gluten in food; Elisha and Mendez. The first is used primarily in the UK and the second mainly in Europe. I’ve been told this by a gluten-free food manufacturer, so it could be suspect. The Elisha test is ideal for producing fresh food and no licences are available in the UK for the Mendez method.

That wouldn’t be a problem, but the Food Standards Agency have just followed the draft Codex which makes the Mendez method compulsory.

On the one hand, this would mean a lot of small British manufacturers wouldn’t be able to make gluten-free food and claim it as such and there would be no fresh bread as it would only be available from mainland Europe.

There will be a lot of angry coeliacs out there!

I should say that I won’t be one as I find gluten-free bread awful. Unless of course, it can be proven otherwise.