Makeover for Gluten-Free Living

Magazine Famous for Debunking Myths about Vinegar, Other Foods

Congrats to Ann Whelan, Amy Ratner, Kendall Egan, and the rest of the Gluten-Free Living team on revamping their Westchester-based magazine's website. It's now got a more professional look (and an affiliated blog) while still offering reliable, well-researched information about gluten-free basics.

The website covers ingredients from amaranth ("Amaranth comes from an herb. Gluten free and high in nutritional value, it is puffed for cereal or ground into flour") to xanthan gum ("An ingredient used to give stretch to gluten-free baked goods in place of gluten. It is made by fermentation of glucose by xanthomonas campestris bacterium, from which it gets its name").

The magazine has a reputation for researching and debunking unsupported claims related to the gluten-free diet. So the ingredients page says this about vinegar: "Distilled vinegar is gluten free and has always been gluten free. There is no evidence that suggests vinegar might be dangerous for those who follow the gluten-free diet. The only vinegar to avoid is malt vinegar, which is made from barley and is not distilled."

Now, you might be among those who have a problem with distilled vinegar. No one is saying that you don't have a problem with it. However, the conventional, researched wisdom is that the problem isn't caused by gluten.

So if you feel that you have a problem with distilled vinegar that, unlike malt vinegar, is gluten-free, it is impossible (extraordinarily unlikely) that the problem is gluten, something that could accurately be called a "gluten reaction." Many people with celiac disease enjoy distilled vinegar without testing positive or feeling ill, so it might be that your particular system simply has trouble with distilled vinegar as well as gluten. You can still bring the problem to the attention of your doctor and feel free to keep vinegar out of your diet. There's no shame in that.

Vinegar is, after all, widely acknowledged as a strong, acidic substance. I myself have been known to clean drains with a mixture of vinegar and baking soda—an explosive combination!



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