Supporting National Celiac Disease Awareness Month, Frito-Lay to Label Several Products as Gluten Free
From Frito Lay: “May is National Celiac Disease Awareness Month, and in honor of this I am excited to announce that Frito-Lay will make gluten free claims on several of our products starting this year! Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition that causes a toxic reaction when a person consumes gluten, a protein that occurs in the grains wheat, rye and barley. There is no cure for celiac disease, but it can be treated by following a gluten free diet.”
“Since many of our chips are made from simple ingredients like corn or potatoes, they have naturally always been made without gluten. However, consumers with celiac disease have told us it is more helpful when they shop to have the words ‘gluten free’ included on the packaging. So to help meet their needs, Frito-Lay is now validating with analytical testing that these products contain less than 20 parts per million (ppm) of gluten, the level put forward by the FDA Proposed Rule on Gluten Free Labeling, and then adding the ‘gluten free’ claim to our bags.”
Products that will make the gluten free claim on the back of the bag include Lay’s Classic potato chips, Fritos Original corn chips, Tostitos Scoops! tortilla chips and Baked! Lay’s Original potato crisps. For a full list of products that are qualified as gluten free, please visit their website. More products to this list in the coming months.
I react to Lay’s potato chips–sometimes. And that’s the problem. Maybe it’s because they use several different kinds of oil to fry them, and I may be sensitive to one or another. I also found out that I have trouble with the regular chips that are made in the same plants as Sun Chips…but not all Lay’s factories make them. You have to do some research and/or contact Lay’s. They are very nice about giving out information, but it hasn’t helped me.
After micromanaging plant numbers on the bags of Lay’s chips that I used to buy, and still feeling just a little ill..I switched to Utz. Gluten free, only cottonseed oil, and never the slightest issue.
As long as manufacturers can shift ingredients at will to get the cheapest price–as with oils on many packaged fried snacks, and nuts, too–I don’t have a high level of confidence in those products. Sorry.
I quit eating Frito Lay products when I was diagnosed with celiac. While they don’t contain gluten ingredients, they are not produced on dedicated lines, and I heard of others who had reactions. Better safe than sorry. I will stick with Cape Cod potato chips.