Most people who are Celiac, gluten sensitive, gluten intolerant or allergic to wheat pretty much know which ingredients to avoid. For those of us who have been at this for a while, this is a no-brainer.
But, the package did carry an allergen warning: Processed
in a plant that also handles peanut butter. His thinking was that since this
was the only allergen warning, no other allergens were present.
Two hours later, he is in the bathroom violently ill. His
waist expanded 7 inches causing a huge amount of pressure on his diaphragm.
This went on for almost 12 hours when I was finally able to get him to our
local doctor.
In this short time span, my husband went from a strong, healthy
individual looking forward to the activities of the week to a seriously sick
man. In this short time span, the gluten created much inflammation in his
intestinal tract, causing enormous pain and resulting in diverticulitus and a
long regimen of a strong antibiotic.
All of MY husband’s pain and suffering (and my stress)
could have been avoided if Snyder’s of Hanover
had been truthful on their package labeling. Their customer representative
admitted to us that technically their 100% corn tortilla chips were gluten free
and the machines on which they were processed were cleaned between runs. This
person said that they run their “certified gluten free” products first, then
the products with no gluten containing ingredients next and then their products
that contain gluten.
The bottom line for this particular company is that they
use the same machines for all of their products and rely on the integrity of
the workers to properly clean the processing equipment from one run to another.
This practice creates the ideal situation for the possibility of cross
contamination such as my husband experienced.