Kroger Does Not Take Celiac Disease or Gluten Intolerance Seriously

I am increasingly concerned by the continued lack of respect the Kroger Corporation, or at least the one located in Opelika, AL has for those with Celiac Disease and/or those who are gluten intolerant.

Most of us lead very busy lives and would like to feel the time and money we spend purchasing food for our families are appreciated. Those who have a family member with one of these conditions, or any food allergy for that matter, know the inordinate amount of time spent grocery shopping.

I would appreciate Kroger employees placing shelf talkers, those little “signs” placed on the shelf below the product, on the correct items. Instead, I feel that they:

Three Steps to Take to Avoid Gluten When Buying Groceries

How to stay safe while purchasing your food at the grocery store just many be the next $64,000 question. Selecting food that is gluten free is fairly easy, or should be. Let’s face it; most foods are inherently gluten free. The problem is the creativity of food manufacturers to search for and find new and different ways to contaminate perfectly good food that is otherwise free of gluten.

Do you want to know what I think? Frankly, I believe the powers-that-be in the food manufacturing kingdoms really don’t give a freaking, flying hoot in you know where about whether folks get sick. All they care about is the bottom line which is the almighty dollar. Remember what the Bible has to say about the rich man getting into heaven.

What Food Manufacturing Companies Don’t Tell You Could Make You Sick

My sweet husband innocently bought a bag of 100% tortilla chips made by Snyder’s of Hanover. He carefully read the label; there were no ingredients on the side panel that raised a red flag or sounded a warning alarm.

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.