Barely contains gluten. Period. There is debate about oats, but not barely. The people at the restaurant are misinformed.
I know it’s hard, but you have to be sure of yourself and if in doubt, leave it out, no matter how nice and confident the restaurant staff are! It sure is frustrating though when you get led astray (this has happened to me many times over the years and I have finally learned my lesson).
Gluten-free should be barley-free. It may be unnecessarily restrictive, but would be a good first step, other than home-made items, until you can find suitable replacements of your favourite foods.
The good new is that making everything yourself leads to much healthier food. It is time consuming though.
]]>I see your point.
It is certainly less common than wheat, but just as sneaky.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter if a particular ingredient is less or more common than another; if you’re allergic to it, watch out for it everywhere!
]]>Hi Liz,
If you have celiac disease, or you’re allergic to barley, it may cause loose bowels. Depends on the person.
]]>I just read this article, and although I am thankful for the information provided, I have been researching and eliminating barley from my son’s diet for two and a half years now (he is four), because he was diagnosed with a barley allergy at a year and a half old. The thing I find misleading about your article, is that you say barley is probably the least commonly used in everyday foods, of all the grains you listed. I find this to be misleading because barley is really in a lot of places one might not suspect. While it is very commonly found in beer or whiskey, and that is kind of a known, it is also very commonly found in everyday foods like bread, cereal, cookies, etc. The main reason for this is that most flour that you buy in the grocery store, lists malted barley flour as one of the main ingredients. Because of FDA requirements on labeling, companies are not neccessarily required to specifically list that the flour they used to make their bread contains malted barley flour. Nor do most labels tell you that malt is made from barley (always), and/or corn. I find barley in almost as many things as I find wheat in. Although I can’t seem to find anything on it right now, when I first started researching barley, I was finding that dextrose and maltodextrin are sometimes derived from barley (most often from corn, maize, rice, etc) as well. Those are two sweeteners that are in everything. Anyhow, thank you for the information you provided, I hope you found this information helpful as well.
]]>The main one I am aware of is malt or words similar to malt. Malting is a process, usually applied to barley, so if you see malt it usually means malted barely.
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