Gluten cross-contact in farm fields is never far from my mind
So, there I was in the beautiful Cotswolds thinking about gluten cross-contact…
This spring we were on vacation in England walking the Cotswold Way. We walked through stunning fields of beautiful rapeseed flowers.
While taking it all in, I noticed the very occasional bunch of white flowers. These turned out to be radish plants based on the plant identifier on my phone. Of course, both rapeseed and radish are naturally gluten-free. BUT my brain leapt to how these farm fields were a great lesson on cross contact.
Just imagine… What if the rapeseed was oats (or lentils or millet or…), and the radish was wheat or barley or rye. This would be an issue. There would be very small pockets of unevenly distributed gluten grain within the oat grain. It would be very difficult to do enough testing to find the pockets of gluten grains.
This is why purity protocols and mechanical and optical sorting methods must be robust. But it is also why there is no such thing as too much testing.
Comments (5)
I can not seem to find info about living next to barley fields. Which I do. Is there any info you are aware of?
Do you have an agricultural extension service in your area? If so, you may want to chat with them about grain dust during harvesting and steps to reduce or mitigate if you live close enough to notice grain dust inside your home.
The photo was a good illustration of the risk with oats (and possibly other foods).
I was told years ago that in order for oats to be certified GF the grower had to only grow oats.
However, I bought split peas once, packed in a small plastic bag and there were several wheat seeds mixed in with the peas.
That was surprising to me.
„If in doubt, do without” is a good motto to always keep in mind.
Back in the day, gluten-free oats and certified gluten-free oats were purity protocol. Generally speaking this meant that the oats were grown in fields that hadn’t grown wheat, barley, or rye for a few years. Today, gluten-free and certified gluten-free oats can also be oats that have undergone mechanical or optical sorting at the back end of production. Regardless, even purity protocol oats are not immune from gluten cross contact. This can be for several reasons–birds flying overhead and doing their business, deer wandering in from the hedgerow/windbreak, wind, etc. This is why walking the fields is also important.