Tainted Chocolate or Why Gluten isn’t just Wheat

Valentine’s Day recently passed and many of us enjoyed our favorite confection – chocolate. A patient came into the clinic several days after Valentine’s complaining of a red itchy rash around her mouth. The skin was dry, red, itchy and irritated. She was confused by the symptom because it had always been the hallmark of a gluten indiscretion but she wasn’t aware of any gluten which had come into her diet. She did confess to enjoying candy over the holiday and was concerned that perhaps she had flared up some yeast.

One thing about having treated so many patients, I have become a very good detective! I immediately asked her for specifics as regarded her candy consumption. Her fiancé had bought her Lindor Truffles. Having a love for chocolate myself, I have pretty much memorized which chocolates are safe and which have gluten. I had a suspicion and asked her if she had read the ingredient list. Not surprisingly, she hadn’t.

A very common source of gluten contamination comes from a patient “knowing” that a food is okay. What could be in chocolate? Barley - in this particular case.

Another source of gluten contamination is from patient’s equating “gluten” with “wheat”. Glutinous grains include wheat, rye, barley, spelt, kamut, etc. (Visit my website: www.healthnowmedical.com for a complete list.) Once the above patient read the ingredients she sent a link to me asking if there was anything in them that was a problem. Because there was no “wheat” listed she thought she was fine.

The take-away is this: do a little memorization drill with yourself until you can easily rattle off ALL the grains that are glutinous. And…read the ingredients of everything!

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”