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When you are ready to try a new gluten-free grain, remember, look before you leap. While the grain itself may have been determined to be gluten free, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUPPLIERS.
As a consumer of gluten free grains, it is your responsibility to research, not only the grain itself, but the environment in which it is grown, harvested, milled and packaged. If, at any one of these stages, a gluten free grain is exposed to gluten containing grains or environments, it is no longer safe to consider the grain "gluten free."
The first major area of potential cross contamination occurs in the fields themselves. Wheat, for example, are currently grown in fields that alternate with barley or rye crops. This is known as crop rotation. Often there are seeds known as "volunteers" from a previous year that germinate with the current year's crop. To be fair, there are machines that separate different grains after harvest.
The second area of potential cross contamination is in the grain processing facilities. Residues of one grain may still be in the equipment as the next grain is milled.
Finally, the machines used to package a grain or create a food product containing a particular grain may also have residues from other gluten containing ingredients.
All this being said, there are several responsible and committed gluten free grain producers that invoke every caution in the production of a pure gluten free product. Over the next several issues we will run articles exploring the ever-expanding universe of gluten free grain alternatives and information about the various suppliers. We will begin by exploring Amaranth in this issue.
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