When I first went gluten-free, I never knew there were so many words on one label!

I went from never reading beyond the calories in a package to literally reading every single ingredient in a product.

To make matters worse, it is found in products beyond food. Between makeup, skin care, and hair care, I had to start reading labels on everything. Now that I’ve 5+ years into it, I just buy my staples over and over again.

All that said, let’s see if I can shine a light on what you should look for on different labels and what ingredients to avoid completely.

First things first, if you can get a “certified gluten-free” product, 100% do that. That guarantees it has been cleared to be 100% gluten free and you’ll be safe to eat as much of it as you want.

In my experience, just seeing “gluten-free” on the box is not enough for me. I’m looking at you Cheerios. Sometimes the cross-contamination with other grains is enough to bring all of your symptoms back.

Here are the hot words I most commonly see and avoid. If you see these on a label, drop that sucker and run… just kidding… put it gently back on the shelf and never worry about it again.

• Wheat
  • This one is obviously the most popular word, but SHOCKER, sometimes it is labeled as something completely different. A few examples of “wheat” buddies are:
    • wheatberries
    • spelt
    • farrow
    • graham
• Rye
• Barley
• Malt
• Brewer’s Yeast
• Triticale
• Wheat Starch
• Wheat Gluten — I just recently saw this one on a label and boy did I get a laugh out of it. Double trouble with this one.

Once you have these few words memorized, reading labels is a lot less time intensive. Here are a few tricks:

• Look at the bolded words on the ingredients list. These are usually common allergens.
• Skip down to the “may contain traces of” portion of the label. If it says any of the above words, eat at your own risk.

Last pointer here, if the label says, “made is a facility that also produces…” ask yourself if it’s worth the gamble. I know in my case, I’ll be sick from a sprinkle or a mountain of gluten so it just isn’t worth the chance of cross-contamination.