FDA Forces Recall of Spelt Bread Labelled as "Wheat Alternative"

[the sensible celiac]

Food for Life has announced a recall of their Spelt bread product because it contains Spelt (duh) which is a variety of wheat.

Persons with celiac disease absolutely, positively must avoid Spelt.  I have on more than one occasion heard a person with celiac disease repeat their mistaken belief that spelt was gluten free. It is not.

In this case it seemed the FDA felt that claiming spelt was a wheat alternative was somewhat false, since the FDA found the Food for Life product contained "undeclared wheat".

In all fairness to the people at Food for Life, I've never known them to claim that celiacs could eat spelt, and they do make a number of bread products that are in fact gluten free.

Still, I'll be glad to see spelt products labelled as containing wheat, because for the purposes of people on restricted diets they do.

(story)

[NikaStar]

Last week, I was at a grocery store that had a shelf of gluten-free snacks, including some plain-jane tortilla chips and rice crackers. However, I was disappointed to see that they also had a variety of spelt-based snacks among the corn and rice options. This is really just an anecdote, I guess, but illustrates the problem.