OT - Hey Wholefoods! Trader Joe's too!

Hey Wholefoods! Yes you! I am talking to you.

Over the last most of two years that we have been in the USA, you have provided the mainstay of my gluten-free, dairy-free existence.

But recently you have REALLY dropped the ball. For example, your brand of organic, gluten free chips have been repackaged and are no longer gluten free. Your brands of various things used to state what allergens were packaged in the same factories. You no longer supply that information. You don't even say what allergens are in various of the things. You've stopped carrying a number of GF/DF munchy bars but you are carrying even more things like Odwalla bars, which are not gluten free and can be bought pretty much anywhere. I just want a nut-based bar with no fruit and I cannot buy them any longer.

I am getting mighty peeved!

Unfortunately, the gluten-free world here in the USA is crap. Certainly where I live in San Jose. As far as I can tell, there is not even a chapter of the Coeliac (celiac) society here. Yes I could go to Trader Joe's but Trader Joe's? You are crap too! You say "no gluten ingredients" which is a WHOLE LOT DIFFERENT to gluten free! Cross contaminants are not ingredients and cross contaminants can make me sick!

So I am generally peeved with everything foodwise. I am being forced into eating only healthy stuff and how am I supposed to do that when I am on the road and cannot cook meals? I can't just pop into a bakery and buy something. Here, have the green salad, we'll pick the croutons and grated cheese out for you!

Yes I can buy stuff online but you know how much it costs to ship it? Holy cow! I bought $8 of breakfast cereal online and it cost $11 to ship it! I dunno about you but I can't afford to pay four times what someone eating wheat can afford to pay for breakfast. Having a GF/DF diet is not cheap in the first place and when you have to pay for shipping on top of that....

Whilst I am on the rant, I am also very disappointed at the number of places that put "yeast extract" into their "MSG-free" food. Yeast extract and hydrolyzed (x) protein contain containfree glutamic acid.

*rant over* (I think)

Comments

  1. Don Tombs Organiser Crawley Gluten Free Group2:46 am

    Life is tough but you sometimes can do something about it, we did in the UK, our National Society is too top down, so we started a bottom up group, called The Crawley Gluten Free Group, CGFG, we meet monthly have great speakers, we now have over 70+ members, we have our own free web site, see www.glutenfree-crawley.org.uk, it has now been opened by 98 different countries, the USA opens it all the time, so set your own group up, we will happily advise you how to go about it. Don Tombs
    Founder & Organiser CGFG.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Leonie2:57 pm

    As someone who can't eat bakers and brewers yeast (bad tummy and toilet side effects) the addition of yeast extract as a flavour enhancer to everything under the sun means that while I can eat gluten I can't buy many packet foods including pasta mixes because they all have yeast extract in them. My biggest annoyance though is that most flavoured chips also use yeast extract as a flavour enhancer, so when I am at friends houses they all get confused because I'm checking packet ingredients of things that obviously don't contain yeast so they all assume they have it wrong and stop offering me cake! No way bring on the cake!!! My sister is gluten free so I have noticed the increase in products here in Oz to support Coeliac sufferers is there anyone here who can box stuff up and send it to you? Or is it no cheaper?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:06 am

    You should try Serial Cereals for an easy and consistently healthy breakfast. They deliver premium, delicious cereals and granolas to your doorstep. Oh and here is a discount code to get 5% off: comment5off You can combine it with a 12-month subscription to get 15% off your total order.

    ReplyDelete
  4. dragon knitter6:25 am

    is there a HyVee grocery store out there? i know they're good about the whole GF/DF stuff here.

    as to the rest? they're appealing to the masses, sigh. really sucky for a "niche" store.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I enjoy getting comments but if I don't have your email address, I may not be able to reply 8-\

Popular posts from this blog

Your monthly blog post

Image
LOL G'day all! Apparently I can no longer blog more than once a month. Mea slacka, I admit. So what's been happening here? I've done a lot of knitting recently.  Ahem I may have bought a fair whack of yarn too.  So much for not spending money. I've been sick as a dog this week.  Gah.  I haven't been really ill with a virus for years - last time I was this sick was six years ago.  Man that was a fun month, DH having lost his job whilst we were getting new visas in Oz for said job, having to pack up and move everything we wanted to keep from the States, sell off the car, get rid of stuff.... all with me coughing my lungs up.  And the lymph node that came up that I thought was from a chest infection actually being breast cancer...  oh joy oh bliss. I even went to urgent care (the walk in, no appointment needed doc in a box that you see when your GP is booked out) cos I felt so crappy.   He confirmed it was probably viral and threw ...
Read more

Seattle Six

Image
G'day all! 12 is a big number around here, being all to do with Seattle Seahawks and the 12th man - did you know that American football has 11 players active on the ground at any one time and the twelfth man is the spectators watching the game?  I didn't.  I know about the 12th man in cricket but not this thing that has been adopted here regarding what I usually call gridiron. But I don't want to talk about American football and I don't want to talk about 12, I want to talk about six. Yes, we have now been in Seattle for six years (and a number of days). Six years. Where has the time gone? This is our seventh winter - how have we managed?  Some people love gloom but we are solar powered.  And Seattle tends to be rather gloomy in winter.  I manage by making stuff like crazy, I wear bright colours, and I hang out online on Ravelry.  Without my rav mates, I'd be bored out of my brain.  I'd get a job but I don't have a work permit and that me...
Read more

A year and a day

Image
G'day all! This time last year, we were bemused and confused. Our grand trip across Canada had ended and we had just flown in to SJ airport. We have been in California for a year and a day (it's a leap year). 366 days in California. How has it been? All over the shop like a madwoman's you-know-what! You can read more about it on my other blog. I have now lived in three different places in my life. By that I mean I've had an address for mail and stuff, a place where I live rather than stay for a little while. Those places are Melbourne (Oz), Fort Collins (Colo) and Campbell (Calif). In their own ways, each has been special. Fort Collins will be a place I'll always remember, and possibly the memories will be better because we didn't spend a winter there ;-) In honour of this great occasion, I announce a contest! In the comments, tell me two places you have lived (one place if you have always lived there!) and a place where you would love to live (and why yo...
Read more