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)
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)
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
ReplyDeleteFounder & Organiser CGFG.
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?
ReplyDeleteYou 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.
ReplyDeleteis there a HyVee grocery store out there? i know they're good about the whole GF/DF stuff here.
ReplyDeleteas to the rest? they're appealing to the masses, sigh. really sucky for a "niche" store.