Links: GF Safe Lists

'GF-Safe' Food Lists Ease Shopping,
But Vary by Price, Usefulness

Gone are the days when you had to compile a list of gluten-free food products by hand.

Today, you can obtain such a list from several sources, all listed below. Not all of them are complete, but they are starting points. Consider buying more than one of them.

Be careful about other GF lists you might find on the web. Some are very out of date, and may be unreliable.

  • Clan Thompson Celiac SmartLists

    Clan Thompson, a Maine family with four people with celiac disease, sells electronic databases of foods and of drugs.

    The company says its databases contain verified gluten information on approximately 6,389 food items and about 2,126 pharmaceutical items.

    The food database can be searched by manufacturer, brand name, food category, or word search. A nifty tool allows you to build and print a shopping list.

    The software is available for PC or Mac computers, handheld PCs and Palm devices. Pricing options range from about $20 to $120.

  • CSA Gluten-Free Product Listing

    This guide from the Celia Sprue Association contains nearly 450 pages of information about a wide variety of GF products, including both national and store brands.

    Now in its 12th edition, the guide includes phone numbers to contact many food and drug makers, a listing of GF food makers, celiac-friendly business listings by state, a glossary of terms, and more.

    The guide, which costs $30, is available in either printed format (in a loose-leaf binder) or electronically (on CD).

  • Delphi Forums Gluten-Free Product List

    The Celiac Disease On-Line Support Group at Delphi Forums maintains a list of GF foods that originated in 1998 and was recompiled from scratch at the beginning of 2006.

    The list, which runs nearly 40 pages, is organized by product category and is nicely formatted. It's available as a PDF or Microsoft Word document.

    Best of all, the list is free. And if the list doesn't contain a product you're wondering about, you can "give back" to the volunteer effort by researching the product yourself and sharing the results with the Delphi group.

  • Essential Gluten-Free Grocery Guide

    This is a book published by Triumph Dining, a small company in Arlington, Virginia, that also publishes a restaurant guide and dining-out cards.

    The Grocery Guide covers more than 20,000 brands, and is organized and color-coded by grocery-store aisle. The book also has a spiral binding so "you can prop it open in your grocery cart."

    The price is $19.95.

  • Gluten Guard / On Guard Solutions, LLC

    On Guard Solutions says its database contains "detailed information on 100,000 products," and is updated "about twice a year."

    It can be searched by brand name, product category, or description. You can personalize the database by adding notes or comments to any product.

    A test-run of its on-line demo was not impressive. The demo had software bugs. The result listings were so copious as to be unhelpful. And the program was unable to identify three well-known GF brands.

    Gluten Guard comes in an on-line version viewable via the web ($39 for six months; $79 for a year), as well as versions for Windows computers,pocket PCs and Palm devices. The latter versions cost $79.

  • Gluten-Free Grocery Shopping Guide

    A Michigan couple, Dr. Mara Matison and her husband, Dainis Matison, compiled this guide after Dr. Matison, a dentist, was diagnosed with celiac disease.

    It's a handy little book, small enough to fit into a medium-size purse, its 354 pages notwithstanding.T

    The guide lists over 20,000 GF products, organizing them first by category, and then by brand. So, for example, look up "soup," and you find 37 major brands; listed under each brand are that company's GF soups.

    At the back of the book is a brief guide to over-the-counter pharmaceutical products.

    The guide sells for $24.95 at CeceliasMarketplace.com, the Matisons' online store.