Glutard Problems: I'm Back On Beer, No Biggie. But Do I Take The Soy Sauce Plunge?
Welcome back to "Jess Toes The Line So You Don't Have To!" I've been experimenting with my moderate gluten allergy after abstaining from wheat completely for five years. I discovered last year that I can tolerate most beer — obviously not hefeweizens or other wheat beers, and I try to limit it to two per night, but that was a big development. I expect the wine and gin industries will suffer. Onto the next thing I'm ready to invite back into my diet: soy sauce, famously cited as a "hidden gluten" culprit and made with up to 80% wheat.
Soy sauce in marinades or fried rice never seemed to bug me, but its 80% wheat content made me wary of dipping sushi. I bought a pack of these cute things thinking I'd carry my own gluten-free tamari around, such was my dedication, but that ended in laptop misfortune and purse demise. Ugh, somehow I still want to buy another pack of those. So cute.
Like many beers contain 20 ppm or fewer of gluten (considered gluten-free by the World Health Organization) it turns out soy sauce falls below 20 ppm as well, and that magic number seems to be holding up. While gluten-free soy sauce and naturally gluten-free tamari are easy to find and impossible to detect by a palate other than a soy sauce brewer's, they'll also run you a few bucks more, unnecessary unless you're certified Celiac. Since I'm not, I've been dipping, drizzling and marinating everything in the best soy sauce I can find like I haven't had it in five years. No adverse effects at all.
Related: 5 More Gluten-Free Beers That Are Actually Worth Drinking
Self-monitoring can be an effective way to introduce previously forbidden foods back into your diet (with cautious optimism). Allergic to dairy? Forget the cream cheese, but see if you can get away with a sprinkling of hard aged Parmesan on your pasta. Best case scenario: Parm's back in your life. Worst case, well, you know.
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