After they changed the Mars Bar recipe and added tonnes of barley malt, making it unsuitable for coeliacs, I naturally assumed that snickers were not suitable any more either. After all surely Snickers are just Mars with some peanuts??
Anyway someone on the GF Message Board asked if they were gluten free and I decided to find out.
I went to the snickers website. Unfortunately I can't link straight to the ingredients list because its in a flash player format. But if you click on "products" on the top of the billboard you can view ingredients. It all looks fine!
Guess what I'm off to buy tomorrow ;-)
18 comments:
The Snickers Ingredients list from http://www.snickers.com/default.htm
Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Chocolate, Lactose, Skim Milk, Milk Fat, Soy Lecithin, Artificial Flavor), Peanuts, Corn Syrup, Sugar, Skim Milk, Butter, Milk Fat, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Lactose, Salt, Egg Whites, Artificial Flavor.
I know it SAYS that, but my body keeps acting like there is gluten in there. I can't figure it out.
What did your body say about it?
Hi!
Thank you for posting this information. I (as I am sure others) appreciate the information
Nick H.
NSW, Australia
I think there's something in there that makes Coeliacs react. Every time I have one I'm ill the next day. I've tried it a few times but the same thing happens. Cadburys Creme Eggs are supposed to be GF also but I get the same bad reaction :(
could be the production line that isn't guaranteed gluten free. i plan to try them too this week - will let you know what my body says about our canadian snickers
hey! me and my bf are both coeliacs. my bf had a snickers bar the other day and he's felt very very ill, so we had a look on the net....i was reading the ingredientd and i wonder, do you reckon they could put gluteny stuff in the 'artificial flavour'? i think i will stay clear of any products that dont state gluten free tbh, and i've found before that products where the ingredients say 'flavorings' or 'other spices' or 'artificial caking agents' or the likes usually make me/bf ill so i would advise to stay away from all of those, too. you can never be too careful! :(
Another consideration, if you become ill after eating mind numbingly sweet things like Cadbury eggs is "dumping syndrome" which can be a result of damage to the nerves which control digestion, secondary to celiac. I have it rather badly. Jelly beans give me severe nausea and a blinding headache, not because of gluten, but because of the sugar moving too rapidly through my digestive track.
I have Celiac Disease and I am asymptomatic. Quite frankly I find it pretty imprecise to go by how you feel after you eat something. If you feel bad and you think you can isolate the food, don't eat it, but please don't assume that it has hidden gluten. Having said that, I called Mars, Inc. to see what the factory conditions are like for the M&Ms and the Snickers. The customer service rep told me that the M&Ms in the U.S. are made in Cleveland, Tennessee, and New Jersey, in factories that exclusively have M&Ms. I believe all M&Ms do not contain gluten, so you should be safe there (do they still make Crispy M&Ms - that could be a problem). As for the Snickers, they are produced in a factory with gluten-containing products, and even worse, on the same line as Milky Way, which contains gluten (malt). I haven't figured out why very few celiacs in the U.S. pay attention to cross contamination. Studies have shown that minute amounts---even 5 mg---of gluten a day causes damage to our small intestines. We need a better lobby so that companies take us into account!
Thanks for the info. guys, I am holding a snickers in my hand and am very glad I looked it up before eating it. I prefer to take your word for it, no time for feeling sick.
Snickers also contains milk/lactose. Often Celiacs is linked for whatever reason to lactose intolerance. That could be an additional reason to avoid Snickers and would provide an answer to why some people get sick after eating one and others don't. Just one more thing to look into. I know I thought I was having reactions to gluten in certain foods that were in fact gluten-free. It ended up being the lactose in those foods that was affecting my body.
Blargh. Now I want to kick myself for pressing 04 on impulse before conducting a thorough investigation online. I'm just soooo hungry & there's nothing else in the vending machine. Dorm life with celiac & no kitchen access is frustrating. Maybe they've changed their manufacturing procedures since 2008? I'm dreaming.
I really hope these are gluten free! My body seems to react badly as well though whenever I eat them :(
It actually IS a very good indicator to go by how you feel after eating something, if you are very sensitive & KNOW what your reaction is. I have had reactions to things I had no idea had gluten in them, until further reasearch (i.e. calling the company). My reaction is a seizure-- I only have them when I accidentally ingest gluten- so I know for sure if something is unsafe.
I want to comment on the last post. I have Celiac disesase and also believe that using the "how you feel" test after eating food is a bad indicator as to whether or not a product contained gluten. Unlike gluten allergies, which produce a reaction immediately after consuming gluten because of the histamine response, Celiacs can take many hours to react to gluten. So if a Celiac consumes gluten at breakfast, it might not make that person feel ill until later that night...or the next day. So with such a long/delayed reaction to gluten, it can be almost impossible for a Celiac to pinpoint exactly what made him/her sick.
This is why I almost never assume what I just ate is causing me to feel bad. I've had countless 100% GF meals (I know - I made them from scratch) where I felt ill afterwards. Am I supposed to assume my own meal made me sick? No...it was from something earlier. So automatically assuming that a particular food contains gluten just because I react badly after eating it is usually wrong, at least in my situation.
I had a snickers a couple months ago after I noticed the ingredients seemed to all be GF. I don't recall feeling ill at the time. I just had one again last night, and I haven't noticed any issues.
For me, although I'm not diagnosed as celiac yet (though I definitely have gluten issues), I can tell within 20 minutes to an hour or two, usually, by some (not all) of my symptoms (i.e. how I feel physiologically—i.e. stuff similar to depression, difficulty concentrating, an increase in obsessive compulsive thoughts, etc.—; it causes changes in my skin; it gives me gas; abdominal distention happens rather quickly, sometimes; a lack of satisfaction from what I eat occurs, perhaps).
However, it does require further research, as well, and/or further experimentation (if I'm willing to do it).
However, there are other things that give me similar symptoms (such as partially hydrogenated oil with the depression—and foods with lots of ingredients for the gas; so it's not always easy to pinpoint it as gluten, but I definitely can pinpoint my symptoms to certain foods at times. Some symptoms take a lot longer to show, although a lot of them probably require a regular diet with gluten to show.
I think you both have points, and that neither one of you should discount the other's words as complete foolishness.
the ingredient list for the tiny snicker bars includes 'glucose syrup made from wheat'.
kate
was just advised - some American Snickers bars are gluten free but NOT those produced in Australia.
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