rice syrup?

[urbangirl]

I was in TX Max today and saw Easter eggs for gluten free, lactose free etc which contained rice syrup. Never heard of it ... so looked it up on google - lots of variations and think it might be like glucose syrup. The only description was rice syrup so I guess it could be any one of the syrups. Does anyone have any experience of this product?

[Hidden]

Hi Urbangirl, Rice syrup also sometimes called rice malt, is as you say basically glucose syrup as the rice starch has been converted to sugar. Rice syrup is something that we have to be careful of as they use an enzyme to convert the starch to sugar and sometimes this enzyme is from barley malt, however if it is in a product labelled as gluten free then it is pretty safe to assume that it is indeed gluten free and the enzyme used is a fungal enzyme, which is gluten free.

As you've been a member of GFG for a while now you will probably know that we have campaigned Kellogs to make/sell a gluten free cereal using rice malt/brown rice syrup instead of barley malt in the UK. And I have been told that Kellogs use rice malt in malted breakfast cereals made in their Asian factory by a coeliac living in Thailand.

So if I saw this on an Easter egg clearly marked gluten free then yup I'd eat it and I like TK Maxx so will check out their eater eggs when I'm in there next week. I may even buy my self one...

[urbangirl in reply to Hidden]

Thanks Jerry! I don't know if I would bother with this Easter Egg - tiny little thing with 6 chocolate discs for £9 flipping 99p!

[Hidden in reply to urbangirl]

Well I popped into TK Maxx and they had one gluten free diary free Easter egg and it was caramel flavoured with 3 little caramel sweets 120g total at £5.99 and it was small.

I wasn't impressed so forgot to check the ingredients LOL.

[urbangirl in reply to Hidden]

Well you know what Jerry my first thought was that the suppliers make us pay big time for gluten free/dairy free etc products. But then I wondered if the reason for the high prices was because these are not the run of the mill Easter eggs because there were others that were not gluten free but they weren't cheap either. Designer eggs perhaps? Either way, too expensive for my liking.

[freego]

Jerry is spot on with his description of rice syrup - although some are better then others. Some are effectively 100% glucose syrup from a rice as opposed to a corn source where as some are less processed and therefore have a better micronutrient profile.

A food industry perspective...

I don't know the product in question, but consider that this egg is also Dairy Free by the sounds of it. This means it's not made in a conventional mainstream factory (at least not without a very thorough clean down) and therefore you have a fixed cost spread across a far smaller output.

Obviously all companies have to make money. But even if it does sometimes feel like it, its not all profiteering due to our 'condition'. It is were the rules of economics state that the market would be flooded with competitors until equilibrium is achieved.

All the best,

Freego

[urbangirl in reply to freego]

Hello Freego - I was so disappointed that there is no way of telling whether rice syrup is like glucose syrup as that is what does me in!

As for the price of the GF egg, like I said I think the eggs being sold were quite pricey regardless of GF ingredients. They weren't usual High Street products so I am not surprised about their costs. Before I was diagnosed I used to make my own Easter eggs and on reflection realise they were probably gluten free anyway and didn't cost much to make - so this is now my new project! Have a good day!