Just a quick question is anybody affected by eating chocolate of any kind.?

[dinger]

I Have suffered acute abdominal cramps for the last two evenings. As I am very careful what I eat, the only other thing it could have been is chocolate which I have eaten without any effect. Any ideas anyone.

[meanioni]

Hard to say as it depends on the factory the chocolate is made in - sometimes there is cross-contamination. Chocolate normally is gluten free.

Alternatively, it could be you are having a reaction to something else in the chocolate, like milk.

[Hidden]

I thought glucose syrup was so highly refined that gluten was not a problem. It might be an Australian spin though.

[Hidden]

Hi Roscoe, glucose syrup is highly refined but it also contains traces of gluten. In Australia you have 5 ppm of gluten or less as gf. This is 5mg per 1Kg of food so by the concentrations of glucose it is usually well below 5ppm. The Coeliac society of Autralia have a comprehensive list of wheat derivatives and recomend that if coeliac still suffer from sensitivity then they try eliminating these foods.

Here's a link about sugars derived from wheat:

efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajourn...

As for spin, around 2004 or 2005 the Australian coeliac society had tee shirts printed saying wheat deriv's are gf. The problem is if a coeliac wants to eliminate all gluten then they pretty much have to avoid all processed foods. The one I would be wary of if I were you is dextrose used to coat French fries as these can have over 5ppm gluten content. So if you have some French fries and they disagree with you this is why.

In the Eu and Scandanavia we have many products made from codex wheat and this is available on prescription so if this is classed as gf then anything below this level of gluten is also classed as gf. This allowed or ''safe'' level of gluten is coming down to 20ppm (20mg per 1Kg) form the begining of 2012. So

I personally avoid all gluten including codex wheat, wheat deriv's traces of barley malt and oats. But this is my choice and is much more restrictive than a ''normal'' gf diet. I'm an idealist and I do not make the rules and being a cynic I don't think that there is a safe level of a toxin, full stop.

I also understand how difficult it is to define something that is undetectable like gluten in glucose syrup in some foods for obvious reasons. So at the end of the day it's down to ''us'' the coeliac consumer of being as aware as possible of what we are really eating and making ''our'' choices based on this awareness.

I hope this helps,

Jerry

[Hidden]

Back to chocolates, I would be careful where you buy chcocolates because manufacturers have different recipes in different countries and some shops sell chocolates from non official suppliers.

I would be very wary of chcolates bought from markets as counterfiet chocolates are big business. And you can't trust what the labels says with fakes.

telegraph.co.uk/news/newsto...

This is a link about 9 tons of Ferrero Rocher for sale at a wholesale market in France. There are also horrific stories on the interent about some fake choc's made in China!

It could also be the lactose or the artificial sweeteners that are upsetting you. HFCS (high fructose cron syrup) is used in many choc's and can trigger IBS. And it could also be cross contamination as stated by others.

Jerry

[Fifitricks]

OMG is the first thing that I will say, on Wednesday I had lower tummy cramps yesterday whilst shopping at Morrison's I had to abandon my shopping and run to the loo!!! With out going in to detail it was really bad, I was very upset by this because I have been really careful about what I have been eating on the way home my daughter and I were going over what I had been eating and the only 2 things I could come up with was CHOCOLATE and orange juice. I do not normally eat chocolate but because we got so much for Christmas I been sat reading my Kindle and stuffing my face. Needless to say I shall not be eating any more.

ps Quality Street and Rose's.

[Fifitricks in reply to Fifitricks]

Pps also a lot of cheese, does any one know if Stilton has gluten in it please. xx

[Hidden in reply to Fifitricks]

Hi Fiftitricks, Blue stilton is made from a mould grown on wheat so contains traces of gluten.

Orange juice contains fructose so this could also be the problem.

Jerry

[judithr in reply to Fifitricks]

Quality Street & Rose's I find are quite safe whereas Heroes are not. However, I do read all the ingredients on chocolate as LIndt are not gf nor some of Cadbury's & of course if you are given a delicious box of chocolates beware, quite a few of them could have gluten. I just wish I din't like chocolate then I might be able to lose some weight!

[Fifitricks]

Cheers Tony I will do that because myself and my two girls love mushrooms in cream and Stilton over our steaks lol. Have a gluten free New Year :O) xxx

[jpluke]

I have had same reactions to chocolate, cheese and gluten free Latte I was beginning to wonder if it was the lactose I was reacting to......I have found that Aldi do a lot of products Gluten free and their chocolate is lovely and I have no reaction to this ... Have a great New Year xx

[sassyl]

Quality Street is gluten free, but Roses are made on a factory line that uses wheat. Plus, I agree with the cheese/ mould suggestion. Pretty much had the same reaction to a piece of Wensledale with Cranberries last Christmas.

Most coeliacs are not affected by the glucose syrup in the Quality Streets, I know I've stuffed enough of them with no reaction!

[dinger]

Thank you all very much for your input. I think it maybe that the culprit is cadburys chocolate. I know some of the bars are made on production line that could have been used for gluten based products. But saying that I had no cadburys last night only quality street and had the same reaction so no more chocolate at all for me. The cramps leave me feeling terrible. So thank you all I have learnt a lot from you.

[Kickiel]

I am gluten and dairy free, but unfortunately chocolate gives me migraine...

[suecee]

Chocolate does afect me because i am also dairy intolerant. i went to my sons for dinner on boxing day and had turkey etc, only after i had eaten it did i find out it was a butter baste turkey, what followed at 3am were syptoms of food poisoning, cramps sickness hot and cold etc. not going out to eat again!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ladyshelly]

good info sharing about chocs & cheese guys....i really do love it when i see people helping each other out....anyway onto the orange juice....first i would want to know if its genuine & not some from concentrate or fake cloudy as both these could contain gluten ....then i would be considering whether it was a trigger as citris is up in the top 3 intolerance groups with gluten & dairy....then the poss of having anotther issue such as colitis ( which joy of joy i have too) or ibs etc....then theres the double whammy of maybe it was the chocs & juice & lets not forget the regular every day gut grumbles & bugs which we can all get....happy investigating & happy new year !!!!

[meanioni]

Biggest issue with chocolate I think is likely to be cross-contamination, especially with chocolates (rather than bars of choc) as it is not unusual for a factory to make several different types/styles/flavours of chocolate on one production line. So if the machinery is not cleaned, there is a good chance of cross contamination. Also airborne nasties can be a problem.

For the dairy intolerant among us, worth also checking the provenance of the chocolate. I had an interesting discussion with a small chocolate shop who made all their own chocolates - however the manager informed me that whilst they could guarantee to be gluten and dairy free with their production, they bought in their choc from larger factories, who in many cases could not guarantee that the choc was free from contamination by milk or gluten for the same cross-contamination issues. For this reason they did not offer gluten/milk free chocolates.

A word or two on milk issues. Many people think milk problems = lactose and indeed there are a lot of people who only have issues with lactose (a sugar found in milk) - not uncommon in coeliacs as the areas of the gut that produce lactase (an enzyme that aids the digestion of lactose) are usually damaged first by a gluten reaction.

However, as I discovered, there is a second range of milk components that can cause issues: milk proteins. After trying lactose-free milk products and using lactase (you can buy this to replace the missing enzyme amzn.to/uHjIgD) I was still getting issues and discovered that milk proteins were the cause. Meaning, annoyingly that I have to avoid milk products altogether.

The annoyance is not so much because I like milk (as funnily enough from being a kid I never liked milk) but more because milk is in so many processed foods that it is a real b*gger to avoid. Worse for me than gluten.

There is an excellent product called Prolactazyme Forte amzn.to/uFwTzl

This tackles both lactose and milk proteins and I use it if unsure when eating out or in the event that I discover I have inadvertently consumed food containing milk.