Saturday, December 29, 2012

Sharky's Woodfired Mexican Grill Gluten Free Menu

Sharky's now has a gluten free menu. If you ask in the restaurant, there is a one page menu to order from.  It only appeared effective December 2012, so is very recent.  I have not located a copy on the website, but if you find it online please add the link as a comment.   They must have had a GF menu training recently...The cook was aware of cross contamination issues, he even mentioned that although the chips are made from corn, they are cross contaminated in the fryer....so are not gluten free. The corn tortillas are prepared on a different griddle than the flour to prevent CC. There is even an AJ burrito bowl on the GF menu that is not on the regular menu.  I was at the Simi Valley location...if you'd like to go to the place that seemed on top of things. The other locations are also supposed to offer and be aware of the GF menu items.

Here is the link to Sharky's Gluten Free Options

It is a PDF file.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

McDonald's French Fries are not gluten free (and they even contain milk)

I have been operating under the impression that the french fries at McDonald's were gluten free because they have a separate fryer and therefore are able to avoid cross contamination.  However, I ate some fries on yesterday and didn't feel so great, so decided to do some research.  Lots of places online will mention McDonald's fries as being gluten free, but that is not the case.  Read for yourself on the McDonald's website on this link.
For those of you who believe I am capable of correctly doing a cut and paste from there, here is what it reads (as of the time of this post on Dec 5, 2012).
French Fries
Allergens: WHEAT AND MILK Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*, citric acid [preservative]), dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (maintain color), salt. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.

CONTAINS: WHEAT AND MILK.
Therefore:  
I am not going to be eating any more of the fries. I know that beef flavoring was an issue for them in India, so if I travel to India I will investigate the possibility of eating the fries there...otherwise, no more golden arches fries for this celiac.