Shopping Tips for the Gluten and Maize-free (GF-MF) Diet

If you have found this page through a search engine then you have probably already learned that you are allergic to both wheat and maize. You have undoubtedly been suffering with some type of extreme allergic reaction, chronic illness, or auto-immune disorder for months, if not years. It is quite a shock when you discover that you or a loved one has an intolerance to both wheat gluten and maize, as these two ingredients are a staple in the modern American diet.

As a multiple allergy sufferer this poses quite a challenge for you when it comes to ingredient purchases and meal preparation.

I have devoted a special section of this website for people allergic to both wheat and corn, hoping to spawn a community of readers that will interact together with tips and recipes to share.

When I first began converting my kitchen I searched countless websites and found many focused on celiac’s disease, corn allergies, or combined celiac and milk intolerance, but I could not find a site that focused specifically on avoiding wheat and corn. I recently joined a forum for celiacs and met some great people with good advice for newbies. Some of the members I met in the forum are also either allergic to corn or very intolerant of it and they had some really good advice to share. It is difficult to stick to a gluten-free diet, but for those who also have to avoid corn as well, eating can become a real problem.

Recommended Reading: Check out our Healthy Gluten and Corn Free Recipes… and GF-MF Safe Products List

• For a listing of ingredients that contain corn you must visit: www.cornallergens.com
• For a listing of ingredients that contain wheat visit: Ataxia Alternatives
• Here is a great general site about gluten intolerance: gflinks.com

Condiment and Extract tips:

People with corn allergies have to be careful of extracts. Suzanne offers us some great tips:

“First, you need to be sure you are using a pure extract and not a sweetened one. Second, extracts are made from alcohol derived from corn. My allergist said they would not provoke an allergic reaction but many people who are corn free are not convinced. An alternative is to make vanilla sugar by putting a vanilla bean in granulated sugar. You could just leave the extracts out of the cookies if you want to be sure.”

Basic Shopping tips:

Suzanne says: “I have found that generic brands often seem to have the least added ingredients. For example, Rosarita refried beans have cooked beans, water, less than 2% of: canola oil, salt, distilled vinegar, chili pepper, onion power, spices, garlic power, and the dreaded “natural flavor”. Safeway brand fat-free refried beans have pinto beans, water and salt. For the chili I buy generic canned tomatoes which have no extra ingredients. I am a highly reactive celiac and all these recipes are ones I make frequently.”

*Suzanne was tested for corn allergy because she suffered from chronic hives and angioedema. She now avoids corn as much as possible even though her allergy test came out negative. Suzanne says:

“Corn permeates the food system as much if not more than wheat. I recommend the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma for a real eye-opener on the role that corn plays in our food chain.”

Curt says we have to be careful about brands and even products since they do change the mix and unless you read the label every time (you could inadvertently buy a product with gluten or corn in it.) Curt buys his powdered sugar from Wholesome Sweeteners and he says it is from organic cane (wholesomesweeteners.com).

Here is another source for maize-free confectioner’s sugar from Kristine: allergygrocery.com
Curt also says that San-J makes a wheat-free soy sauce.

Curt also says a food co-op it will often be better than a grocery store, even on that specializes in organic foods. He offers the following links:

• coopdirectory.org/directory.htm
• nationalco-opdirectory.com

Connie says that the Food Allergy Kitchen can be a great resource when you are getting started: Cooking and Baking Substitutions for Corn, Grain Allergy Info, and info about how to handle Holidays.

Here’s a great resource for finding Gluten-Free companies and their certified products (Gluten-Free Certification Organization (list of 20 companies and their products): gfco.org/products.php

*remember to always check the ingredients on gluten-free products to make sure they are also maize-free.

Check out our list of favorite healthy commercial snack products too.

Tags: Allergic, Allergic Reaction, Allergy, Autoimmune Disorder, Celiac, Chronic Illness, Corn, Corn-free, Diet, Gluten, Gluten-free, Intolerance, Recipe, Shopping Tips, Wheat, Wheat-free

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Meet the Author

Caryn Talty

The editor of Healthy-family.org has a master's degree in English from Northern Illinois University and a bachelor of science degree in special education. She has taught students from early elementary school through college freshman level. Today she enjoys reading and writing about both hot topics and those not so commonly discussed on other websites. Most of her days are spent playing all kinds of make-believe with her three very young and active sons. | All articles by Caryn Talty.

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