Grains and gluten: 30 foods rated

Barley contains gluten as hordein. It reaches far more products than the grain itself does - malt, malt extract, malt vinegar and most beers are all barley, and none of them says barley on the front. It is one of the three cereals the coeliac associations prohibit outright, with wheat and rye. Two consequences are worth knowing: a beer may be labelled gluten free only at 20 ppm or less, while a GLUTEN REMOVED beer brewed from barley must still state that it contains barley — and oats, which are not on that list, are prohibited in the legislation anyway, though AFDIAG records that uncontaminated oats would be edible by almost all coeliacs.

• AFDIAG, les trois céréales interdites et le cas de l'avoine
• Coeliac UK, gluten-free diet guidance
• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, the fourteen allergens requiring declaration

Bulgur is durum wheat that has been parboiled, dried and cracked - three operations, none of which touches the gluten. It is often mistaken for a seed like quinoa because of how it is cooked and served, and that confusion is the only reason it needs saying.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, which names wheat including spelt and khorasan
• Brouns F et al., J Cereal Sci 58 (2013)

Couscous is not a grain: it is pasta, rolled from durum semolina and steamed. That is worth knowing because it sits in the grain aisle beside rice and quinoa, and because the gluten-free versions made from maize or rice look identical in the packet.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, which names wheat including spelt and khorasan
• Brouns F et al., J Cereal Sci 58 (2013)

Durum is the wheat chosen precisely FOR its gluten: the protein network is what holds a strand of spaghetti together in boiling water. A pasta that cooks without falling apart is a pasta with strong gluten, which makes durum the last wheat anyone would breed the gluten out of.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, which names wheat including spelt and khorasan
• Brouns F et al., J Cereal Sci 58 (2013)

Khorasan - sold as kamut - is a wheat, and Regulation 1169/2011 names it explicitly alongside spelt for that reason. It is marketed as an ancient grain that is easier to digest, and measurement does not support a meaningful difference in gluten. For coeliac disease it is wheat.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, which names wheat including spelt and khorasan
• Brouns F et al., J Cereal Sci 58 (2013)

Rye contains gluten, and its secalin behaves like wheat gliadin in coeliac disease. Rye bread is often assumed to be a wheat alternative; on this axis it is not one.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, the fourteen allergens requiring declaration

Rye contains gluten - as secalin rather than as the gliadin of wheat, but gluten by every definition that matters here. Annex II of the food information regulation names 'wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut' as the cereals containing gluten, so this is a legal fact and not an estimate, and a rye loaf must declare it. Some rye breads are largely wheat flour with rye for colour and flavour; that changes the taste and nothing about this level.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, the cereals containing gluten

Spelt is wheat. It is an older species of the same genus, and Annex II of the food information regulation names it in as many words - 'wheat, such as spelt' - among the cereals containing gluten. That it is low in FODMAPs is measured and true, and it is a separate question from gluten: a food can be gentle on one axis and disqualifying on another, and spelt bread is the clearest example of it.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, the cereals containing gluten

Vermicelli is the one that catches people out, because the name covers two different foods: rice vermicelli is gluten-free, wheat vermicelli is not. The shape tells you nothing - only the ingredient list does.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, the fourteen allergens requiring declaration

Wheat is the cereal the whole gluten question is about. Gluten is the protein network that forms when wheat flour meets water - it is not an additive or a contaminant but the thing that makes bread hold together. Which wheats, exactly, is a question the coeliac associations answer rather than leave to the reader: AFDIAG lists every Triticum species — froment, durum, einkorn, spelt, Kamut — with barley and rye, and the hybrids such as triticale, as the prohibited cereals. Spelt and Kamut being wheat is the part most often missed at a bakery counter.

• AFDIAG, les trois céréales interdites et le cas de l'avoine
• Coeliac UK, gluten-free diet guidance
• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, the fourteen allergens requiring declaration

Wheat bran is the outer layer of the grain, sold for its fibre - and the fibre is exactly why it gets added to foods that are otherwise nothing to do with wheat: breakfast cereals, biscuits, supplements. The gluten comes with it whatever the reason it is there.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, which names wheat including spelt and khorasan
• Brouns F et al., J Cereal Sci 58 (2013)

Wheat gluten is the protein itself, washed out of the flour and dried - the most concentrated form there is. Sold as seitan and used to strengthen industrial bread, it appears on labels as "wheat protein" as often as by name.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, the fourteen allergens requiring declaration

Oats are the base of a muesli and the law counts oats as a gluten cereal; whether a given packet is certified gluten-free is the only way to tell.

• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, the fourteen substances a label must name

Oats sit in two frames at once, and both are true. Biochemically they carry AVENIN, a prolamin related to but different from the gluten of wheat, and most people with coeliac disease tolerate it. Legally they are gluten: Annex II lists 'wheat, rye, barley, OATS, spelt, kamut' among the cereals containing gluten, and the gluten-free regulation defines gluten as a protein fraction from those same four grains. That is why an oat can only be called gluten-free when it has been specially produced and tested below 20 mg/kg. They are flagged because they are grown in rotation with wheat and milled on the same equipment, so ordinary oats routinely test above the threshold. Certified gluten-free oats are grown and milled apart and do not. Certification answers contamination and not everything else: both associations say uncontaminated oats suit MOST coeliacs rather than all, because a minority react to the avenin itself.

• AFDIAG (France) — les trois céréales interdites (blé, orge, seigle et leurs hybrides) et l'avoine non contaminée « consommable par presque tous les cœliaques »
• Coeliac UK — “Oats can be eaten by most people with coeliac disease but only if they're marked as ‘gluten free’”
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 828/2014, which sets the conditions for oats in gluten-free food
• Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II, the substances requiring declaration and their named exemptions
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 828/2014, Article 2 and the Annex — the definition of gluten and the two thresholds

Oat fibre is the hull rather than the groat - the outer husk, milled for its insoluble fibre - and the hull is the part most exposed to whatever else was in the field and the store. It is added in small percentages to bread and bars, including gluten-free ones. Certification answers contamination and not everything else: both associations say uncontaminated oats suit MOST coeliacs rather than all, because a minority react to the avenin itself.

• AFDIAG (France) — les trois céréales interdites (blé, orge, seigle et leurs hybrides) et l'avoine non contaminée « consommable par presque tous les cœliaques »
• Coeliac UK — “Oats can be eaten by most people with coeliac disease but only if they're marked as ‘gluten free’”
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 828/2014, which sets the conditions for oats in gluten-free food

Rolled oats are steamed and flattened, which changes the texture and nothing about the contamination - the wheat that got in did so in the field and the mill, before the rolling. Certified rolled oats exist and are the only version a coeliac diet accepts. Certification answers contamination and not everything else: both associations say uncontaminated oats suit MOST coeliacs rather than all, because a minority react to the avenin itself.

• AFDIAG (France) — les trois céréales interdites (blé, orge, seigle et leurs hybrides) et l'avoine non contaminée « consommable par presque tous les cœliaques »
• Coeliac UK — “Oats can be eaten by most people with coeliac disease but only if they're marked as ‘gluten free’”
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 828/2014, which sets the conditions for oats in gluten-free food