Is Cheese Gluten-Free: An Introspection

In general, cheese can be categorized into a gluten-free product if no impurities are added here. Here the no-impurity added cheese is referring to full-fat cheese. So, full-fat cheese with no added flavours or excess ingredients to make it tastier is always gluten-free. Before starting a discussion about gluten-free cheese, let us enlighten on gluten and its nature.

What is Gluten?

Gluten is a type of grain protein. It is generally found in cereals like wheat, barley, and rye. Since gluten is solely found in grain crops, it is not present in dairy products with cent per cent purity. That is why, in natural cheeses, gluten remains absent. Generally, gluten is added to cheese and cheese products to add flavours or impurities while being manufactured. Sometimes the manufacturers modify cheese, removing fat or salt, using gluten. Also, keeping market demand in mind, textures of cheeses are changed sometimes with gluten. Gluten-free cheese is always highly recommended by doctors. It is responsible for brain fog, fatigue, skin rashes, inflammation in the digestive tract, immune system dysfunction in people with celiac disease, or non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

How would you identify Cheese containing Gluten?

In general, cheese is gluten-free if it is purely made from dairy ingredients. Processed cheese and flavoured ones contain a certain amount of gluten, which may cause harm to your health. The cheese and cheese products claiming to be salt-free or fat-free are added with glutens while processing at the factories. You will find wheat starch or modified food starch added to it in these types of cheese products. The gluten content comes from there. Among the ingredients of cottage cheese, queso, and ricotta cheese, malt vinegar is used sometimes. Malt vinegar contains a fair amount of gluten. So, before buying, you must check whether it includes malt vinegar or not. Apart from those all, you should check twice before buying whether the cheese or cheese product contains powdered cellulose, vegetable gum, maltodextrin, artificial colour, artificial flavour, natural flavour, natural colour, thickeners, fillers, emulsifiers, spice mix, etc.

Difficulty of storage

Gluten-free cheese and cheese products are undoubtedly very efficient for good health. But it isn’t easy to store them. Gluten-free cheese gets contaminated very quickly due to its high-fat content without any added preservatives. That is why less than 20 parts per million gluten are allowed in gluten-free cheese available in the market. This amount of gluten does not harm even highly gluten-sensitive people also.

Natural cheese without any added impurity is always gluten-free. So, to keep yourself healthy, keep yourself away from cheese containing gluten, even if you are not a gluten-sensitive person.

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