Who would have thought that had wheat in it?

Who would have thought?  More on hidden ingredients …

So yesterday my husband and I were thinking about dinner and what we were going to make.  I said, “Let’s make enchiladas with that chicken we cooked up last night.  And can we use the green enchilada sauce like we did last time instead of using the red enchilada sauce?”  He agreed and off to the store to get my gluten free brown rice tortillas and some green enchilada sauce.  I couldn’t remember the brand I had purchased the last time so we picked up some other brand.

Once we got home, my husband (the ones who cooks most of the dinners around here) starting prepping for the construction of the enchiladas.  He started with mine (because he decided to prepare his with corn tortillas and I can’t eat corn either!)  So the assembly line starts – he puts a little brown fry on the brown rice tortillas, spreads some enchilada sauce on them, puts in the chicken, cheese, cilantro and rolls them up.  He is making a couple extra for me so that I can have an enchilada for lunch a couple of days at work – so sweet.  I place each of the extra enchiladas in their own freezer bag, label each as g-f enchiladas along with the calorie count (400 each) and place them in the freezer.

I don’t know why I did what I did next but I picked up the can of green enchilada sauce and checked the ingredients.  OMG!  It had MSG in it!  I know, you’re saying to yourself, “That’s not an issue – it doesn’t contain gluten!”  And you’re right but I try to stay away from MSG anyway.  Then I looked further down the label and it said “Contains soy and wheat.”  Who would have thought that a green chile sauce would contain wheat?!?  Now we can panic – although not too much because I haven’t eaten any yet – phew!  But I still felt kind of bad – in the sense that my husband has just prepared all of these enchiladas and I can’t eat any of them.  Well, I said to him, “Now you have some lunches already prepared!”  And I pull the enchiladas out of the freezer, scribble out the “g-f” that I had written on the bags, and replace them in the freezer.  Oh, and the offensive enchilada sauce?  It was Las Palmas Green Chile Enchilada Sauce.  And what, you may ask was the offensive ingredient??  It was “Modified Food Starch.”  From the research I’ve done on celiac.com and a few other searches usually modified food starch is OK for gluten intolerance because it is usually made from corn and most of the product made in the U.S. is made from corn unless it states on the can that it contains wheat – like this can does.

Well, I still wanted green chili enchilada sauce so off to Whole Foods Market for some more chicken, cheese, and green Chile enchilada sauce.  We looked at a different brand, Hatch, and it contained wheat also.  Then we spotted the Rick Bayless green Chile sauce in a pouch on the very top shelf.  Ahhh, no wheat – and what also was nice to see was a short list of ingredients.  We bought it.

Fast forward to eating – wow, this tastes great!  I’m so glad I read that label!  It really does pay to scrutinize those labels.  But now I’m nervous about eating at friends houses again.  But that’s another blog for another day.