Blog: Are Mirang Oats Gluten Free?

Oatmeal is hard to find in Korea. Koreans have their own hot cereal. It's a rice mush called jook (죽). So when I saw oatmeal at Costco, I thought it would be perfect for my new gluten free diet. Oats, after all, don't contain the same kind of gluten as wheat, but then Mayo Clinic had to spoil everything.

"Certain grains, such as oats, can be contaminated with wheat during growing and processing stages of production. For this reason, doctors and dietitians generally recommend avoiding oats unless they are specifically labeled gluten-free." - Mayo Clinic, 2011

Well, that's terrific. Time to read the whole box looking for "gluten-free."

Many items at Korean Costoco stores are American brands. These oats, though, are not. They were made by Mirang (미이랑), a Korean company. So the box is completely covered with Korean except for the product title, "Oatmeal." It took me seven and a half minutes to scan the box top to bottom and back to front looking for "글루텐 프리" or something similar, but there wasn't a sign of it.

Clearly this doesn't mean these oats are gluten free. Yet one heartening fact is that the oats were grown in Korea. By and far, Korea grows considerably more rice than wheat. A report by the International Grain Council showed Korea's 2011-12 rice production at 4.3 million tones. In comparison, the country produced a mere 51,000 tones of wheat the same year. While the government is pushing to achieve the production goal of 200,000 tones of wheat by 2015, this is still small in comparison to the amount of rice produced. As a result, I'm not terribly worried about it being cross contaminated with wheat gluten.
Moreover, I have yet to be convinced that gluten free labels are commonly used in Korea. Since Koreans generally do not have gluten related health issues, there is no gluten free market among mainstream Koreans. Thus, if the oats are truly gluten free the company has no incentive to label it.

Unfortunately, a lack of conclusive information doesn't make these oats any more positively gluten free. For all I know there could be a central grain processing super-conglomerate that processes all kinds of grain on the same machinery, polluting everything with wheat gluten. So if I genuinely had a problem with gluten and it excluded avenin, an oat protein that a small percentage of celiac patients are sensitive to, I should contact Mirang to be certain their oats are gluten free. If I was as lazy I could just eat them and then check how my stomach feels, but I can't do that. My tummy likes gluten. And depending on how badly my system would react if I did have a problem, that second alternative might not be feasible.

Time to call Mirang! ...as soon as I can get a translator.

But in the meantime, I'm still going to eat those oats.

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Blog: Is Ssallo Byeol Gluten Free?

I don't often eat snack foods, but when I do I eat original flavor Ssallo Byeol (쌀로별 오리지날). Unlike other Korean snacks it can't moonlight as a sugary breakfast cereal. It has the caramelized salty-sweetness of soy sauce instead. It also it doesn't crash my energy level like the other snacks do — a key trait for a snack if you're a teacher.

Anyhow, I always assumed it was only made with rice, because ssal (쌀) means rice. So I got really excited when I saw it at MiniStop, a Korean convenience store chain, last week. It was the first day of the year that was warm enough to sit outside and write in the park, so I was preparing a small picnic for myself. Naturally, excited by the prospect of a gluten free snack, I bought the lumpy, tan rice balls.

Later on I was sitting on the floor of a Korean style gazebo — the kind traditionally used by scholars and poets to muse and compose. With my iPad in my lap, a bottle of ice tea at hand, and a pile of empty string-cheese wrappers nearby, I contemplated just how gluten-free Ssallo Byeol really was.

It took me approximately 15 minutes more or less to translate the ingredients. To cut down on time one can look for mil (밀), the Korean word for wheat. This is what my friend Lauren Andrews does. She is one of the few people I know who lives in Korea with celiac disease. However, I wanted to be as complete in my translation as I could just to be sure. This is what I found:

Imported rice with a list of related ingredients and import information I could not completely translate. I also found white sugar and starch syrup. I wondered what the source of the starch was, but as I read on I found out it didn't matter. Next up on the list was tapioca starch and a mix of soy sauces. And in that mix was — wheat (dundundun!). Next on the list was brewed soy sauce, tomato juice, pea protein, red pepper paste, wheat starch (more dundundun!), some special salt I can't completely translate, and onion powder. Lastly came the usuall and not at all bizarre allergy warning that it was manufactured in a facility that processes milk, peanuts, and shrimp. Korean snacks are processed with shrimp?! Yes. In fact, there are a lot of shrimp flavored snacks in Korea. Shellfish alergenated people beware.

I can eat shrimp. But I can't eat wheat, so goodbye crispy rice balls that betray your gluten free origins.

 

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