Aldi’s Gluten Free Offerings (Easter 2011)

Cost-Competitive Gluten Free Solutions

For those of us living on the Eastern Side ‘down under’, Aldi stores have become abundant in major centres. From Brisbane to Sydney to Canberra and Melbourne; this German ‘budget’ supermarket chain continues to make it’s way across the continent, changing the ways in which many Australians shop.

At such places, one would almost be led to believe that ‘gluten-free’ and ‘allergen-free’ foods simply could not compete in terms of quality or price and therefore would not qualify as stock.

Fortunately, Aldi has clearly proved us wrong; and on more than one occasion too!

This Thursday (21st April), Aldi will be releasing a range of gluten free products under the ‘has no…’ brand. These will include items which were available in May last year: flours; mixes for bread, gravy, pancakes and all purpose crumbs; along with some new additions including pastas, and more. Many products from this range are also wheat, dairy, egg, soy, tapioca, xanthan gum and cane sugar free too!

To my knowledge, the flours in particular (plain and self raising) received a very positive response from coeliac consumers.

Demand could be high, so I suggest you get in there quick and support their range of gluten free foods! check out their special buys so you can get what you need the most!

I plan to do some reviews on some of their products soon…

A plea to the chocolate industry

Most of us love treating ourselves to the occasional chocolate treat, or munching on the tempting chocolate easter eggs and bunnies that haunt us soy-allergic folk as the secular time of year approaches us.  Although we can often get our delicious cocoa-flavoured treats in other forms (i.e. Chocolate Flavoured Ice Creams, Chocolate Syrups, Hard Tops, etc.), nothing beats the taste of a traditional chocolate bar.

And things certainly don’t get any easier as the Easter season approaches.  Therefore it is with great dismay that I report the ongoing ‘fad’ ingredient used within the food industry which renders so many of our favourite foods off the soy free menu – soy lecithin.  We can tolerate such ingredients in *some* foods, like a few supplements, ice cream cones and oil sprays – but chocolate? Come on. Give us a break.

As with each year, I have (once again) encountered this ingredient in virtually all manner of Easter chocolates on the market; white, milk, dark and even most 85% origin-specific treats.  I can only conclude that its use in chocolate is for nothing more than simply ‘thinning out’ I highly doubt these bars could possibly retain their quality with the presence of this ingredient made from the left-over sludge that is extracted from cheap, possibly unhealthy soy bean oils. It also appears that many of these chocolatiers will not voluntarily expose the presence of soy lecithin in their products and whenever you care to tour the typical chocolate factory, you will rarely see or hear any information about soy’s role in chocolate. Most authentic and respected (albeit expensive and international) brands like Amedei and Theo keep all emulsifiers out of their factories thus making their treats suitable for us soy-allergic folk.  Shame no one seems to be willing to carry quality chocolate over here in the land ‘Down Under’! Perhaps our Australian market readily accepts second-best in everything and many just don’t take these factors into consideration, unlike other western countries.

But it also leaves us soy-avoiders in doom over what should be such a joyful season. Don’t the makers of these delights want to spread the joy to others too? If we have to avoid all chocolate all because of one ‘common’ emulsifier that is added in tiny amounts to everything, I must say ‘what a shame’. Shame on the chocolate industry for that matter, particularly when a number of them now make fine dairy-, nut- and sugar-free chocolates; yet so few even bother to address a basic ingredient that could easily be removed, or even replaced with more functional emulsifiers that now exist such as ammonium phosphatides or other forms of lecithin that for once actually don’t come from this pervasive food substance that so many of us are now needing to avoid (if they even need to be used, that is)!

So please, chocolatiers, take pity on the soy allergic and intolerant and stop emulsifying everything in your range with lecithin from such a dangerous, common allergen that’s now virutally in *everything*!