Which Grains Contain Gluten (video)

Which Grains Contain Gluten (video)

Posted by DS, DC on Dec 24th 2021

You will often read that oats, corn, rice and other grasses are gluten free. I wish that were the case but it isn't. The two most common subfamilies of grasses are wheat, rye and barley in one subfamily and oats, corn, rice, sorghum, teff, wild rice and millet in the other subfamily.

Grasses Taxonomy

Grain Gluten Content

Both subfamilies are gluten containing grains. The wheat, rye and barley subfamily contains the type of gluten that is particularly noxious to the gluten sensitive person and all grains in that subfamily must be strictly avoided by that segment of the population. The oats, corn, rice subfamily also contain gluten but the gliadin and glutenin molecules are a little different but not necessarily safe for the gluten sensitive person. Some people who react to wheat, rye and barley gluten can tolerate some of the grains in this subfamily. The most well tolerated of these grains in our experience is brown rice and sorghum. Our advice to you will depend on your level of chronic disease. If you are having lots of food sensitivities and some obvious autoimmune problems you will probably need to be off the grains in both subfamilies to get well. You will have to experiment to know for certain but I want you to be aware that just because Wikipedia, celiac.com or some other source says that oats, corn etc are gluten free and safe for gluten sensitive people doesn't make it true.

Gluten is so dangerous for the gluten sensitive person that it way better to be safe than sorry. I want you to be suspicious of all gluten containing grains, not just wheat, rye and barley.