One question was raised late Saturday while I was working with Allison, our new waitress. We were talking about Thai food and I was explaining to her how most our entrees were made. After quietly listening to me, the first question she asked is whether or not we could prepare our dishes without the use of gluten. Well, I had to be honest with her that I had no clue if we could prepare them completely without gluten. My knowledge about Gluten was minimal, at best. She explained to me that her 2 year old son was severely allergic to Gluten. She also explained 1 in every 133 American has this type of disorder. Well, Allison was not the first one to ask me about gluten, there have also been a few customers who were concerned as well. So, I decided to dive in deeper and study every ingredient we use, and figure out where we might be about to go gluten free. So I spent the last few days researching gluten both at the library and online. I’ll try to simply explain my findings and condense for you. It’s my goal to not bore you to tears. I think I’ve accomplished that 
What is gluten?
Gluten is a special type of protein composite found in foods processed from wheat or anything related to wheat. It gives elasticity to dough, helping it to rise and to keep its shape. If you have any bread products with a chewy texture, there is a good chance that that product contains gluten.
What kind of food/ingredient contain gluten?
Gluten can be founded in many bread product.
You can follow this link to full unsafe gluten food list.
What gluten does to your body
The answer is “nothing” for most of us who are lucky enough to be born without gluten-sensitivity. According to Kam’s article WEBMD feature article,there is no prove of benefit of going gluten-free diet at this point. Avoiding gluten will not help you lose weight. The Celiac disease is characterized by patients who have varying forms of gluten sensitivity and the only way to avoid the effects of this disease is to avoid all gluten. For Celiacs, gluten reacts with their immune system causing several symptoms; typically stomach aches and skin irritations. etc.
Gluten and Thai food
Now let’s take a look at what Thai dishes might contain gluten; in most cases this information will be helpful when visiting any restaurant. Unless it is specifically mentioned that appetizers are gluten-free, most of wrapped and fried appetizers, such as spring rolls, shrimp rolls, or cream cheese wontons contain wheat product. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of choices we can choose when it comes to wrappers in the Dallas market. All that being said, the gluten free appetizer choices that Thai Cafe provides are both the chicken and the tofu satays.
Fortunately for our customers, most of our Thai entrees are gluten free as traditional Thai cooking uses very little wheat products. All of our Curry’s and fried rice are gluten free (and we’ll also mention they are delicious). Rice noodles are typically processed in the same factories as wheat products, so they may contain some wheat or wheat flour but we can offer clear noodles (noodles made of mung bean) or egg noodles. Pad Thai cooked with clear noodles is a traditional favorite, and is gluten free.
Let’s get to the good stuff…What about the dessert? Based on the information I received from our suppliers, there is no known gluten in our ice cream products, both in our own home made ice cream and the Texas favorite Blue Bell. Sweet sticky rice is also safe!
I hope that my little research can help you to understand more about gluten and what to avoid at Thai restaurants if you have a sensitivity. There is no reason to avoid it if you don’t have the Celiac disease. If you do have a concern about gluten, learn about how it affects you and just ask questions about what goes into your food. And if you actually require gluten free food, you know what to tell or ,at least, what questions to ask to your servers at Thai restaurants.
P.S. I’m pretty sure there are many of you who know a lot more than me over this regard. Feel free to send me email for correction/suggestion.
For More Information
Going Gluten-Free by Katherine Kam
Celiac Disease by Peter H.R. Green
Recent Comments