A Taco Bueno mistake.

We recently went to Taco Bueno thinking we remembered the chips and cheese "nachos" to be gluten free. They are not. Grace had a bad stomach ache shortly after eating them and looked at me pitifully and said "Celiac."

UGH!

Apparently their chips are fried w/other stuff - including flour tortillas. Lesson learned - the HARD way.

Gluten and Ricos Nacho Cheese Cups

I just got the following email back from the lovely lady at Ricos about the Ricos Nacho Cheese Cups (like pudding cups - but w/nacho cheese sauce).

"We just received the gluten test. The smallest laboratory test that can be tested for gluten is 5ppm which is parts per million. No gluten was detected for this.

Just so you know the proposed FDA guideline for gluten free is as follows:
* An ingredient that is derived from a prohibited grain and that has been processed to remove gluten, if the use of that ingredient results in the presence of 20 parts per million (ppm) or more gluten in the food or
* 20 ppm or more gluten

So this cheese is considered gluten free.

We appreciate your business and if you have any other questions please contact me."

As with anything not specifically gluten free you will just need to make a decision deciding on sensitivity. It does add another choice for many.

Ricos Nacho Cheese sauce - a good thing.

I remember years ago my church used to work at the Ft Worth Convention Center in the concession stands. People would volunteer and the money went to the church. I got to go with my Mom to things like the circus, horse shows etc. Something else I remember fondly - gooey, vivid yellow cheese poured over crisp tortilla chips - ball park nachos! Creamy goodness at its best.

Sam's Club came to town and I got a card. Imagine my surprise when I saw they had VATS of nacho cheese sauce you could purchase for your very own nachos at home!! I never got it however because - honestly - who needs a vat of nacho cheese sauce?

Years later I was asked to get a vat of nacho cheese sauce for a meeting - I gladly trotted to Sam's and got it and put it into my crock pot - HOPING for left overs - I wasn't disappointed.

One day I was walking through Walmart and saw not only did they have the vats they had soup can sizes of Rico's Nacho Cheese!!! I was in heaven. That said - I decided to only use it for recreational or social use - not for personal use. About once a year I took it to casual parties - no one was disappointed.

Since I have a picky eater I was excited to see they had little individual cups of Rico Cheese sauce - perfect for school lunches! I never purchased it however for some reason. After Grace was diagnosed I checked the small cans - it appeared to be gluten free!! Yippee!!! I then checked the little individual cups and I was so disappointed - it had Maltodextron and MSG - Dadgumit!

I got on the Ricos web site and it said "I am happy to tell you that Ricos cheese and popcorn are gluten free." What??? I immediately shot off a friendly email to Ricos and quickly received a personal response. It stated that Celiac questions were becoming one of their number one questions and she knew that the #10 cans and 12 oz cans of Ricos cheese is gluten free however the individual cups have not been tested. She is sending off a request to the lab to have them properly tested and will get back to me. What??? Really??? They took my request that seriously?? I couldn't believe the customer service!! Not only did she send me this email she sent a follow up email stating the cheese was sent to the lab, the tests take about 6 days and she will contact me when they came back. Honestly I have to say I have so much respect for this company right now based on customer service alone.

With this info in hand I purchased one of the 12 oz cans and am putting into small containers for Grace to take to school with chips - she loves it.

I will update this whenever I hear back from Kara at Ricos. Yes - I know there is no natural cheese this color and honestly I am some what of a cheese snob - however I consider this to be a completely different food all together. You may think it is is junk food - and it may be - but to me it is a little florescent glob of heaven atop a corn chip - Grace agrees.