I thought Robin McGraw shared some excellent diet tips today, but in sharing her favorite bread, “Ezekiel Bread,” she described it as gluten free. I have a daughter with Celiac Disease, meaning she cannot tolerate gluten (wheat, rye, barley, and oats), so I checked the Ezekiel website thinking this might be good for her. While the Ezekiel website does have some gluten free products, Ezekiel Bread has wheat and barley in it, and is therefore certainly not gluten free! Please be careful if you have dietary limitations before you purchase this product.

according to the doctors synopsis for today’s show it states " Robin adds that for a snack, she toasts Ezekiel bread — a dense, gluten-free grain bread". Ezekiel bread is NOT a gluten-free bread and any one on a gluten-free diet should NOT eat this bread. the website for the maker of the bread “Any product that contains wheat (including semolina, durum, spelt, triticale, and kamut) rye, barley, or oats cannot be considered Gluten-Free.” Going on to say “What is important is the sprouting process, through enzymatic activity, changes gluten to a more digestible or tolerable state.” This still does NOT make it safe for those with Celiac or gluten-intolerance. The site as so warns “Many individuals with mild gluten sensitivities use sprouted products with no adverse side effects or allergic reactions.”
Unless you want to be sick do not consume it. Robin McGraw is not gluten-intolerant or Celiac so it’s okay for her to consume.
The company that make’s this bread does have many gluten-free breads and other products including their Brown Rice Tortillas that make a great thin crust for pizza.
For those of us who have been living this diet for years know to check out what others say before consuming a product but the new ones do not know to do that hopefully they have a support group or person to ask before consuming.

Ezekiel Bread is NOT GLUTEN FREE. Gluten free is a term that people with celiac disease rely on in order to consume products that wont make them sick. This term is in the process of being added to food labeling making it easier for us to recognize products that will not agree and cause harm to our bodies. This term should not be used loosely.
What is Ezekiel Bread?

Ezekiel bread is a bread made from four grains and four beans. Typically it contains wheat, spelt or rye, barley, millet, lentils, great northern beans, kidney beans, and pinto beans. According to the AAOOB website, the specific mixture of grains and beans has been tested by food scientists and found to be complete nutritionally.

I thought this very same thing when someone I know called and told me “I heard about this Ezekiel bread on "the doctors” and it’s gluten free."  Naturally as a person with Celiac I question EVERYTHING… does anyone know if the products that Ezekiel makes that are gluten free, are REALLY gluten free?  (Do they manufacture them in the same facility etc… with a risk of cross contact with wheat?)

The company is Food for Life Baking Company. I have not been able find out how or where their products are made so I am going to assume that all their products are made on the same line so cross contamination is possible. I have tried some of the gluten-free breads, the Whole Grain Brown Rice Tortillas, and Whole Kernel Flourless Corn Tortillas and I did not have any problems with them and I am highly reactive to any gluten. Stay away from the Whole Grain Flourless Tortillas, they have wheat, barley, and spelt in them but are listed as gluten-free on the website.
Even Food for Life admits that gluten-free means zero of the offending grains but they have products with gluten containing grains if them that they advertise as gluten-free. They are under the impression that “the sprouting process, through enzymatic activity, changes gluten to a more digestible or tolerable state” but they have not tested their products to prove that and those of us who are gluten-intolerant and tried their products like Ezekiel bread got sick from eating it. I know from my 14 years of gluten-free and all the research done that the claim is not true and it has been proven that gluten is still is there is significant amounts.

I finally recieved a message back from them.  Regarding the gluten free products: They are made in the
same facility, but they are made in a dedicated room on dedicated lines."

This is reassuring except I hope the flourless tortillas are not made on the dedicated lines.  I hope that their being in the gluten free search results on the website is simply an error on the site.  I did email them about this so we will see what they say. 

I have been on the GF diet for almost 6 years now! I can’t eat ANY gluten and I am one crumb sensitive to gluten, dairy products and soy. I get extremely sick as I have celiac disease/dermatitis hepitiformis! Ezekiel bread is NOT, NOT, NOT GLUTEN FREE, m’dear Robin. I think you are awesome and I love to watch you as well as everyone on the Dr. Phil and Doctors show, but honey, please don’t misinform the poor folks that don’t have the knowledge about celiac and gluten intolerance (and especially the newly diagnosed). We have a LOT of misconceptions to deal with on a daily basis. People think we’re all nuts, and hypocondriacs! I would love to see the Doctors REALLY tackle the subject of celiac IN DEPTH and see one of our top researchers be on the show. Dr. Peter Green would be a great candidate for that! I have seen some great things happen (wonderful new products all the time) since I was diagnosed, but there are a lot of folks walking around that have this disease and don’t even know it. Many doctors have little or no clue (like my wonderful doctor when I was diagnosed, who laughed at me)…I diagnosed myself and went on the diet and got so much better health. Then, I took my girls in for testing, and they BOTH tested positive for Celiac disease. Ok, who is laughing now…well, I’m the healthy one, and have made lemonade out of the lemons that got dumped on my head. Ok, I make bread for a local restaurant. But, that’s what you do, you make it work. Anyway, please make sure the information that you are giving out is CORRECT INFORMATION. This has been said before on the Dr. Phil show, and I wrote in about it then, but it has now been passed on the airways again. I love the show, and I learn a lot. The Doctors are fantastic, and I can’t say enough good stuff about such a genuine blessing of a show. You are all great!