At Home Food-Testing Kits

At the GFAF Expo and a few times before that I had come across these testing kits that allow someone to test their food for gluten. The idea is great, but it needs a lot of work before it will become mainstream at all. From what I learned the two companies who are developing this technology mainly work with manufacturers and consumer packaged goods companies for help with their product adjustments, etc.

The two brands that I learned about (and spoke to at the Expo) are GlutenTox Home and EZ Gluten. Thus far I don't find a whole lot of advantage to the kits in the way that they are currently functioning, unless you really feel like you must send it with your child for a meal at a friend's house or when you MUST eat out and there is no way of ensuring gluten-free food otherwise.

In my opinion, the main problems with the tests are the price and the complication. I am aware that the steps are easy to follow but there are SO many steps and it takes approximately 10 minutes for the test to process. For example, if I have some cake that a friend says they made gluten-free I would take a piece and put it into a test tube, add liquid, shake it, let it sit and then stick the testing strip in to see if it's over 10ppm (the average for these tests). By the time I've completed all of this everyone else will have eaten, as much as I love good food I would rather stick with something I know is safe and be done with it.

The second current roadblock is the price. We all know that prices of pharm products get better with time and I have no doubt that will be the case here too. Right now though it's approximately $10-$15/test. For one use that is a LOT in my opinion. I've been really trying to come up with use cases that would warrant these costs and honestly I could verify it only with a traveling situation where the waitstaff didn't speak English and I could NOT get sick (hotel far away, on a bus, etc.).

Despite these drawbacks I love what they are trying to do. The fact that something like this even exists is a move in the right direction for gluten-free food testing and piece of mind for Celiacs. I will be sure to continue following the developments of these companies and others who are working to make life easier for us!