I have a friend who has issues with gluten in the USA, but in Italy never has any issues. I'm wondering if there are similar people here and what their take on Japanese domestic wheat has been. Japan imports much of its wheat from the USA, but many specialty shops (ramen!) use only domestically grown and processed wheat.
by ramenadventures
15 comments
One of my friends was gluten intolerant in the US and has zero issues living in Japan. Something’s different about the wheat in the US
Are they actually coeliac, or just self diagnosed gluten intolerant like the majority of people?
The biggest question is if your friend can tolerate soy sauce. I cannot tolerate it from any country, so that limits me severely here. If anything I react even more often here because wheat is in everything from hot dogs to apple slices (I wish I was joking).
Soba is made from buckwheat that is no gluten, by the way.
Ramen and udon is gonna have gluten, they might have to shift their taste in noodles a bit if they’re struggling
Celiac sufferer here. There is a difference in gluten content between the US and Europe and Japan, but your friend is full of crap.
If I eat gluten in Italy or Japan, I will feel it. I need to take lots of probiotics to deal with the constant (self-created) bombardment while traveling.
Hey everybody, just wanted to try chime in here really quick. My wife is celiac and we’ve lived just over 10 years in Japan. For the past five we’ve lived in the states.
My wife cannot have any wheat that was made in the US. Five years ago, when we lived in Japan, it was the same situation. Based on our research, we found that the Japanese purchases the same pesticides that the US does. And in some instances, American wheat has also been sold to the Japan.
My wife can have EU wheat, and even though we have not been to Italy, we’re looking forward to a trip in the near future.
I would be very, very careful about any wheat purchased in Japan, yes, I’m sure things may have changed from five years ago. But I have not done any research recently.
Here’s one interesting little tip, antihistamines helped my wife a lot when she accidentally gets glutened. Take them before, and take them after.
Best of luck.
Food in the US is terrible and everything in Japan is a much higher quality. I really struggle with the food in the US when I go back and before I moved to Japan I did all the US food fads including GF, stevia…it’s all bs. I can eat more sweets here bc there just isn’t as much sugar in the things and overall ingredients are better.
Sadly, no. Can’t eat gluten here in Canada. Accidentally ate soba noodles when I was in Japan that weren’t 100% soba (they have wheat but I had asked and I think wasn’t understood) and was sick.
They are not gluten intolerant
‘murican food standards are terrible.
I’ve seen/heard many American people that have travelled abroad said they couldn’t eat gluten and all that (allergy), though most likely self-diagnosed, but when travelling to European countries, they had no problem eating it.
They all said that the standards in the US was terrible, too.
I’m a diagnosed Celiac and Japan so far has been terrible for me.
The lack of proper Gluten Free symbols to identify food easily or even basic knowledge from doctors is just awful.
I just bear with the side effects of low intake of gluten but I know that they do affect in the long term.
If I would follow a strict diet I wouldn’t be able to eat anything at all outside. Even basic sushi such as salmon and rice has 小麦 on the allergy menu.
Tell them to suck it up
They need to be careful. Wheat flour comes from a variety of sources and a lot varieties of wheat, so if they have celiac, they need to avoid gluten.
I can confirm I get symptoms from the bread etc here in Japan.
It sounds like your friend actually has issues with the additives in American food, or some other ingredient common on pasta dishes in the USA but not in Italy. For example, if you have IBS, tomatoes, capsicum, onion, cheese are a common trigger. They all corn with pasta. They don’t have gluten intolerance they have generalized IBS.
Not to be mean to your friend, but perhaps it’s not the gluten they have a problem with…
As for Japanese wheat, we tried to be SO careful when my celiac mom came to visit, and she ended up getting sick anyway from cross-contamination. For celiacs, wheat is wheat is wheat.
Plus, in Japan the problem is not just things that people traditionally think of when thinking of wheat- bread, noodles, panko, whatever. Many people may not know that soy sauce almost always contains gluten- so, anything that contains even a little soy sauce is NG. Many vinegars and miso- gluten. Barley mixed in with rice- gluten. Mizuame- if it was made from barley, it’s gluten (and they don’t have to label the source, so you literally can’t know). Soba noodles- vast majority, even at specialty shops, are a mix of sobako and flour, so it’s gluten.
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