Cheerios, Chex and Nearly One Hundred Other Top Gluten-Free Cereal Brands

I find a lot of different gluten free cereals on the store shelves nowadays but have trouble finding any that have a good amount of protein. Even after I add raisins and walnuts, they are still don't keep me full enough til lunch.

Any info that includes the amounts of proteins on these cereals would be helpful.

Are you a vegan? If not, scramble and egg or two to go along with the cereal. 

Dear Scott Adams, 

I am confused after reading your article on gluten free cereals. What I am specifically confused with is the information stating General Mills cereal is safe for people with celiac disease. To be very clear, you are saying Cheerio’s are safe to eat for people with celiac disease?

I am aware the company General Mills states on the box it is gluten free but I have heard that further research on how the food ingredients are harvested actually causes cross contamination of gluten making the products NOT gluten free. Can you please clarify? 

I am very concerned with the information stated in your article since it is coming from a celiac disease website.

Thank you, 

Melissa B

Melissa, may I presume to answer the question you have directed at Scott? I think the confusion is a result of misunderstanding what the term "gluten free" means in the food industry. It does not refer to an absolute "0" amount of gluten. The FDA (USA agency) uses the term to refer to food items that contain less than 20 parts per million (ppm) of gluten. There are some other international non governmental gluten free certification groups that have even stricter standards such as 10 ppm or 5 ppm. We know that some Celiacs are much more sensitive to gluten than others and for those people, 20 ppm may be enough to trigger a reaction. The General Mills gluten free cereals meet the FDA minimum standard of 20 ppm. 

Gluten Free Watchdog has extensively researched the process that General Mills uses in the production of Cheerios. The use of optical sorting and batch testing of a 24 hour production cycle rather than individual boxes of the product are the factors that make Cheerios not celiac safe. With batch testing, some boxes within the production lot may be significantly under 20ppm and others significantly over 20ppm, but the average falls under 20ppm. Because of this testing process, there is risk of getting a box that contains over 20ppm, which is not safe for people with Celiac.

Actually Gluten Free Watchdog has made no serious claims about General Mills cereals for years now, and they have failed to publish their data, which they said they would do. Instead it is behind a paid fire wall. I've heard nothing from them for years on this topic. Why can't they test 100 boxes and find 2-3 that contain gluten? Where are the lawsuits from hungry class-action law firms...General Mills has very deep pockets, and would be an easy target if claims that their cereals which are marked "gluten-free" contained over 20ppm?

General Mills has now refined their patented technology to reduce gluten reliably to below 20ppm, but more importantly it may now do this reliably at below 10ppm. 

Celiac.com has done multiple articles on this topic, and I'll let those articles speak for themselves:

https://www.celiac.com/search/?&q=general mills&type=cms_records2&search_and_or=and&search_in=titles 

I am trying to consume very little added sugar.  Breakfast sugars are so high in sugars whether it is called cane sugar, syrup, glucose or other "-ose" sugars.  They are all bad for my health.  I would like there to be much fewer sugars in at least some of the cereals that are gluten-free.  I can add my own fruit.

Cheerios has been making those with celiac sick including myself that’s a fact, they are not gluten free if you research social media there are a lot of people posting about how Cheerios makes them sick from the cross contamination with gluten from the oats those people are not making that up I started a petition to get the label removed, the oats are not purity protocol oats and it’s wrong for a company to make false gluten free claims.

On 1/6/2021 at 2:00 PM, Scott Adams said:

Actually Gluten Free Watchdog has made no serious claims about General Mills cereals for years now, and they have failed to publish their data, which they said they would do. Instead it is behind a paid fire wall. I've heard nothing from them for years on this topic. Why can't they test 100 boxes and find 2-3 that contain gluten? Where are the lawsuits from hungry class-action law firms...General Mills has very deep pockets, and would be an easy target if claims that their cereals which are marked "gluten-free" contained over 20ppm?

General Mills has now refined their patented technology to reduce gluten reliably to below 20ppm, but more importantly it may now do this reliably at below 10ppm. 

Celiac.com has done multiple articles on this topic, and I'll let those articles speak for themselves:

https://www.celiac.com/search/?&q=general mills&type=cms_records2&search_and_or=and&search_in=titles 

It is well known that ~10% of celiac have an oat intolerance (avenin) in addition to their celiac disease. Not everyone with celiac disease can eat oats, and many attribute this to wheat contamination/gluten reactions, which is incorrect. 

On 1/5/2021 at 3:30 AM, Guest how much protein? said:

I find a lot of different gluten free cereals on the store shelves nowadays but have trouble finding any that have a good amount of protein. Even after I add raisins and walnuts, they are still don't keep me full enough til lunch.

Any info that includes the amounts of proteins on these cereals would be helpful.

You could try granola or heartier cereals; I buy Inno brand cereal AND granola, and Nature's Path Coconut Cashew Butter Granola, all from Costco and all labeled Gluten-Free.

On 1/6/2021 at 11:45 AM, Tucson member said:

I am trying to consume very little added sugar.  Breakfast sugars are so high in sugars whether it is called cane sugar, syrup, glucose or other "-ose" sugars.  They are all bad for my health.  I would like there to be much fewer sugars in at least some of the cereals that are gluten-free.  I can add my own fruit.

Plain Rice Chex has almost no sugar, and most of the gluten-free corn flake options don't either. Makes for a good start

Big thanks Scott Adams for the list, my wife is gonna try a couple of those!

As a point of clarification, Canada has required that General Mills remove the gluten free claim from its Canadian packaging - with which it did comply. In Canada, Cheerios are not considered gluten free or safe for celiacs. 
On the other hand, in Canada we still have gluten free Brown Rice Krispies from Kellogg’s and they’re fantastic! If you can get them you should!! 

On 1/5/2021 at 8:35 AM, trents said:

Are you a vegan? If not, scramble and egg or two to go along with the cereal. 

For extra protein with my cereal I've started using Fairlife Milk, which has twice the protein of regular milk.  It cost a little more.  I find it keeps me full until lunch rather than being starving 2 hours hour later.  You should give it a try if.