For seven years, the Food and Drug Administration has been trying to answer this question: What does it mean to be “gluten-free”? That is roughly the time it took to build a tunnel beneath the English Channel to connect Britain and France.
In the meantime, foodmakers have been deciding for themselves whether they can jump into a lucrative new niche and market their products as free from gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. As a result, some products labeled gluten-free contain no gluten, others might have a trace and still more could contain a sizable amount.