Are Cheerios Gluten Free? What you need to make an informed decision

UPDATE: OCTOBER 2017

CHEERIOS WILL BE REMOVING THE GLUTEN FREE LABEL FROM ALL PRODUCTS.

Please click here to read article from the CBC.

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By now a lot of you know that Cheerios is slowly making their products gluten free.  A lot of the regular Cheerios you will already see labelled gluten free.  And some other lines like this Multi-grain cheerios has already been seen at places like Costco labelled as gluten free.

So what's the deal?  Are they or aren't they?  They are made of oats, and not wheat right?

Well, Amanda and I certainly have our own opinions on the matter, but I want to help you make your own informed decisions if eating Cheerios is right for you.

So a few links you can check out:

Here is information from Cheerios itself on its gluten free products: http://cheerios.ca/glutenfree

They also offer a link that talks about their process of making gluten free cheerios :http://cheerios.ca/glutenfree/ourgfprocess

Okay, so those first two links may seem a little bias, since it is coming from the manufacturer itself. Especially since there is still a population of Celiacs that still get sick when eating gluten free Cheerios or any oats for that matter.

The next set of links is from Health Canada who seems to have done some research on Oats.  As the Cheerios links say, oats are naturally gluten free, but cross contamination from other crops raises the risk of cross contamination.  So Health Canada has statements on Uncontaminated Oats and Specially Produced Oats.  I also want to share Health Canada's labeling regulations.  Finally statements from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Gluten-Free Claims.

I hope this helps everyone out a little bit better to make informed decisions about eating the gluten free Cheerios.