Ode To Chili's (I Hope You Die A Fiery Death)

My local Chili's chain,
How I hate you so,
I have heard about your gluten free menu,
So today I decided to go.

I didn't get risky,
Decided to play it cool,
I ordered a caesar salad,
To prevent an intestinal duel.

But you deceive me so!
What did you do?
Just pick the croutons out of my lettuce?
How could I ever trust you?

I couldn't make it through half,
Forgive me if I say,
You weren't worth the plate you were served on,
Yet still, I had to pay.

And now my tummy grumbles,
It's been awhile since it's been this bad,
Tonight it could barely handle,
The gluten free sandwich I just had.

So here's to you, you piece of shit Chili's,
You listen close, you hear?
Here's a big middle finger from me,
And oh, Happy New Year!

You might wanna reconsider that Hershey's chocolate bar.

I don't know about everyone else, but this really bothers me. I'm staying away from their products from now on. Turns out their products aren't real milk chocolate anymore, but some sort of fake chocolate. And according to these articles, they won't tell consumers what exactly it contains. They can't even label them as milk chocolate anymore due to FDA regulations.

Please read these articles. I think it's important for people on a gluten free diet to know that they may be consuming some sort of mystery chocolate.

Hershey's "Kissables" No Longer Legally Considered "Milk Chocolate"?

Hershey Responds: Consumers Love Our New Fake Chocolate!

And for a complete list of Hershey's products, go here.

Fake chocolate? That just gives me the heebie jeebies. It says that Milk Duds have been this reformulated version for years now, which is interesting because the last time I ate Milk Duds, they really upset my stomach. I even googled them to make sure that they were gluten free, which I read that there were, but who knows if that was pre-reformulation or not. It's better just to stear clear, in my opinion.

What do you think about this news?

Gluten Free? Or "Mostly" Gluten Free?

I am pondering the gluten-freeness of a product I eat on a daily basis.

It is no secret that I may single-handedly cause the tuna fish to go extinct. I consume unnatural amounts on a day-to-day basis. At work I generally enjoy my delicious tuna on these rice crackers:

Blue Diamond Almond Nut-Thins. Now don't consider this a plug for these crackers. They are good and are sold at the Fry's grocery store across the street from my work. They hardly classify as UH-MAY-ZING, like for instance, these rice crackers:

Back to Nature White Cheddar Rice Thins. Hey, you--whatdaya say we get out of here and go do some....snacking? Eh?

I love these crackers. I have dreams where I run off into the sunset with these crackers. What can I say? I take my food seriously. I can only find these at specialty stores though, hence my settling for rice crackers that fall short on my amazing-meter.

I know what you're thinking. BFD, right? HERE is my pro-blem-o.

As I was munching on my typical lunch today, I got to looking at the Nut-Thins box. Right there on the front, Wheat and Gluten Free. Gee, that's nice of them. Oh, lookie there, they are "proud to support Celiac Disease Foundation." Neat. Doo-doo-doo---WTF??

"Each production run is sampled and tested to confirm gluten levels do not exceed 20 PPM."

I'm not sure how I feel about this, or what to think.

So I could potentially be ingesting 19.9 PPM of gluten per day? How can that be considered gluten free? Is that enough to equal my 1/48th of a piece of bread that is enough to cause damage to my intestines? I don't know about you, but I strive to be completely FREE of gluten, not just consume it in microscopic amounts. Shoot, if that was my intention, I'd just eat a donut really, really slowly.

What do you think? Should I stop eating these? What are the opinions of my fellow celiacs on products that contain less than 20 PPM of gluten?