Many foods that seem naturally free of wheat or gluten actually contain it as a hidden binder, thickener, or flavoring agent. Some of the biggest surprises include soy sauce, licorice candy, imitation crab, and even your lip balm. Knowing where gluten hides can save you from accidental exposure, whether you have celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity.
Soy Sauce Is Nearly Half Wheat
This catches almost everyone off guard. Traditional soy sauce is made from a 50/50 mixture of soybeans and roasted, crushed wheat. The wheat isn’t a minor additive; it’s a core ingredient that ferments alongside the soy to create the sauce’s signature flavor. Every splash on your sushi, stir-fry, or marinade delivers gluten. Tamari, a Japanese-style soy sauce, is often made with little or no wheat, but you still need to check the label since not all tamari is wheat-free.
Imitation Crab Is Held Together With Wheat
Imitation crab (surimi) looks like it should be safe. It’s fish, right? In reality, the fish paste is bound together with wheat starch to give it that firm, sliceable texture and extend its shelf life. Wheat starch is one of the most common ingredients in imitation crab, making it unsuitable for anyone avoiding gluten. This means California rolls, crab rangoon, and seafood salads made with surimi are all off the table unless you find one of the rare gluten-free surimi brands. Check ingredient lists for wheat starch, modified food starch, or vaguely listed “natural flavors,” all of which can signal gluten.
Licorice Candy Uses Wheat Flour
Black and red licorice typically contain wheat flour as a structural ingredient. The standard recipe calls for sugar, corn starch, and wheat flour, which gives the candy its signature chewy, pliable texture. Most major licorice brands, including Twizzlers and Red Vines, include wheat. Some manufacturers substitute brown rice flour to make a gluten-free version, but the default product on store shelves almost always contains wheat.
Cream Soups and Gravies
Canned cream soups are thickened with a roux, which is a cooked mixture of butter and wheat flour. Cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, clam chowder, and similar soups nearly always rely on this technique. The same goes for most store-bought gravies and many jarred pasta sauces that have a thick, creamy consistency. If a soup or sauce has a velvety body, wheat flour is likely doing the work.
Breakfast Cereals With Barley Malt
Many cereals that don’t contain obvious wheat still use barley malt extract or barley malt syrup as a sweetener. Rice-based cereals are a common offender. The FDA has been clear on this: malt extract and malt syrup are derived from gluten-containing grain and are not processed to remove gluten, so any product containing them cannot legally be labeled gluten-free. Even products that test below 20 parts per million of gluten (the FDA’s threshold for a “gluten-free” label) cannot use the claim if barley malt is in the ingredients. Always scan the ingredient list on cereals that seem like they should be safe, especially puffed rice or corn-based varieties.
Oats (Unless Specifically Certified)
Oats are naturally gluten-free, but standard oats from the grocery store are not. They’re grown in fields rotated with wheat, harvested with shared equipment, and processed in facilities that also handle wheat, barley, and rye. Regular oats that haven’t been specially produced should not be eaten by people with celiac disease. Only oats labeled as certified gluten-free, produced under what the industry calls a “purity protocol,” are grown, harvested, transported, and processed with safeguards that keep gluten contamination below 20 ppm.
French Fries From Shared Fryers
Plain potatoes are gluten-free. French fries from a restaurant kitchen often are not. A pilot study published in Frontiers in Nutrition tested fries from 10 restaurants that used shared fryers (cooking fries alongside breaded items). Of 20 orders tested, 45% had detectable gluten, and 25% exceeded 20 ppm, the level above which a food would not qualify as gluten-free. Some samples exceeded 80 ppm. Fries from 6 of the 10 restaurants contained quantifiable gluten in at least one order. The takeaway: if a restaurant fries battered onion rings or chicken tenders in the same oil as your fries, cross-contact is a real and measurable risk.
Seitan and Some Meat Substitutes
Seitan is pure wheat gluten. It’s made by washing wheat dough until all the starch rinses away, leaving behind a stretchy mass of concentrated gluten protein. It’s sold as a plant-based meat alternative in the form of strips, slices, sausages, and burger patties. The name “seitan” or “wheat meat” is a giveaway, but it also shows up under less obvious labels: veggie dogs, faux chicken, and deli-style slices often list vital wheat gluten as a primary ingredient. If you’re browsing the plant-based section, check every label carefully.
Lip Products and Cosmetics
Lipstick, lip gloss, chapstick, and lip scrubs sit directly on your mouth and are easy to ingest accidentally. Unlike food, cosmetics are not covered by allergen labeling laws, so manufacturers don’t have to call out wheat or gluten on the label. Instead, gluten hides behind ingredient names like triticum vulgare (wheat), hordeum vulgare extract (barley), secale cereale seed flour (rye), hydrolyzed vegetable protein, malt extract, and various dextrins. You have to read the full ingredient list yourself because no regulation requires these to be flagged.
Beer, but Not Distilled Spirits
Beer is brewed from barley, wheat, or both, and the fermentation process does not remove gluten. That makes conventional beer off-limits. What surprises many people is that the reverse is true for distilled spirits. Vodka, whiskey, and gin, even when distilled from wheat, barley, or rye, are considered free of gluten protein by celiac disease experts. Distillation separates alcohol and flavor compounds from proteins and sugars, effectively purifying the final product. The FDA has stated that it is unlikely gluten will be present in a distilled food. Pure distilled spirits are safe by expert consensus, though flavored varieties with post-distillation additives still need a label check.
Medications and Supplements
Prescription and over-the-counter drugs can use starch as a filler or binder in tablets and capsules. The FDA notes that it has identified very few oral drugs containing wheat starch, and most pharmaceutical starches come from corn or potato. Even in the rare cases where wheat starch is used, the estimated gluten contribution is no more than 0.5 mg per dose, a very small amount. Still, if you have celiac disease and take daily medication, it’s worth confirming with your pharmacist. Dietary supplements and protein bars are a bigger concern: products containing sprouted barley malt or wheat-derived ingredients have been found mislabeled as gluten-free.