Chocolate and Celiac Disease: What to Know

If you live with celiac disease, you read every label. We want to make that easier by explaining how chocolate can be safe, where the risks come from, and what goes into ours.

Is chocolate gluten-free?
Chocolate in its simplest form is naturally gluten-free. The cocoa bean, including its natural cocoa butter, contains no wheat, barley or rye, and neither does sugar.

The risk comes from two places.

1. Added ingredients
Many chocolates include ingredients that do contain gluten:

    Cookie pieces, wafers and pretzels
    Barley malt and malted milk, found in many crisped-rice and "malted" chocolates
    Some flavourings and fillings

2. Cross-contact
Chocolate can pick up traces of gluten when it's made on equipment that also handles products containing gluten. A bar with no gluten on its ingredient list can still carry traces from the factory line.

What "gluten-free" means on a label
In the United States, a food labelled "gluten-free" must contain less than 20 parts per million (ppm) of gluten. That's the FDA standard, and it's the level most people with celiac disease can tolerate.

Some brands go further and pay for independent certification. For example, the Gluten-Free Certification Organization (GFCO) requires 10 ppm or less. If you're highly sensitive, certified products give you the most assurance.

How we make Ridgewood Chocolate
We start with whole raw cocoa beans and do everything else ourselves:

    We roast in small batches, about a pound at a time.
    We shell every bean by hand.
    We grind the whole nib, with its own cocoa butter, for about six hours.
    We add only unrefined sugar, or nothing at all in our 100% chocolate.
    No gluten-containing ingredients: no malt, no cookies, no wafers and no flavourings.
    Dedicated equipment: our roaster, grinder and moulds are used only for our chocolate.

A customer's trust
One of our customers lives with celiac disease. She has been buying our chocolate for three years. She told us she trusts it because she knows exactly how it's made: whole beans, hand-shelled, nothing added but sugar.

Every person with celiac disease is different, and her experience is her own. We share it because her trust means a great deal to us.

What we can't promise
We're a small chocolate maker, not a certified gluten-free facility. Our cocoa beans are grown, dried and shipped by farmers and importers before they reach us, and we can't see every step of that journey.

If you have celiac disease
    Ask us anything in the store. We'll tell you exactly how our chocolate is made.
    If you're unsure, talk to your doctor or dietitian about what's right for you.
    Start with a single square and see how it sits with you.

Questions?

Visit us in Ridgewood, NY, or call (718) 219-1687.