Corn-anything: whole corn, corn flour, cornstarch, corn gluten, corn syrup, corn meal, corn oil, and popcorn); this may be a no-brainer, but once you start reading ingredient lists, you’ll notice how often you find these corn items.
Modified Starch, Modified Food Starch: Sometimes this is corn-based; but does not specify this, so be careful. I’ve been safe with tapioca starch, which is in my favorite Kozy Shack pudding. Both rice pudding and chocolate pudding are corn-free, but not lactose-free. I also like to cook with Rice Flour as a substitute for Corn Starch as a thickening agent. You can also try Rice Flour instead of Tempura when frying your favorite foods.
On St. Patty’s day, I got nervous about Corned Beef, but that means beef or meet that has been cured with a brine made from coarse salt (that resembles kernels of corn). You do have to be wary of the other ingredients in cured or processed meat, so make sure to research any other additives.
Glucona delta lactone (“GDL”) is a recently-appearing additive in cured meats. It’s made by Archer Daniels Midland, a world-wide giant in the manufacture of corn products.
Corn sweeteners: Sweetener products made by cornstarch hydrolysis include dextrose, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, maltodextrin, high fructose corn syrup, and crystalline fructose. Beware of salad dressings and marinades; I’ve now resorted to making my own as the majority found at supermarkets contain corn syrup; even random ingredients like Worchestire sauce.
I’m discovering that Dextrose is used in many manufactured foods; even those dubbed “organic” and “natural.” This includes pudding, yogurt, cookies, ice cream and drinks such as Vitamin Water. It also shows up in prepared foods that are supposed to come out crispy, such as french fries, fish sticks, and potato puffs. It’s also common in intravenous solutions, which could be really dangerous. Fructose is usually seen in the form of high fructose corn syrup, but is sometimes mentioned by itself.
Invert syrup is enzymatically treated bulk corn sugars, used because it’s not so thick as corn syrup.
Vanilla Extract: I’ve seen (2) major supermarket brands of Pure Vanilla Extract – one had corn syrup on the label, the other did not. Make sure to read the ingredients carefully; they both had similar packaging and marketed as Pure Vanilla Extract. Not so pure…
vegetable-anything: Unless you know exactly what the vegetables are, you should be suspicious of any ingredient with vegetable in the name, including vegetable oil, vegetable broth, vegetable protein, vegetable shortening, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and vegetable mono- and di-glycerides.
Very helpful blog! I learned just recently that I’m allergic to corn and dairy. I am slowly changing my diet; it’s challenging but so far, I have been successful, I’d say. How do you go about consuming meat, such as corn-fed beef, possibly corn-fed chicken and corn-fed fish? Thanks.
I was concerned about that too; especially when I started to really scrutinize labels and noticed that some brands of chicken were injected with “less than 2% of the following” including “corn solids.”
Every person’s tolerance is difference however, so you either may want to avoid it completely, or in my case I have found that I am not as sensitive to have to avoid these types of meat. Same goes for products like xantham gum; that is also corn derived. I have heard about other people that have also avoided that completely and have felt a difference in their health or allergy.
So many things to consider, but as you are doing, take it one food, meal at a time. It’s been over 2 years for me now and I can (almost) not remember when I bought so many other gluten and corn containing products. One you get on a routine and find great tasting alternatives, you won’t miss it as much!!
Best of luck.