Gluten-Free Trickery

When I’m out doing my grocery shopping I am always on the lookout for that magical phrase.  Gluten-free.  It’s like music to my ears (and tummy)!  But sometimes, those two little words are simply used as a marketing tactic.  Case in point: Baking Soda.  This is the part where I admit that before the purchases I’m about to explain, I had no idea what baking soda actually is.  And if you’re wondering, it is ‘Sodium Bicarbonate’.  Nothing fancy, no long list of ingredients to meticulously scan for the hidden enemy.  I embarrassingly found this out while stocking my pantry on a grocery trip with my husband.  We had just gone out for our main grocery trip a few days before and I grabbed a box of the normal Arm & Hammer Baking Soda.  After picking it up in the store, I remember turning the box over to peak at the ingredients list because I realized this was something I had never checked the gluten-free status of before.  And there it was, sodium bicarbonate.  Seemed pretty simple to me.  To the best of my knowledge, this meant it was safe.  Well, on this second trip I mentioned to stock up my gluten-free portion of the pantry, I came across Bob’s Red Mill ‘Premium Baking Soda – Aluminum Free’.  Well, I love Bob’s Red Mill products, all my baking flour comes from that brand, I completely trust them!  So, when I saw that the Baking Soda was labeled ‘Gluten-Free’ I just dropped it in the cart without thinking.  Obviously, I needed this for baking and the Arm & Hammer box had deceived me!  Not until I got all the way home did I look at the ingredients for the Bob’s Red Mill Baking Soda, and guess what? “Ingredient: Sodium Bicarbonate”.  That’s right!  There’s not even an ‘s’ at the end of ingredients to imply that there might be more than one on other brands.  No-no, sodium bicarbonate is all this stuff is.  Seriously?  This is where that reading thing comes in handy.  Needless to say, at two and a half times the price of the Arm & Hammer baking soda, I won’t be making that mistake again.  Oh well, at least I’m that much wiser in the baking field, right?  Still a little confused as to why Bob’s Red Mill labeled theirs as ‘aluminum free’ as well.  I thought that was only something to look for with baking powder (which I did buy a gluten-free version of and am sticking with, thank you very much).  Guess, this was just my something new I learned today!