Recently Healther Crawford, a reporter for First Coast News, asked me to help identify some area chain restaurants that have gluten-free menus to test the EZ Gluten test strips’ ability to detect gluten in food. EZ Gluten test strips are created by Eliza Technologies. According to their website, these test strips are easy to use and help detect the presence of gluten in foods and beverages.
We went to three different restaurants- PF Chang’s at the Town Center, Chili’s in Jacksonville Beach and Mellow Mushroom in Jacksonville Beach to test multiple meals for gluten.
I had so much fun, it was like a progressive dinner with friends you just met.
Heather and the videographer, Ed, were so fun and I really enjoyed their company.
We ate:
- Spicy chicken and beef and broccoli at PF Chang’s.
- Loaded baked potato soup, spicy chicken and sausage soup, margarita chicken with rice and beans and mashed potatoes at Chili’s
- Bards beer and gluten-free pepperoni pizza at Mellow Mushroom Jacksonville Beach.
The results: the mashed potatoes at Chili’s tested positive for gluten. To the credit of Chili’s, they do have a disclaimer on their gluten-free menu.
After our testing, we made our way to my kitchen!
Ed and Heather actually came to my house, tested food in my pantry and took a look inside my fridge.
My thoughts on the night:
1. Each test takes 20 minutes. I seriously doubt many people will have the patience to wait 20 minutes to eat their food while they are waiting on the test results to come in. Their website states 10 minutes, but each kit we used took 20 minutes from start to finish.
2. The kits are quite expensive. You can purchase 2 for $25 or 5 for $60 off the website.
3. There may be some testing errors. This was the first time any of us have ever used the kits and we only sampled one part of the food. The kit allows for a small sample, so to test multiple parts of the food would take the use of multiple kits. For the purposes of the report it was not practical to use multiple kits to test more than one part of the food. However, every effort was made to include as much of the food in the small testing spoon that came with the kit.
4. If you are using these test strips in a public place, you will get some interesting looks. The kit has a few stages you have to complete that involves mixing and letting things sit for certain amounts of time.
5. There still may trace amounts of gluten that the kit doesn’t account for. It tests as low as 10ppm.
Have you ever used these kits before? What are your thoughts?
I am a little concerned about what is going on at 
In addition to the cakes and cookies and such, I noticed that they had some gluten-free savory garlic and herb biscuits. I can’t tell you the last time I had a biscuit. I decided to try that and a cookie sandwich.
Pei Wei is owned by 
There is an electronic menu on the stand where you order with all of the items on the regular menu so you can see what things cost and what is in each dish. There is no extra fee for ordering gluten-free (at PF Changs they charge about a $1 extra for all of their gluten-free menu options). The woman behind the counter said they take extra precautions for people who order gluten-free.
My main entree was the Pei Wei Spicy with chicken and brown rice. The outside of the chicken was slightly crispy. According to 
