While potato salad can be exciting goodness, it can be a tricky side-dish choice for people with gluten intolerance. This is because the salad is a mixture of many things, and you cannot be so sure which contains gluten or not.
Are you skeptical about picking up Walmart Potato Salad because of celiac disease or some other possible side effects? You are reading the right article.
In this article, we would go through the list of ingredients Walmart potato salad is made from and then answer your question regarding whether it is gluten-free or not. Before then, we would do a brief review of what gluten is and in what foods it can be found.
Walmart potato salad may likely not contain gluten because it is largely made from unprocessed ingredients and without wheat sources. Nonetheless, there may be a need to reach out to the manufacturer because of inexplicitly stated ingredients like natural flavorings and spices. This is to ascertain if all the flavorings and spices are gluten-free.
Keep reading to see how we came to this conclusion and how the extra information you’ll come across may be of help.
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What Is The Main Source of Gluten?
Gluten is the protein found in wheat and all its forms like Kamut and spelled. It is found in some other grains including rye, barley, and a wheat hybrid called triticale (a combination of rye and barley).
Gluten has a natural source, but can be further extracted and added to food products to enhance their texture and flavor.
What Ingredients Are Used To Make Walmart Potato Salad?
One of the best ways to know if a particular food item contains gluten is to go through the list of ingredients. As indicated earlier, gluten has its source in natural wheat sources and is mostly found in processed food like bread and pasta.
However, by going through the ingredients Walmart potato salad contains, you can pay extra attention to those ingredients that may contain these traces.
| Gluten-Free | Not Easily Determinable | Not Gluten-Free |
| Potatoes | Mayonnaise (Soyabean oil, water, egg yolks, vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, salt, spice, calcium disodium EDTA). | – |
| High Fructose Corn Syrup | Sweet Pickles (cured cucumbers, high fructose corn syrup, vinegar, salt, xanthan gum, sodium benzoate, celery seed, mustard seed, alum, dehydrated red bell pepper, natural flavoring, turmeric, dehydrated onion, blue #1, polysorbate 80, calcium chloride). | – |
| High Fructose Corn Starch | Mustard (water, vinegar, mustard seed, salt, sugar, soybean oil, turmeric and paprika, annatto, garlic spices, xanthan gum, calcium disodium EDTA). | – |
| Hard Cooked Eggs | Spices | – |
| Celery | – | – |
| Bell pepper | – | – |
| Onion | – | – |
| Modified corn starch | – | – |
| Potassium Sorbate | – | – |
Note: Ingredients in bold are liable to contain gluten because their constituents are not explicitly stated, hence, a need to be extra cautious.
Is Walmart Potato Salad Gluten-Free?
Having gone through the list of ingredients, it is observed that Walmart Potato Salad is largely made from unprocessed ingredients without wheat sources. Most of the ingredients are naturally gluten-free as seen in the table above.
Meanwhile, some skepticism arises seeing that one of the ingredients is just written as ‘spices’. This drives curiosity because, from experience, most foods that are gluten-free write just ‘spice’. Spices have an ingredient that can contain many things, including the ones that are not gluten-free.
From the table too, the type of salt used is not specified. Since not all salts are gluten-free, this may be something to look into.
Tip: You can overlook this because most restaurants used ionized salts, which are naturally gluten-free.
What Are The Chances Of Walmart Potato Salad Gluten-Free?
The chances that Walmart potato salad does not contain gluten hinges on the fact that the ingredients are largely from naturally gluten-free sources, and it seems that the manufacturer has carefully selected the ingredients to be fit for people with celiac disease and another form of gluten intolerance.
What Are The Chances Of Walmart Potato Salad Containing Gluten?
The words flavorings and spices in the ingredient section of a product may include several non-gluten-free ingredients. Even though there are no obvious ‘not gluten-free’ ingredients, this implies that there is a possibility that the potato salad contains some gluten ingredients amidst its flavors and spices.
Tip: The only way to confirm or annul this guess is to reach out to the manufacturer, requiring a detailed list of flavors and spices used for the potato salad. This way, you can make have more grounded information.
In addition, the allergy statement on the product states that it contains eggs. While eggs are naturally gluten-free, it would be safe to know why this statement was put there. You also need to find out from the manufacturer if any spice has been added to the eggs.
Tips: Eggs become not-gluten free when they are processed with gluten-containing ingredients.
Summary
Walmart potato salad is largely made from naturally gluten-free and unprocessed ingredients, but there are chances that it contains some gluten because of detailed ‘natural flavorings’ and ‘spices’.
It can be safe to say that Walmart potato salad is gluten-free but reach out to the manufacturer to clear every guess.
