… No Longer Offering Gluten-Free Dining!
We want only to bring you the most accurate and timely information pertaining to the gluten-free community. Daily Forage does great research to provide you with product and restaurant reviews that are valid and contribute themselves safely and accurately, enabling you to have the most recent facts, so you can proceed in making decisions that fit your health needs. With that in mind, we need to share with you the most updated information we’ve received from Baja-Sol.
About five weeks ago we shared a restaurant review on Baja-Sol, one of our favorite Mexican casual dining food establishments (chains) here in MN. We had it on good authority, at that time, that they were able to offer a large portion of their tasty menu … gluten-free style. Upon further contact with their corporate office, just late yesterday, I was informed that they can no longer make the claim that their food can be offered in a style to meet gluten-free dining guidelines.
The representative I spoke with shared that upon further research and understanding of what “gluten-free” really means, and the extent of potential impact on one’s health should contamination occur, Baja-Sol discovered that their practices involve numerous cross-contamination issues, whereby making their claims inaccurate. These, she shared with me, include the corn chips being fried in the same deep fryer as the flour tortillas, the rice being par-boiled in the same fryer as well, and many of the handling processes within the restaurants’ back kitchen prep stations allowing cross-contamination.
I thanked her for informing us of these changes, and I inquired as to when a change to the website menu and gluten-free statements on their signage would be addressed. Her response was that the online menus have been updated as recently as within the past few weeks, and the signage has been updated within this past week.
Though it happens too often that the “gluten-free” claim is misunderstood, and therefore used in misrepresentations of products and food establishments, I thank Baja-Sol for doing further research and rescinding their claims. We’d love to see them offer gluten-free choices in the future, but for now, you have the updated information to aid you in making choices that are “safe” for you.
When dining, or purchasing products, that make a claim to be gluten-free, always be sure to do your own double-checking. As we see here, restaurant practices, as well as labeling and ingredients of manufactured products, can change at any time.
Safe food is a journey … Thrive!
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