Grain-free

How it works

The carbohydrate has to come from somewhere, and in most grain-free foods it comes from pulses such as peas, lentils and chickpeas, or from potato and sweet potato. That substitution is the part that matters. The label describes what has been left out and says nothing about what replaced it, so two grain-free foods can differ enormously in composition, and a grain-inclusive food can contain a high proportion of the same pulses.

What it looks like

A grain-free food lists peas, pea protein and pea starch among its first six ingredients. A grain-inclusive food on the same shelf lists rice and also carries a substantial quantity of lentils. The label on the front distinguishes them; the pulse content does not.

Commonly confused with

Pulses

Grain-free describes what a food omits. Pulses are what most grain-free foods use instead, and they are the ingredient the current research is actually concerned with. The two are routinely treated as the same question and are not.

Related terms