Nutritional quality of gluten‐free products in Moroccan supermarkets and e‐commerce platforms

Abstract

Background and objectives Gluten found in wheat, barley, and rye causes celiac disease. The treatment of this disease is based on the gluten‐free diet. This diet involves the consumption of gluten‐free foods including gluten‐free products (GFPs) developed by manufacturers. The objective of this survey is to estimate the nutritional composition of the gluten‐free products by comparing them to equivalent regular products (RPs) containing gluten. Findings While the fiber contents were higher in the gluten‐free products, protein and sugar contents were lower in comparison with regular products (p < .0001). The differences in total energy, total carbohydrate, saturated fat, and salt differ from one category to another. The number of gluten‐free products that have been fortified with iron and vitamins was limited. The category of “Bread and Bakery products” which is the most consumed in Morocco is characterized by a low and high protein and fiber content, respectively (p < .001; p = .015, respectively). Conclusions The nutritional quality of the gluten‐free products is unbalanced. A significant protein deficiency is noted. Significance and novelty It is important to improve the nutritional quality of the gluten‐free products by replacing gluten with hydrocolloids and protein rich enzymes. A fortification by iron and vitamins remains a necessity to overcome the deficit.

Evaluation of adherence to gluten-free diets in Moroccan celiac patients and factors of adherence failure

“…These elements are necessary to reward the deficits noticed in celiac patients due to malabsorption secondary to the destruction of intestinal villi. This is confirmed by a study carried out in Morocco in 2020 which showed that the nutritional quality of PFG is unbalanced [24]. This impacts on the quality of life of Moroccan patients, which is poor in Moroccan children [25].…”

Nutritional quality and price of regular food versus gluten-free on E-commerce platforms

“…First, a search performed did to identify websites of supermarkets and online stores selling products through the Google search engine (www.google.com), configured to display results from Brazil in the Portuguese language. The terms used in this search were: "gluten-free products", "supermarkets gluten-free products", "website for online sale of gluten-free products", "purchase of gluten-free products", "online supermarket", "breads for sale online" and "Breads price nutritional information", according to adapted methodology proposed by Guennouni et al, (2020a).…”

“…The products were categorize into four product groups depending on the presence of gluten: baking mix (cake mix, bread mix, pie mix, puree mix and dessert mix), bread and bakery products (bread in all its forms, toast and panettone), pasta and cereal products (pasta in various forms, lasagna pasta, breakfast cereals) and cookies and cakes (cookies, filled or not, and cakes in various formats and ready for consumption). According to methodology proposed by Guennouni et al, (2020a), and the minimum number of 10 products for category did applied.…”

“…All gluten-free products had a lower protein content compared to their traditional versions, with the difference in values varying from 35.83% for the "baking mix" category to 192.62% for the "bread and bakery products" category. Other studies also presented lower protein content in gluten-free products (Guennouni et al, 2020a;Allen & Orfila, 2018;Madden & Fallaize, 2018). Some studies also observed this trend and proposes that the reduction in protein content is related to the addition of other ingredients such as gluten-free cereals (Babio et al, 2020), pseudocereals, starch, and hydrocolloids (such as xanthan gum, guar gum, and locust bean gum) resulting in loss of nutritional quality (Guennouni et al, 2020a).…”

“…Maintaining a gluten-free diet is complex due to aspects such as the relationship between food availability and its economic cost, which on average are 22 to 334% higher when compared to its gluten-containing versions (Panagiotou & Kontogianni, 2017). In addition, the nutritional quality is bottom, in the amount of protein (Guennouni et al, 2020a) and elevated glycemic index (Romão et al, 2020;Trevisan, Pasini & Simonato, 2019).…”