Monday, August 16, 2010

Glutening Tokyo: Convenience Stores

I used to love convenience stores, with their ever-changing selection of items and hot, greasy fried slabs of chicken.  Now, since quittin' the gluten, not so much.  Going to the convenience store is this awful trial that requires a lot of holding packages over my head (can't flip them over and the ingredients are printed on the bottom), sighing, and shoving them back on the shelf.

What can you eat?  Well, there's the typical stuff.  Drinks are usually fine.  I've yet to find a drink that wasn't.  Ice cream, basically you need to use common sense.  Cut fruit should be okay.  After that?  Beware.

Salad:  Most salads are fine.  Watch out for "pasta" salads that have cold spaghetti at the bottom or salads with fried or marinated meats on top.  I've also encountered totally safe-looking salads that list wheat as an ingredient.  I can only guess it was in a marinade for some vegetable piled on the top.  Salad dressings are hit or miss.  I went to Family Mart the other day and they had ZERO safe dressings.  Out of six. 

Sushi:  Sushi in the convenience store is iffy at best.  The ingredient label may lump in soy sauce with the regular sushi ingredients, so sometimes it's hard to tell if it contains wheat there or elsewhere.  Usually the varieties available are "salad," "natto," "negitoro," and a combination of various types of sushi.  The variety pack is iffy, as the eel (maybe in there) and egg (definitely always in there) are not safe.  Because the pack does not individually list ingredients for every type of sushi, I wouldn't trust it.  Negitoro is mashed tuna with onion.  It usually lists wheat as an ingredient, which could be the soy sauce, but since the tuna is mashed, I have no idea what's in it.  Natto might be okay.  Except it's rotten soy beans.  Salad flavor almost always contains wheat in the mayo.

Onigiri:  Onigiri are rice balls.  I'll lump maki-zushi in with this (looks like a sushi tube).  These are almost never okay if they contain any sauce or mayo.  A plain onigiri with just salmon in it is usually okay, but be careful and check for 小麦 on the label.  Lawson is the worst offender.  They seem to shove wheat into everything.

Desserts:  Most of these contain cake.  Frustrating, yes.  Pudding is even only safe about 50 percent of the time.  Even things that look like they should be okay are usually not okay.  You need to check for wheat. 

Meals:  These are almost never okay.  I have found TWO entrees in the past year that were okay.  One was a mistake (shipped to the wrong area, whoops!) and the other disappeared as well.  One was jambalaya (at Sunkus) and one was a kimchi pork on rice meal (at Family Mart).  Similar meals at other convenience stores were and are not safe to eat.  Basically, most meals contain soy sauce or oyster sauce or some kind of sauce.  What's in the sauce?  Wheaaaat.  You can read labels if you want, but it's pretty futile.  You can definitely eat the salt-grilled fish at 7-11 and white rice anywhere.  Make sure the white rice is not mixed with barley.

(I saw a website talking about the gluten-free fried rice dishes at Lawson and balked.  Nothing in Lawson is or has ever been safe to eat.  Fried rice in Japan is never ever safe.) 

Fast Food:  Most convenience stores have hot snacks up front.  Your options are limited. 
Family Mart: Nothing
7-11: Hot dog on a stick should be okay, in Tokyo.  Sometimes this is different for different areas.
am/pm: Pretty sure nothing
Mini Stop: French fries, Idaho stick potato, hot dog on a stick, ice cream (in a cup), and some parfaits are okay
Lawson: Pretty sure nothing

Packaged foods:  Chips and chocolate are not always safe!!  I've found salt flavor potato chips with both wheat and pork in the ingredients.  Watch out for chocolate, as it often contains rice crisps (malt).  Also, m&ms and Snickers both use wheat starch here.  Plain chocolate should be okay.  Plain Choco Flake is okay (no malt).  Pringles are not (same as home--wheat starch), but Chip Star (plain flavor) is fine. 

I hope this helps if you're about to trek off to Japan.  Worst case scenario, you can just buy a lovely, individually wrapped banana. 

Unless you're allergic to bananas.

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