Gluten testers are devices designed to tell you whether something you plan to eat contains gluten.
Some of the most popular gluten test kit brands include EZ Gluten, Nima, and GlutenTox.
Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to using these devices.
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They tend to be expensive and may be out of reach for some people.
They aren’t always convenient to use, and false negatives and positives are common.
Are They Accurate?
Gluten testers are only accurate in samples containing a certain amount of gluten.
Sometimes they also give inaccurate results with foods that contain gluten within the range they are designed to detect.
They also don’t tell you how much gluten is in a positive sample.
These inaccuracies may mean you’ll eat gluten-containing products that the test kit misidentified as gluten-free.
You may also needlessly avoid products that would have been safe for you to eat.
Benefits
Nima is easy to use and its results are easy to interpret.
Drawbacks
Nima is expensive to buy and expensive to use.
Bundles of six capsules each are sold separately for $39.99.
Nima only tests food to the legal limit of fewer than 20 parts per million of gluten.
If the food contains trace gluten below the legal threshold, Nima will still display a smiley face.
The gadget also won’t necessarily detect gluten cross-contamination in foods.
This might give you a false sense of security about what you’re eating.
EZ Gluten’s main benefit is that it’s sensitive to lower levels of trace gluten.
EZ Gluten can help you pinpoint a reaction or identify products with lower gluten levels than that standard.
Like Nima, EZ Gluten test strips are expensive.
The test kits are not easy to use.
The sample needs to be ground to a fine consistency to make the gluten easier to detect.
Then, it’s mixed thoroughly into a liquid solution and added to a test tube.
A test strip is placed into the test tube and it takes 10 minutes to see the results.
This makes the EZ Gluten test impractical to use while dining out.
Interpreting the test is also not straightforward.
There’s also a result that means “invalid test.”
A very faint positive result can require a magnifying glass to detect.
GlutenTox Home will detect gluten as low as 5 parts per million.
That makes the test twice as sensitive as EZ Gluten and four times as sensitive as Nima.
GlutenTox Home is somewhat more complicated to use than EZ Gluten.
The food needs to be ground into a powder before it’s added to an extraction vial.
Then the sample is added to a dilution vial where it is shaken for 15 seconds.
It takes 10 minutes to get results but the whole process takes around 20 minutes to complete.
The GlutenTox test strips themselves are easier to interpret than the EZ Gluten test strips.
The pink line will appear darker for high concentrations of gluten and lighter for low concentrations.
A positive result may be too faint to see without magnification.
The main benefit of GlutenTox Home is that it is far more sensitive than EZ Gluten and Nima.
This makes it a good choice for people who are highly sensitive to gluten.
Summary
Gluten testing devices can help you identify gluten in the foods you eat.
The three most popular choices have varying levels of sensitivity: Nima, EZ Gluten, and GlutenTox Home.
Nima is easy to use but not as sensitive as the other two options.
EZ Gluten and GlutenTox Home are more difficult to use but more sensitive.
2019;275:446-456. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2018.08.117
National Celiac Association.Devices for testing gluten.
