There are a number of reasons why people may not eat wheat. One is an allergy to wheat itself, another is true Celiac Sprue disease, and there are a lot of other people who may be on a somewhat faddish bandwagon, and avoid gluten because they think they feel better. (I personally am skeptical of the latter because there seems to be little or no scientific basis.) True Celiacs are sensitive to gluten, which is also found in barley, rye and all the so-called sprouted meals. Gluten is sneakily in foods of all kinds, from soy sauce and BBQ sauce and many additives. Some people could not even use plain vinegar because it could be made from these grains, but labeling rules have greatly improved. Sensitive people will even avoid foods that come off the same production lines as food that is used with wheat-foods. A real celiac will even use a dedicated toaster from the rest of the family, and there is the concern of cross-contamination in a thousand ways in a typical kitchen. If you want to provide something for your instructor, ask exactly why she is sensitive, because just the chance of cross-contamination may bother her. In that case, bring chocolate or fruit or something else that isn't remotely possibly contaminated. If she's avoiding gluten for diet reasons, then she's probably not allergically sensitive. As for baking things yourself, I've tried it,. and it was miserably hit-or-miss with odd (for me) ingredients. While my husband was on a GF diet for more than 6 months, it was just better to buy things at Whole Foods. Hope this helps a little. Others here are really good at baking GF, but it was a pain for me. Listen to them... ;-)

People who think going gluten-free will help lose weight have not done their research. That is, people who turn to gluten-free processed foods (instead of just cutting out the obvious fried breaded foods, heavy pastas, etc). I think this quote is very important: "eating gluten-free can lead to weight loss because the diet reduces carbohydrate intake, although this can be achieved without adhering to gluten-free labeling." I went gluten-free for 5 years after being diagnosed with IBS. My doc wanted to put me on meds, but I decided to do an elimination diet instead to find my triggers. Gluten seemed to be a part of the problem, so I cut it out. Felt so much better. But I recently started putting it back into my diet without any ill effects. Maybe I just needed to "cleanse" my system... whatever the case, I learned so much about what is in my food. It made me smarter about what I eat, gluten-free or not.

Thanks rhizo. Your post sent me looking for the information I'd seen about clementines (mandarins) and how they are kept seedless. This is one article that explains that if the seedless varieties are pollinated, they produce seeds, so growers try to isolate their groves from other types of oranges being grown that need pollinators - thus orange blossom honey, in order to set fruit. The info I found seemed to indicate that European growers of clementines do use insecticides to kill pollinators. In California, the growers just tried to ban bees! With the tough go bees are having these days, buying seedless fruit seems unethical to me (same with seedless grapes, I believe). If you find a seed in your seedless mandarin, it's because a pollinator got to it. San Diego Tribune Article

Corn gluten is fine for me. My gluten intolerance is wheat, but I do have some reaction to barley and malt gluten - but only in the USA. I can eat gluten just fine in Europe. :) As to your question regarding airborne (wheat, though - not corn) gluten - yes, some people have sensitivity to the point that they can't be in beer halls or around baking bread. It's rare, thankfully.