Shaquille O'Neal is offering you a healthy-alternative vodka. Don't buy it - as least, the fact that it's a healthy-alternative alcohol.
The former NBA star 's "Luv Shaq" line of vodka hit the market earlier this year with labeling that stated it was gluten-free - also sugarless and coconut-flavored.
On Monday, however, an article in Scientific American questioned whether vodka should be marketed as gluten-free.
Consumerist.com reported that ever since the Food and Drug Administration established rules for gluten-free food labels in August, the hawking of gluten-free products has become more of a potential moneymaker for companies who have taken advantage of marketing the term.
According to the Scientific American article, "Gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye, causes severe gastrointestinal symptoms in people suffering from the autoimmune disorder celiac disease (CD). According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, three million Americans suffer from CD, which attacks the lining of the small intestine and keeps the body from absorbing necessary nutrients. The FDA says CD is linked to anemia, osteoporosis, diabetes, autoimmune thyroid disease and intestinal cancers."
But, the article continues, long-standing advisories from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics state that all distilled spirits are gluten-free unless gluten is added after the distilling process. According to Schientific American, Distillation involves heating, which vaporizes the alcohol and removes it from the mixture.
"Distilled spirits, because of the distillation process, should contain no detectable gluten residues or gluten peptide residues," Steve Taylor, co-director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Food Allergy Research and Resource Program, "Proteins and peptides are not volatile and thus would not distill over."
The article goes on to say that Blue Ice vodka's American Potato Vodka became the first spirit to receive gluten-free labeling in May 2013. Thomas Gibson, chief operating officer for Blue Ice's parent company guarantees that American Potato Vodka is gluten-free.
That guarantee is unnecessary, Taylor, one of the country's leading gluten testers, tells Scientific American. Taylor calls gluten-free vodka a "silly thing. ... All vodka is gluten-free unless there is some flavored vodka out there where someone adds a gluten-containing ingredient. I know that many celiac sufferers are extra-cautious. That is their privilege. But their [vodka] concerns are usually not science-based."
So while "Luv Shaq" wasn't the first to advertise the gluten-free guarantee, it could be argued that the label also is not the first to use a cheap marketing ploy.
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