Thursday, January 29, 2009

Word of Caution: Buffalo Wild Wings

Buffalo Wild Wings - a.k.a. BW3's used to be a favorite of mine before going Gluten Free. Since one was just built near my house, I figured I would look into their Gluten Free status. A quick check of their Web site reveals the following FAQ page. Nothing here about Gluten Free menu items except...
Nutritional and Allergen information can be obtained on all Buffalo Wild Wings menu item by contacting us directly through our web site. Use the Contact Us link and request this information. We will send a PDF version and answer any other BWW dietary question you may have.
So, I fired off an email to BW3 asking for the PDF allergen menu information. Turns out it would be easier if they would just update the above statement saying if you are Gluten Free to STAY AWAY. They promptly responded with an Allergen List and information about the ingredients in their burger seasonings and wing sauces. Below is a summary and my word of caution.
  • BW3 traditional chicken wings, fries, buffalo chips, boneless (breaded) chicken wings and tortilla chips are all cooked in a deep fryer which is shared by everything else fried. NOT GLUTEN FREE.
  • All grilled items including naked chicken tenders (themselves GF) are cooked on the same grill. NOT GLUTEN FREE.
  • BW3 burgers contain Gluten, burger seasoning does not. NOT GLUTEN FREE.
  • BW3 sweet BBQ Wing Sauce, Teriyaki Sauce and Asian Zing Wing Sauce do contain Gluten. Other sauces do not but as mentioned before the risk of cross-contact exists with all products that could be sauced.
You can probably have some celery and Ranch dressing, coleslaw or salsa without tortilla chips but that's about it. Hope you are not too hungry. I've convinced myself that I didn't really want to eat at BW3's again anyway, especially after reading their wing sauce ingredient and nutritional information list - most sauces have more than twenty ingredients and some have more than 600mg sodium per 1 Tablespoon (that's 25% of your daily intake)- yikes. It's funny how you don't care about looking at ingredients until you go Gluten Free and then you realize what kind of crap you were eating before.

2 comments:

Emily said...

A word of caution about TORTILLA CHIPS. If they're Tostitos or whatever brand from the store, they are usually alright, BUT lots of chips from restaurants are NOT GLUTEN FREE (Applebees, Moe's, etc). Either they "water down" their corn with wheat, or if they make them there they are sometimes rolled out on flour. I was eating every corn chip everywhere, for a while...whoops. Unfortunately, gotta ask...or avoid the tortilla chips altogether...bummer, I know...

Anonymous said...

and for Tostitos, the Triumph grocery guide actually says they have a risk of cross contamination. I go with Utz.

Post a Comment