Preventing Condiment and Sauce Cross-Contamination

Cross-contamination is what happens when something that is gluten-free is contaminated from something containing gluten. There are quite a few ways this tends to happen and since I live in a household where I'm the only GF person, I've got to be on the watch for a lot of them.

One big culprit at our house was the condiments (mayo, mustard, etc) and sauces in the fridge. I have an (almost) ten-year-old ADHD boy and the idea of preventing contamination is not really on his list anywhere. He's well intentioned but doesn't get the idea of not putting a knife that's scraped regular bread back into the mayo jar to get more mayo.

So let me tell you a tip that really helps us.

SQUEEZE BOTTLES

Some products are sold in them (though often more expensively than in the standard packaging) but even those that are not can often be put into a squeeze bottle and stored in the fridge. I buy some bottles from kitchen supply stores that have caps and are what restaurants and sandwich shops often use. I've had to modify a few (stone-ground mustard requires me to cut the tip off a bit so I have a bigger opening) but this simple change has removed much of the fear of cross-contamination from those food products.

It's worth the time and investment!