What Ingredients are Found in Gluten-Free Oreo Cookies? and Putting Oreos to the Nima Sensor Test

Curious what ingredients are found in gluten-free Oreo cookies? In this post, I’ll discuss the safety of each of the ingredients, as well as share how the new gluten-free Oreo cookies fared when tested for hidden gluten. This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosures.

Gluten-free Oreo cookies have taken the gluten-free community by storm. Even I had try the new gluten-free Oreo cookies as soon as I could get my hands on them.

The gluten-free Oreo cookies taste just like regular Oreos. You’d never know that they’re gluten free.

Nabisco launched both Gluten-Free Original Oreo cookies and Gluten-Free Double Stuf Oreo cookies in January 2021. Both cookies are widely available at retailers including Kroger, Safeway, Target and Walmart.

I’ve posted about the new gluten-free Oreo cookies on Instagram and in my newsletter, and every time I do, someone always asks me about the ingredients, especially expressing concern in the oat flour used in the Oreo cookies is gluten-free safe.

In this article, I’ll set the record straight on the ingredients in gluten-free Oreo cookies once and for all as well as share how the cookies fared when put to the hidden gluten test.

Ingredients found in Gluten-Free Oreo Cookies

The ingredients used in gluten-free Oreo cookies include:

Sugar
White rice flour
Tapioca Starch
Palm Oil
Canola Oil
Whole oat flour (gluten free – see below)
Cornstarch
Cocoa
Invert Sugar
Soy Lecithin
Baking soda
Salt
Xanthan gum
Chocolate
Artificial flavor

_{This image is from the Nabisco website and shows the difference between the original gluten-free Oreo cookie vs. the gluten-free double stuf Oreo cookie.}

All the ingredients are gluten-free safe, but a lot of people question me about the oats. Are the oats used to make the gluten-free Oreo cookies safe?

The gluten-free world is always confused about whether there is gluten in oats, and this confusion is compounded when you read other blogs and listen to the hysteria about oats in Facebook groups.

The truth is, oats are gluten free if they’re labeled gluten free. A gluten-free label means the company has tested its final product to ensure it contains less than the 20 parts per million of gluten as required by the FDA’s gluten-free labeling laws.

Gluten is found in wheat, rye, barley, and yes, sometimes oats. However, while oats are naturally gluten free, they’re cross contaminated with wheat as they are grown in rotation with wheat in the fields. Most oat products contain a significant amount of wheat as a result.

However, manufacturers have created a system for either mechanically or optically sorting oats, as well as washing oats, to ensure they contain no wheat fragments. These are known as commodity oats. These oats are tested before they’re used, and the final product containing the gluten-free oats are tested too.

Nabisco uses commodity oats and has taken the time to become certified gluten free by the Gluten-Free Certification Organization (GFCO), the largest third-party gluten-free certifying agency in the U.S. The GFCO only certifies products that test at 10 ppm of gluten or less, which is a lower threshold than the FDA’s requirement of 20 ppm of gluten or less.

*_{This image is from the Nabisco website and shows the Oreo cookie upclose and the certified gluten-free label located on each package}.*

The Internet is abuzz with purist gluten-free eaters declaring that they’ll only eat purity protocol oats, which are oats grown in dedicated gluten-free fields. Purity oats are harder to come by and generally more expensive. The truth is, even purity protocol oats need to be tested before they’re included in a product as no grain is truly safe from the potential of cross contamination during the growing process.

Please note that there is a small percentage of the population with celiac disease who experience a phenomenon known as cross reactivity to oats. If you experience such cross reactivity, or cannot tolerate oats in general, then don’t eat gluten-free Oreo cookies. Most people with celiac disease, however, can tolerate oats just fine, including me.

Testing Oreos for Hidden Gluten

While gluten-free Oreo cookies are certified gluten free by the GFCO, I still wanted to put the sandwich cookie to the Nima Sensor test to help put the oat purists’ minds at ease.

A Nima Sensor is a a portable gluten detecting device that allows you to test a pea-sized sample of a product for hidden gluten.

Unfortunately, Nima Sensor has been through a lot of ups and downs. Nima went out of business in 2020, but came back in 2021 under new management. Another gluten-detecting device, The Allergy Amulet, is set to launch in 2022 and promises to give Nima a run for its money.

I tested a gluten-free Double Stuf Oreo for hidden gluten. Nima came back with a smile, and a smiley face means no gluten found.

The ingredients inside the new Gluten Free Oreo cookies tested negative for hidden gluten.

Recipes with Oreo Cookies

Now that gluten-free Oreo cookies are finally here, it’s time to bring on the gluten-free recipes!

I created this beautiful Cookies & Cream Chocolate Pudding recipe using gluten-free Oreo cookies. You could also use Glutino sandwich cookies or Trader Joe’s imitation Oreos instead. I think the gluten-free Oreo cookies taste the best, though.