Stupid question about Cuban Cigars

[JohnnyO]

Couldnt find any AI answers but was wondering if anyone knows if Cuban cigars use gluten in their glues? Was asked this by a BOTL that has a friend who is allergic to gluten. Anyone? John 

[Puros Y Vino]

From talking to Hamlet and various people in Havana they use a pine sap/wax sourced from Canada.

[Li Bai]

 

 

[Li Bai]

31 minutes ago, JohnnyO said:

Couldnt find any AI answers but was wondering if anyone knows if Cuban cigars use gluten in their glues? Was asked this by a BOTL that has a friend who is allergic to gluten. Anyone? John 

I would advise him not to eat cigars either way 😁

[SCgarman]

You are smoking a cigar, not eating it! 🤪

[BrightonCorgi]

Stop smoking 2" from the cap. 😒

[Li Bai]

To be fair, if the guy is ACTUALLY allergic (not intolerant like everybody seems to be these days) to gluten/wheat, its presence in the glue could be life-threatening to him.

[Fugu]

3 hours ago, JohnnyO said:

Couldnt find any AI answers but was wondering if anyone knows if Cuban cigars use gluten in their glues? Was asked this by a BOTL that has a friend who is allergic to gluten. Anyone? John 

Gum tragacanth is normally used, which is a polysaccharide (carbohydrate) and as such completely unrelated to gluten, which is a protein.

[Bri Fi]

Ask cigar Confucius 

[Havanaaddict]

Man I would think that is a hard question to answer if you're talking about Cuban cigars! As I would think in Cuba they will use what ever they can get there hands on especially on the farm-rolled cigars! Maybe in the factories it might be more consistent, could be fruit pectin, vegetable gum, potato starch, bermocoll powder, gum arabic!

There seems to be only really 3 types!

Starches 

Gums

Cellulose

[westg]

15 hours ago, Bri Fi said:

Ask cigar Confucius 

First up , it's actually a fair question with great input as always. That said from here on in he is always going to be cigar Confucius to me . 🤣 So funny and I would not be surprised to see that from him soon enough in a pasty mustard suit.  

[Puros Y Vino]

On 2/12/2025 at 4:25 AM, Li Bai said:

To be fair, if the guy is ACTUALLY allergic (not intolerant like everybody seems to be these days) to gluten/wheat, its presence in the glue could be life-threatening to him.

My wife and many of her siblings have Celiac disease (the gluten allergy condition). It isn't "life threatening" in the way someone who is allergic to shellfish could die with one exposure. It's a culmination of non-treatment and constant exposure over time that could technically starve you to death.  One of her brothers developed it early on as a child. Their mother couldn't figure out what was wrong with him as doctors in the 60's really didn't know about it. She eventually found some diet books that helped him. Otherwise  he was heading to a bad place. He looked like a starving child, bloated belly, etc. The gluten basically inflames and gums up your intestines to the point where you cannot absorb any nutrients from whatever you eat. Four of six siblings in their family have it. They suspect the other 2 don't want to get tested.🫣

[JohnnyO]

Spoke to a roller in Cuba and they use CMC or Carboxymethyl Cellulose whose major source is softwood pulp or cotton linter. There is a sizeable write up in Wiki about it but no mention of its uses for cigars. Gluten is primarily wheat and is the cheaper of the two. Prez what are they using in Fabrica5? John

[Puros Y Vino]

17 minutes ago, JohnnyO said:

Spoke to a roller in Cuba and they use CMC or Carboxymethyl Cellulose whose major source is softwood pulp or cotton linter. There is a sizeable write up in Wiki about it but no mention of its uses for cigars. Gluten is primarily wheat and is the cheaper of the two. Prez what are they using in Fabrica5? John

Makes sense. So not tree sap, but the cellulose. 

[trader1974]

6 hours ago, Puros Y Vino said:

My wife and many of her siblings have Celiac disease (the gluten allergy condition). It isn't "life threatening" in the way someone who is allergic to shellfish could die with one exposure. It's a culmination of non-treatment and constant exposure over time that could technically starve you to death.  One of her brothers developed it early on as a child. Their mother couldn't figure out what was wrong with him as doctors in the 60's really didn't know about it. She eventually found some diet books that helped him. Otherwise  he was heading to a bad place. He looked like a starving child, bloated belly, etc. The gluten basically inflames and gums up your intestines to the point where you cannot absorb any nutrients from whatever you eat. Four of six siblings in their family have it. They suspect the other 2 don't want to get tested.🫣

Same situation with my daughter. Your info is spot on. Once we figured it out, totally different health situation for her. Cross contamination is a huge problem also.

[Li Bai]

6 hours ago, Puros Y Vino said:

My wife and many of her siblings have Celiac disease (the gluten allergy condition). It isn't "life threatening" in the way someone who is allergic to shellfish could die with one exposure. It's a culmination of non-treatment and constant exposure over time that could technically starve you to death.  One of her brothers developed it early on as a child. Their mother couldn't figure out what was wrong with him as doctors in the 60's really didn't know about it. She eventually found some diet books that helped him. Otherwise  he was heading to a bad place. He looked like a starving child, bloated belly, etc. The gluten basically inflames and gums up your intestines to the point where you cannot absorb any nutrients from whatever you eat. Four of six siblings in their family have it. They suspect the other 2 don't want to get tested.🫣

The coeliac disease is no joke for sure, many patients of mine suffer from it and it should be taken seriously, I'm sorry to hear about your wife's family. I was talking about that gluten-free trend that's been getting out of hands for years here. And then there is also an actual allergy to gluten/wheat that is quite rare and can even lead to Quincke's edema, just like peanut butter or shellfish or any kind of actual allergy.

I was not trying to make fun of sick people in any way. 👍

 

[Puros Y Vino]

4 hours ago, Li Bai said:

 The coeliac disease is no joke for sure, many patients of mine suffer from it and it should be taken seriously, I'm sorry to hear about your wife's family. I was talking about that gluten-free trend that's been getting out of hands for years here. And then there is also an actual allergy to gluten/wheat that is quite rare and can even lead to Quincke's edema, just like peanut butter or shellfish or any kind of actual allergy.

I was not trying to make fun of sick people in any way.👍

Hmm...Didn't know you were a doctor. I didn't get the impression you were trying to make fun of anyone in your post. No worries there. 👌 As for the "gluten-free trend", I'm kind of see what I think you're getting at. I subscribe to the gluten-free subreddit. And while it's full of good info on new products, research, etc, the majority of the posts I see are kinda whacky. "Have I been glutened?!" "I just ate a regular Oreo and pooped myself.  Should I go with the GF ones!?", etc, etc. It does seem to attract some hypochondriacs and picky eaters. Some see it as a healthier alternative and there is some data to support that. But it gets to the point where non-celiacs start to believe that getting off GF alternatives is bad for them. Eat what you like, sure. But don't go overboard self-diagnosing.  

One funny example. At family get togethers. There's always a GF and NON-GF spread of goodies to nosh on. My BIL has a girlfriend on the uh..."big" side. She literally gravitates towards the GF stuff thinking that its healthier and won't make her fat. Wrong. It's very much processed food, just with different base "grains". The best GF diet is the one that avoids bread as much as possible. But, lets face it. We all love a sandwich, pizza, pasta, etc. With that said, the good flipside of the gluten free trend is that there is a lot more products to choose from that are far better than what was available 20 years ago. And prices for GF have been coming down due to the larger economy so scale. There are still some discrepancies between what constitutes GF from country to country. I.e., The US one is less restrictive than the Canadian one. Under the US based numbers, Corona beer is GF. Under the Canadian standard, it is not. It comes down to each person and their tolerance and personal biology. From what I understand, if you do cheat on your GF diet, it takes months or years to undo that damage.

[Li Bai]

I'm a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner (have been for 20 years), not a doctor.

I don't want to go too much off-topic here but I'm a bit worried about self-diagnosing, it often makes people give lots of money to opportunistic companies, it is what it is.

Particularly in the western world, our diets have become badly unbalanced. Now many people are looking for better food and you're right, one can find better food than 20 years ago, when one can afford it. 

There are still lots of things we don't quite understand about wheat/gluten and my take on the matter is that too much people eat gluten-free food.

Traditionally, cereals were cooked and eaten together with legumes that helped digestion as they're hard to digest and a few times a year tcm doctors would advise people to go one week without any cereal to put their guts to rest. It's often enough to make those with no actual allergy or coeliac disease feel better.

Fwiw, and sorry for the (too) long post 😅

[BoliDan]

I thought gluten allergies were triggered in the digestive process? Unless he is swallowing the smoke this shouldn't be a worry. You'd need to reach out to HSA about glue ingredients, but I doubt they even know as they outsource a lot of stuff.

[MrBirdman]

A growing theory is that the rise in GI conditions may be due to the elimination of worms in western society. Our digestive systems essentially evolved symbiotically with them. Not that I’m signing up for them.

Also Li, I completely agree that the gluten free thing has been taken too far. A lot of gluten free food is unhealthy and/or difficult to digest. Some people do tolerate it poorly (bloating, water retention) and of course you must avoid gluten entirely if you have celiac disease, but as far as I can tell there are no health benefits to avoiding gluten unless you’re in one of those groups.