Is Conker Gluten-Free?

Short answer: No.
Long answer: I have had quite a few people ask me if Conker is gluten intolerant/free. No, to both of those. They often ask when I mention his wheat intolerance, since I guess a "big" health thing right now is going gluten-free. How do I know he is not gluten intolerant? Because he does not react badly to oats, rye, or barley, all of which contain... You guessed it, gluten!
That problem appears to only pertain to wheat, not gluten-inclusive grains. Thankfully, I might add.

Anyways, this got me thinking about something. If Conker were gluten intolerant and couldn't eat oats, where would I be? Up by only about $0.20 per meal, if I used quinoa. If I used amaranth I'd be down about $0.05. Wait, down? Yep! Though more expensive per pound than oats, amaranth is PACKED with nutrients so I would need to use about half as much of it to get what I needed.
Now, that isn't a very mid decrease in price, but that makes purchasing amaranth for Conker and using frequently worth doing. And since I already buy a lot of it for me (I like to pop it like popcorn then mix it with honey and carob. DELICIOUS) adding more to the bag for Conker wouldn't be much of an issue.

Millet is another gluten-free grain. It tastes surprisingly good both raw and cooked, if you are into grains like that. Millet is even cheaper than amaranth per pound and is nutrient dense as well.
However, I don't know if Nutritiondata is glitching here or what, but I cannot for the life of me get the cooked and uncooked nutrient levels to line up (there will be some variance, as nutrients are both lost and gained during cooking, so they will never be exact) and in order to get Conker his daily requirement of magnesium and manganese, I would need to feed him over a cup and a half millet to achieve that. And compared to a cup of oats, cup of quinoa, or half cup of amaranth, that seems a bit excessive. This is where I am a bit wierded out, since that does not happen with the other two gluten-free grains which have similar nutrient levels as millet.
So, for now, millet is just an occasional meal item until I can figure out what it's deal is.

Rice is considered gluten-free, but I rarely use it due to Conker refusing to eat it (haven't tested this recently) and it's magnesium/manganese ratio. I prefer not to have a ton of excess manganese, which happens if I use rice. I am paranoid about the correct balance of things and this just throws me off. But I''ll probably use it more often when I figure out how to remedy that.


Anywho, I'll be writing a bit more about the new grains in Conker's homemade diet once I am finished with this most recent bag of kibble. Should be in about a week or so.