Canadian Allergy Alerts Page

You all have the US alerts page, www.Recalls.gov, bookmarked, I hope.

I want to remind you that the Canadian government maintains a similar site. Look for the What's New links on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency page.

You'll see a number of alerts about such items as undeclared milk in various foods.

New Food Labeling Requirements Proposed in Canada

Health Canada, the governmental department that is similar to the Department of Health and Human Services in the U.S. had put new food labeling requirements up for public comment for the next 90 days.

Food Allergies - New Labelling Requirements for Foods: Regulations to Enhance the Labelling of Food Allergens, Gluten Sources and Added Sulphites.

Although the Food and Drug Regulations (the Regulations) require that a complete and accurate list of ingredients appear on the label of most prepackaged foods, they currently exempt certain ingredients from component declaration. For example, when flavours, flour, seasoning and margarine are used as ingredients in other foods, their components do not have to be included in the list of ingredients. In addition, the name used to declare an ingredient’s presence in a food may make it difficult to determine if the food should be avoided (e.g. ovalbumin for egg derivatives, casein for milk ingredients...). As a result, food allergens, gluten sources and added sulphites can be “hidden” from consumers trying to identify them in the list of ingredients.

The proposed new regulations correct this by requiring that any source of a potential allergen must be declared.

The new Food and Drug Regulations will require that the following foods be declared on food labels whenever they or their protein derivatives are added to prepackaged foods having a list of ingredients, whether they are added as ingredients, or as components of ingredients.

1) Food allergens, meaning any protein from any of the following foods or any modified protein, including any protein fraction, that is derived from any of the following foods:

a) almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios or walnuts;
b) peanuts;
c) sesame seeds;
d) wheat, kamut, spelt or triticale;
e) eggs;
f) milk;
g) soybeans;
h) crustaceans;
i) shellfish; or
j) fish.

2) The gluten source when the food contains any gluten protein from the grain of any of the following cereals or the grain of a hybridized strain produced from at least one of the following cereals: barley, oats, rye, triticale or wheat, including kamut or spelt.

3) Sulphites, when either directly added to a food or when the total amount of sulphites present in the food is 10 parts per million or more.

The proposed regulations will also require that the list of ingredients identify the specific sources of hydrolysed plant proteins, starches and modified starches, and lecithins.

Manufacturers will have to declare food allergens and gluten sources by name either in the list of ingredients or at the end of the list of ingredients in a statement called "Allergy and Intolerance Information - Contains: ...". It will be mandatory to use this statement to declare added sulphites when the concentration in the final product is equal or higher than 10 ppm.

When the statement: "Allergy and Intolerance Information - Contains: ...", it will also need to list the food allergen, gluten sources and added sulphites (at 10 ppm and above) in the food, whether allergens and gluten sources have already been declared in the ingredients list or not.

Manufacturers and importers will have one year from the time the final regulations are published to comply. If there are significant objections to the regulations, this period may be quite far in the future. If all goes well, consumers will see all products conforming to them by the end of next year.

Health Canada has a Q&A, Questions and Answers About the New Regulations to Enhance the Labelling of Food Allergens, Gluten and Added Sulphites, for consumers.

The Canada Gazette has a long, if technical, examination of the issues behind the proposal and what they mean for industry and consumers.

Lactose On Labels - And Not

Here's an email I just received.

I read labels carefully since I am very sensitive to lactose. Is it possible that contents may be changed before the label is changed? Several times I've had the typical symptoms of L.I. in products that do not indicate the presence of any lactose-containing substances.

A whole pile of issues are compressed into this short email. Let me try to sort them out.

First, to answer the direct question about change: over the years I've seen documented reports of recipes being changed but the labels lagging behind. It happens but so seldom and sporadically that it's unlikely you've encountered it personally several times.

What does happen more frequently is that a batch of food accidentally gets cross-contaminated by exposure to potential allergens during processing or that a label is incorrectly rendered. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) compile these notices and make them available to the public. Their format is not the easiest, and I'd recommend that you look at the Kids with Food Allergies Alert page for an up-to-date and readable compilation.

Of course, those notices cover all eight of the most serious allergens: milk, peanuts, nuts, eggs, soy, wheat, fish, and shellfish. Milk alerts occur only about once a month. Again, it would be rare for any one individual to consume a number of these very random products.

So that brings up the final issue. Digestive upsets have numerous causes. Even if you're lactose intolerant, other foods may cause problems for any number of reasons. If you notice a pattern in foods that normally don't contain lactose, try to determine what other food or ingredient or circumstance may be the real cause of your distress.

Visit the First 'Allergy-Friendly Community'

Baabe lies about as far northeast as you can go in Germany, a seaside resort town on the island of Rügen in an archipelago sticking out from the mainland into the Baltic Sea near the Polish border.

It has a pretty, if shallow, white-sand beach that must be nice in the summertime. Winters probably get blustery, though.

I'm sure it's a pleasant vacation spot if you live in Hamburg, Germany, about 200 miles away, the closest city I can find whose name I recognize. By why should anyone else pay attention to it?

Because next week it'll named the world’s first "allergy-friendly community" by the European Centre for Allergy Research Foundation (ECARF).

An article in The Local (Germany's News in English) gives us the details.

[Uta Donner, the town’s marketing director] said that so far 180 beds in rental homes, hotels and pensions, furnished with special mite-free mattress covers, have been certified allergy-friendly by ECARF. Restaurants, supermarkets and bakeries will also take part, selling allergy-sensitive products like gluten-free bread and milk-free ice cream. Even some hair salons will sell allergy-sensitive products and services.

Pollen-rich trees will no longer be planted in the town, and a special pollen-catching net is under construction so scientists can analyze the town’s pollen quantities, German news agency DDP reports.

Other amenities for the über-sensitive include specific food allergy provisions, special vacuum cleaners to reduce dust, and nickel-free cooking implements.

The article says that 30% of Germans suffer from allergies, a number that seems high to me, even if you add up every type of allergy in existence, even the extremely mild generalized dust/pollen allergy that I have. A high number is good for scaring, er, luring tourists to the tiny town, though.

And how can I argue with the easy availability of allergen-free food?

Now to persuade American tourist traps to set out their lures.

Egg Allergens Scrambled

In a breakthrough for allergy sufferers, European researchers have manipulated eggs to reduce - almost, but not quite, remove - their allergenic properties.

The press release says:

People who suffer from egg allergies may soon be able to have their quiche and eat it too. Chemists in Germany and Switzerland report development of a new process that greatly reduces allergens in eggs and may lead to safer, more specialized food products for individuals with egg allergies.

...

In the new study, Angelika Paschke and colleagues describe their process, which exposes raw eggs to a combination of high heat and enzymes to break down their main allergens. The researchers then tested their reduced-allergen egg against blood serum collected from people with egg allergies. The modified egg product was 100 times less allergenic than raw egg, the scientists say. It does not significantly affect flavor and texture when used in various products, they add.

The study "In Vitro Determination of the Allergenic Potential of Technologically Altered Hen's Egg" is scheduled for the March 12 issue of ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Being able to do this in eggs doesn't imply that a similar technique will work against the allergens in milk, but all fundamental breakthroughs in the field are good news.

Are Food Labels Giving the Right Info?

The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2006, requires foodmakers to identify, in plain language, the presence of any of the eight major food allergens. For example, a product that contains casein must specify that it contains a milk derivative.

Most firms go much farther than that. You'll commonly see statements about possible cross-contamination at the bottom at a food label. Take Newman's Own Organics' Fig Newmans, one of Paul Newman's product line. There's wheat and milk in the ingredients and those are noted. But underneath the label is a statement that the cookies are made on "equipment that may process products containing peanuts, other nuts and milk powder."

Great, right? Even the possibility of the presence of an allergen is covered. What more could anybody want?

Well, nothing satisfies everyone. And complaints are being raised even about this vast improvement over the old labeling, says an article by Julie Schmit in USA Today.

One complainer is someone I frequently quote, Anne Munoz-Furlong, founder of the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN). She's worried that manufacturers try to game the system by putting overly-broad disclaimers on the packages so that they don't have to closely monitor their manufacturing processes.

Munoz-Furlong gives one example:

Some Harry & David products include an advisory that is so broad FANN's Munoz-Furlong calls it "ridiculous." The statement: "May contain peanuts and/or trace amounts of allergens not listed in the ingredients."

Harry & David do gourmet food packages, making 571 different products in one facility. They counter by saying:

The company has "robust quality systems" checked by two sets of outside inspectors, [senior vice president Thomas] Forsythe says. Equipment and production lines are sanitized to minimize contamination risks.

Schmit continues:

Still, Harry & David had four allergen recalls in the past year. Three resulted from the wrong labels being applied. One cause was never identified. Three recalls covered products other companies made for Harry & David. Two of those companies are no longer used, Forsythe says. The other stepped up its label-control procedures, as did Harry & David. No illnesses were reported in any of the recalls.

I agree that saying merely "other allergens" is not living up to the spirit of the regulations. The impression I get is that Munoz-Furlong wants Harry & David to identify each possible cross-contamination for each food. From the limited information given in the article, it's not clear to me how the firm could effectively do that. Some compromise might be needed here.

As a general rule, however, I'm not seeing massive wrongdoing. Given that somebody always has to be the worst case in any line of work, I don't doubt that somewhere out there some firm is not keeping the highest quality standards.

The reality is, though, that the worst firm would be the worst firm regardless. And a broad label does keep the most sensitive away. It may keep too many away, to be sure, but I don't see that that's a bad thing. Before labels were required the worst firms were doing all the worst things and not warning people at all. The current system has to be an improvement over that.

The other worry in the article is that the new warnings are confusing for consumers or that they collectively drive up fears about the safety of the food supply.

Again, I'm dubious. People who have experience in checking labels should find the information given to be clear and direct and vastly better than the way things used to be. Those first encountering the world of specialty diets may be overwhelmed at the beginning but I guarantee you that this was equally true when I learned I was LI back in 1978 and I would have shouted for joy to be given labels with the current information on it.

Fearmongers might be using allergy warnings to scare consumers. I read far more articles from people who appear to think that the need to have these warnings at all is ludicrous. They're wrong. More info about our food is a good thing, and the extra line at the bottom of some ingredients lists is about as scary as the Munsters.

Munoz-Furlong has done fine work in the past. She many be seeing examples that I haven't and that USA Today didn't bother to mention. Reality is a constant compromise. We're currently at a pretty good balance, superior to where we were pre-2006. Tweak the system if necessary but keep it going. It's good for all of us.