ALLERGENS

Although I am not an allergetic person the viewpoint, stance and approach on allergens in whole world is overwhelming but moreover Quality Control Managers are getting hysterical in food manufacturing factories.. In the book "Connected" of Christakis and Fowler the following paragraph does worth to investigate more deeply this topic. The efforts spent in food manufacturing to segregate allergetic products and prevent any kind of contamination are enormous. But at what cost?

Here you have the citation :

“Approximately 3.3 million Americans are allergic to nuts, and even more, 6.9 million, are allergic to seafood. However, all told, serious allergic reactions to foods cause just two thousand hospitalizations per year (out of more than thirty million hospitalizations nationwide). And, at most, only 150 people (both children and adults) die each year from food allergies. Compare that to the fifty people who die each year from bee stings, the hundred who die from lightning strikes, and the forty-five thousand who die from motor vehicle accidents. Or compare that to the ten thousand children who are hospitalized each year for traumatic brain injuries acquired during sports, or the two thousand who drown, or the roughly thirteen hundred who die from gun accidents. Yet there are no calls to end athletics. There are likely thousands of parents who rid their cupboards of peanut butter but not guns. And more children assuredly die walking or being driven to school each year than die of nut allergies.”

MUSTARD was one of the best also oldest spice in the world. But during the last decade it has been discovered that there has been some allergetic casualties .  Quality Managers immediately swallowed the bait and started writing long procedures to prevent its contamination, delete from seasonning mixtures, run expensive swab tests  as like venenous poison.

Dr. Stephen Propatier wrote :

Research has shown that reports of pediatric nut allergies between tripled between 1997 and 2008. Some of this data suffers from methodological error and reporter bias. Many of the studies were limited to patient reporting. Actually diagnosing a food allergy is somewhat subjective. It is a complicated, multi-level procedure. Many people self diagnose their food allergy. Patient history is a large part of the diagnosis but not the only part. And many people commonly think that skin tests provide the most information about allergies. This isn't really true; allergists use several tests to determine whether or not someone suffers from a sensitivity.

Here I am copying you the most comon but also labelling compulsory  by EU legislation of food allergens ...

1.Cereals containing gluten, namely: wheat (such as spelt and khorasan wheat), rye, barley, oats or their hybridised strains, and products thereof, except:

(a) wheat based glucose syrups including dextrose
(b) wheat based maltodextrins
(c) glucose syrups based on barley
(d) cereals used for making alcoholic distillates including ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin

2. Crustaceans and products thereof

3. Eggs and products thereof

4. Fish and products thereof, except:

(a) fish gelatine used as carrier for vitamin or carotenoid preparations
(b) fish gelatine or Isinglass used as fining agent in beer and wine

5. Peanuts and products thereof

6. Soybeans and products thereof, except:

(a) fully refined soybean oil and fat
(b) natural mixed tocopherols (E306), natural D-alpha tocopherol, natural D-alpha tocopherol acetate, and natural D-alpha tocopherol succinate from soybean sources
(c) vegetable oils derived phytosterols and phytosterol esters from soybean sources
(d) plant stanol ester produced from vegetable oil sterols from soybean sources

7. Milk and products thereof (including lactose), except:

(a) whey used for making alcoholic distillates including ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin
(b) lactitol

8. Nuts, namely: almonds (Amygdalus communis L.), hazelnuts (Corylus avellana), walnuts (Juglans regia), cashews (Anacardium occidentale), pecan nuts (Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) K. Koch), Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa), pistachio nuts (Pistacia vera), macadamia or Queensland nuts (Macadamia ternifolia), and products thereof, except for nuts used for making alcoholic distillates including ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin

9. Celery and products thereof

10. Mustard and products thereof

11. Sesame seeds and products thereof

12. Sulphur dioxide and sulphites at concentrations of more than 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre in terms of the total SO₂ which are to be calculated for products as proposed ready for consumption or as reconstituted according to the instructions of the manufacturers

13. Lupin and products thereof

14. Molluscs and products thereof


Avram Aji