For the forty some odd years that I've been roaming the earth in search of food and other stuff to eat. I usually thought, if the packaging looked good, the food inside must be good. Sometimes if tasted good, and most of the time it was bad for me for one reason or another.
In the last several years, I was cautioned to pay attention to my blood pressure, so I search for the sodium content in the foods that I eat, and that was that. I really never read what else was in the food that I was about to devour. Again, it looks good, it must be good.
Now that my son has been screened to be sensitive to Gluten, Dairy, Egg, and Nuts, I read each label scanning for the allergies that will harm my son. Probably 99.9% of everything on the shelf of the grocery store contains some thing that my son cannot eat. I've been visiting GlutenFree.com, which has the largest variety of gluten free products. Even thought it might be gluten free, I still need to look out for Dairy, Eggs and Nuts.
During a recent shopping visit to WholeFoods, I asked the pizza maker what happened to the Gluten Free pizza they had during the grand opening. It turns out they have wheat flour floating in the air, that they cannot claim that pizza to be Gluten Free. It even had Dairy Free cheese! So I am now relegated to making home made Gluten Free and Dairy Free Pizza, but that will be another article.
Some times my Dad watches the kids. He's an old school character, and thinks kids should eat everything. I constantly remind him that his grandson can not have bread, cheese or nuts, and I cringe and have to yell, "Stop!" when he is about to give my son a piece of toast.
Thank goodness, my son knows better and politely refuses the toasted baked slice of bread. So whenever we go shopping, I grab a box and quiz to scan for any allergy culprits. Some words he searches for; barley, malt, casein, or eggs.
In order to be able to advertise a product as Gluten Free, there must not be more than 20 parts per million of gluten be present in the product by testing each product coming off the production line. As you read the labels, many products are free of any grains and other gluten-containing products but the potential for cross contamination is possible. Therefore, only with dedicated facilities and production lines can you guarantee an item to be gluten free and sealed.
For example Starbucks in it's open and inviting environment can not claim to provide gluten free coffee, but on it's shelves the have products that meet gluten free requirements such as Food Should Taste Good Chips, Kind Bars, Peeled Snacks, Lucy's Cookies, and Two Mom's Raw Granola.
As for being Dairy Free, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration has not established any regulations regarding Dairy Free on package labels. Without a regulatory definition in place there is no guarantee that the Dairy Lee statement on a food labels is really free from any milk proteins. While Milk and Cream can be easily seen as milk, a milk derivative such as casein or whey might be overlooked as being milk.
One of the places I frequently visit is Frontier, which is a natural products co-op. All of there products are highest in quality. More importantly, they have a stringent food safety program regarding allergen control that prevents cross contamination.
The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004 became effective on January 1, 2006. Which requires manufacturers to clearly identify on their food labels if their product contain products that are derived from the eight major allergenic foods and food groups; wheat, milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, or soy. These eight groups account for 90 percent of all food allergies, and all other food allergies such as sesame are not required to be listed in accordance with FALCPA.
An example Ingredients List;
Ingredients: Enriched flour (wheat flour, malted barley, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and/or cottonseed oil, high fructose corn syrup, whey (milk), eggs, vanilla, natural and artificial flavoring, salt, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate), lecithin (soy), mono-and diglycerides.
Another example of declares a possible an allergen right after the Ingredients list and looks like this;
Contains Wheat, Milk, Egg, and Soy
Again, please read the labels, be cautious, and enjoy your meals and snacks free from food allergies!
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