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AOAC Food Allergen Community

NEWSLETTER Volume 7 | Issue 2

IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial Comment

Editorial Comment Summertime... Party time... Allergen time?1

News Food Allergy Updates: Australia

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Amendments to the Food Standards Code (19 May 2016) – P1031 Allergen Labelling exemptions 2 Food recalls due to undeclared allergens 2 Systematic review on safe levels of gluten for people with coeliac disease 2 How safe is eating out for allergic consumers 3 Rise in Emergency visits due to anaphylaxis - A Study 3

Scientific Developments

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Food allergen analysis for processed food using a novel extraction method to eliminate harmful reagents for both ELISA and lateralflow tests 4 VITAL Online owner of several awards 4 A Canadian position on celiac disease and gluten-free oats 5

Upcoming Events 6 1st International Conference on Food Analysis (1st ICFA) & Workshop 6 China International Food Safety and Quality Conference

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2016

Summertime... Party time... Allergen time? The days are hot, and best spent near the water. The evenings and nights are the best time to chill out with friends and family - in restaurants at the coast or in the mountains. To most people, this is the best time of the year (apart from the inevitable sun burn - not knowing which side to turn on to ease the pain). For those affected by allergies, it is a challenging time. Going to restaurants and ice cafes, not knowing how accurate their allergen labelling really is. Menus which state somewhere in small print: “if you have allergies, please contact our waiters”. At least in Europe, the allergen information in catering outlets and places where non-packaged food is sold, has become mandatory with the Consumer Information Regulation EC 1169/2011 which entered into force late 2014. But how reliable is the information the waiter gives you? The dish itself may not contain fish - and the waiter re-assures you that it doesn’t. But does the cook know that he should not be frying your “escalope” in the same oil that the fish was in some minutes ago, ordered by another guest? The UK Food Standards Agency and Allergy UK recently conducted a survey about eating out for allergic consumers. Read more about their findings in this newsletter. Talking about safe levels... Coeliac Australia recently published a report on safe levels of gluten consumption, and FSANZ, the Food Standards Agency of Australia and New Zealand, recently consulted with allergen experts to discuss labelling exemption of products which - due to processing - no longer contain food allergen-reaction triggering proteins. These include glucose syrups, fully refined soybean oils and some soy derivatives as well as distilled alcohol from certain cereals. One of the new scientific developments reported in this issue is the development of a novel extraction method that also manages the challenging extraction of allergens from processed foods. Enjoy the summer reading. Bert Popping  Editorial Board Member

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Editorial Team

Editor in Chief & Graphic Design:

Carmen Diaz-Amigo 

Editorial Members: James Roberts , Bert Popping , Samuel Godefroy  Terry Koerner, Jupiter Yeung This newsletter is a public document and can be distributed. Partial reproduction is permitted with the proper indication of the author and its source. For questions contact us at [email protected].

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2016

News Food Allergy Updates: Australia Amendments to the Food Standards Code (19 May 2016) – P1031 Allergen Labelling exemptions The Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has consulted with Australian allergy experts and conducted assessments of food products requested for exemption for food allergen labelling. The assessed exemptions are in accordance with international food allergen labelling regulations. The products exempt from the requirement are:

Glucose syrups made from wheat starch (subject to low

limits). Analytical data from Australian produced glucose syrup shows that in samples taken from daily batch testing over 10 months, 90% of syrups contained less than 10 mg/ kg gluten and the remaining 10% were below 20 mg/kg. Based on the available clinical evidence and likely single meal consumption, wheat-derived glucose syrup with a gluten content of 10–20 mg/kg is likely to present a negligible risk to the majority of wheat allergic individuals. However, to ensure that gluten levels in glucose syrup are as low as technically achievable, the FAISAG (Food Allergy and Intolerance Scientific Advisory Group) has recommended that manufacturers of glucose syrup from wheat starch should be encouraged to prepare syrups with the lowest possible gluten levels.

Fully refined soy oil. Based on the available clinical and analytical evidence, neutralised/refined, bleached and deodorised (N/RBD) soybean oil presents negligible risk to soybean allergic consumers.

Soy

derivatives (tocopherols and phytosterols). Tocopherols and phytosterols derived from deodoriser distillate in the manufacturing of N/RBD soybean oil present negligible risk to soybean protein allergic consumers.

Distilled alcohol from wheat or whey. Based on the

available analytical evidence distilled alcohol and vinegar derived from whey present negligible risk to milk allergic individuals. Distilled alcohol derived from wheat presents negligible risk to wheat allergic and coeliac individuals.

Food recalls due to undeclared allergens For this year there has been a total of 16 recalls for undeclared allergens out of a total of 37 recalls. The undeclared allergens have been peanut, egg, wheat, soy, almond, milk/dairy, fish, sesame as shown in examples below.

Dried satay chilli – undeclared peanut allergens Sweet chocolate bake mix – undeclared almond allergens Frozen crumbed chicken tenders – undeclared soy allergens

Cake mix – undeclared milk allergens Cake mixes – undeclared milk allergens Free range butter chicken curry – undeclared almond allergens

Dark couverture chocolate – undeclared milk and soy allergens

Cake mix – undeclared milk allergens Chocolate bar – undeclared milk allergens More Information » James Roberts , Australian National Measurement Institute

Systematic review on safe levels of gluten for people with coeliac disease A recent review released by Coeliac Australia in relation to safe levels of gluten consumption for Coeliacs highlights the following points:

Moderate evidence of disease development at 50mg/ day.

Uncertain effect to exposure at lower doses. Individual variability makes it difficult setting a threshold.

Low quality indirect evidence of association between gluten consumption and mucosal change.

More Information 

More Information »

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2016

How safe is eating out for allergic consumers The FSA and Allergy UK carried out a survey to evaluate the impact of eating out in allergic consumers. Some of the highlights include:

1 in 3 suffered a reaction while eating out. Of these 25% took place in hospital or café 9% from takeaway food 7% in a public institution (school, hospital, etc) 88% of reactions were self-treated 19% reactions resulted in hospital visit

stockimages / freedigitalphotos.net;

Rise in Emergency visits due to anaphylaxis - A Study

The participants were also asked to report about their experiences with the food business:

83% noticed increased measures to make life easier for allergic consumers

The study was carried out during 4 years (2011-2015) in the emergency room of the Montreal Children’s Hospital. Most of the cases included children of 12 years of age or younger. The following are some of the findings:

58% Improved eating-out experience 6% eating-out experience got worse 52% feel more confident eating out than before regulation

About half of the young patients received a dose of

Problems when eating out:

80% of anaphylaxis cases (965) were attributed to foods,

was introduced (Dec 2014)

69% report that staff do not understand allergy severity and how a mistake can cause a reaction

68% reported staff do not know what’s in the menu or food 58% said they are made feel like an inconvenience because of their allergies

Non-compliance observed by customers visiting a food business can be reported for further investigation at the FSA website » More Information  Carmen Diaz-Amigo 

epinephrine before arriving to the emergency room.

Cases of anaphylaxis doubled in 4 years from 0.2 to 0.41% of which the origin was:

22% peanut 13% tree nuts 7% milk 6% egg 2.3% sesame

Most of the reactions observed were of “moderate severity” and no deaths were reported.

The report can be found in the following manuscript: Hochstadter et al. Increasing visits for anaphylaxis and the benefits of early epinephrine administration: A 4-year study at a pediatrics emergency department in Montreal, Canada. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 2016, 1888-1890. More Information 

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2016

Scientific Developments Food allergen analysis for processed food using a novel extraction method to eliminate harmful reagents for both ELISA and lateral-flow tests ELISA is commonly used to determine food allergens in food products. However, a significant number of ELISAs gave erroneous results, especially when applied to highly processed food. Accordingly the ELISA, which utilizes an extraction solution comprising the surfactant sodium lauryl sulfate (SDS) and reducing agent 2-mercaptoethanol (2-ME) for enhancing the analyte protein solubilization, was developed to analyze food allergens in highly processed food, and was authorized as Japanese official food allergen analysis method in 2006, by its reliable analytical results. However, the use of 2-ME has become undesirable recently by the harmful characteristics of 2-ME. In fact, the use of 2-ME in food manufacturing site is not convenient. Therefore, we improved the extraction method. The key point of the improved extraction method is to adopt sodium sulfite, which has human- and eco-friendly properties, as reducing reagent to replace 2-ME. The protein extraction ability of SDS/0.1 M sodium sulfite solution was comparable to that of SDS/2-ME solution. Then, the egg, milk, wheat, peanut and buckwheat ELISA performances using both extraction solutions were evaluated by using model processed foods and commercially available food products. The results showed that the SDS/0.1 M sulfite ELISA significantly correlated with the SDS/2-ME ELISA in all food allergens examined (p