Food Allergies: When Companies Don’t Disclose Everything on the Label

Food Allergies: What You Need To Know
When Companies That Are Allergy/Special Diet Friendly Don’t Declare Their Process

Whether you’re new to food allergies, or have been dealing with it for 20 plus years, we are all at the mercy of the information on the label… or are we? I will often stress to people that they must make the phone call and ask a lot of questions, especially if they are severely allergic to something. So what is it that we need to know? Gather round for a couple of stories…

I’ll start with a gluten free cereal. It was labeled VERY clearly as being gluten free. The ingredients looked great as well. Thing is, I was purchasing it for a child with multiple food allergies. I called before serving it to him, only to learn that it was made on shared EQUIPMENT with wheat, dairy, almonds, sesame, and many other majors and minors. Folks, the same equipment… with wheat… it’s a gluten free cereal. Now, they claimed that they test, use best practices, etc., but really? Shared equipment? No thanks. It’s never worth the risk for us. Now, if I were avoiding those items voluntarily, I wouldn’t mind taking a bite. However, for those of us that are in this due to medical reasons, it’s not a good idea to go taking a lot of risks, in my humble opinion.

Related: How To: Read Food Labels (For Food Allergies)

Could this company have done better? Absolutely. They’re a HUGE company in the natural and organic space, in fact, one of the largest. They could have also outsourced to another facility that was at the least gluten free. So why didn’t they? I can’t say. What I can say is that these operations cost money. While it’s great that companies are trying to service the community, they are still business and need to make a profit and report to their investors. However, I don’t feel they should be doing so at the risk of their customers.

So, was all of this information on the label? Of course NOT. I had to make the call to find out and I’m thankful that I did. It really reminded me that even the big guns are engaging in shady practices.

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Ready for the next story? Another BIG name in the space released a new, and very innovative product a couple of years ago. At the time, there was nothing else like it available, and of course, we had to try it. Truly amazing. We thought it would be great to use it for our bakery, and of course made a phone call to ask about the facility and the lines. At first, the answers were good. Then, as usual, I asked about the source ingredients. Were they all coming from safe spaces? Turns out, almost every single source material was coming from shared equipment with multiple major allergens. I was so disgusted, mainly because they went on to tell me that they test these things, but don’t release results, and that no one had reported a reaction. I had never felt so betrayed by a company before.

So what has all of that taught me? That we DO have the power to know what’s in our food and where it’s coming from. From there, we each have to make a personal decision and deem it safe for us, or not. If you choose the later, you must be prepared to roll up your sleeves and make it yourself, or chose to go without.

Is there a better way forward? In my humble opinion, yes. I would love to see the day when there are top 8 allergy free co-packers set up in at least 10 major cities in the US. Currently, there are two, and they are both running at full capacity. It means that if you don’t have millions in funding, you will be hard pressed to create a top 8 free product in a top 8 free space. It is our goal that over the next 5 years we can plant enough seeds and get enough people on board to make this a reality. With food allergy diagnoses on the rise, our children will find living difficult if we don’t tackle these problems now.

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