I learned something new today about probiotics that I thought was important to share, particularly with those who have milk or soy allergies.

Probiotics are the new wonder product in our society these days as science begins to address our gut health. Many scientists now recognize that what happens in our intestines affects all of our body functions and has a role to play in autoimmune disorders including Celiac Disease and Type 1 Diabetes. Many health professionals recommend the use of probiotics, gut friendly bacteria that helps intestinal health, along with prebiotic heavy foods that feed the probiotics and keep them healthy (i.e. oats, soybeans and inulin).

The amount of natural foods products that contain probiotics has exploded, primarily in the yogurt category. But for those that can’t eat yogurt, taking the probiotics in capsule format has become very popular.

Unfortunately, probiotics need to grow in a protein rich culture which may be milk or soy based, a fact that I was not aware of until today. While most of that culture is removed when the probiotics are freeze dried, there is potential for trace amounts of that culture to remain, potentially causing anaphylaxis for those with milk and soy allergies.

Health Canada issued a recall of 2 products today that may have this issue (no one to date has had a reaction) but they also included an advisory as part of that recall that explains about the cultures used for manufacturing probiotics. This is rare for Health Canada and therefore should be shared with anybody you know with either milk or soy allergies.

To link directly to the recall/advisory, see this link: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/advisories-avis/_2011/2011_53-eng.php

I don’t want this blog to be a rant on other companies, truly. But I continue to see practices that you all need to be aware of out there while I’ve been traveling to various trade shows over the last month or so.

For example, at the biggest trade show, Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, “gluten free” was everywhere on booths and products. The funniest one was on chicken, yes, chicken. I realize that some chicken has seasoning added and so ingredients still must be looked at. But the kicker on the chicken is that they were frying it up in the booth for tasting, after dredging it in wheat flour!

I saw the same thing happen on a gluten free spread that was being offered on regular wheat bagels to sample. It wasn’t until a Celiac pointed it out to them that they realized that there was a problem with this practice. It’s kind of scary since they were attracting many of the attendees who were Celiac, not just because they were there as store buyers.

In some cases, when the person demoing a product is hired for the day, they don’t always know the ins and outs of special diets but in both of the above companies, the owner of the company was doing the demoing.

And that’s in addition to continued products I see that have a claim like “nut free” on the front with a disclaimer “made in a facility that processes tree nuts” on the back. To me, you can have one or the other, not both.

So for you, the consumer, all I can say is really check your items. Check your ingredients even if there is a “free from” message on the front, don’t assume that demos are safe, and contact companies if you have any questions. This really is a buyer beware situation where you have to take control.

It’s the time of year when my travel schedule gets incredibly crazy as I go to both business trade shows and consumer trade shows for gluten free and allergy friendly foods. It means that my blog posts have rather erratic timing but I certainly find much in my travels to blog about.

I spent last week in Portland and Seattle, first attending a college and university foodservice trade show followed by meetings up the coast of the Pacific Northwest. It’s such an amazing difference from even 5 years ago when I had to convince many why they needed “free from” food in their stores and foodservice environments. Now, so many people are up on the needs and I’ll write another post about the amazing service one university in California gives their allergic students.

One disturbing development though was when I went on store visits. That’s when I pop into various stores in the area, some that carry our products, some that do not, so that I can see what they’re doing in their stores for the “free from” market. If I find something new and wonderful, I’ll purchase it to bring to my family to enjoy.

On 3 separate store visits, I found 3 different products that had labeling that to me, as a consumer of allergy friendly food, was unacceptable. I’ve often found inappropriate labeling on small, local companies’ products which I can understand. While it’s still not okay, tiny companies often don’t have the experience on labeling nor the budget to hire a labeling consultant. But this time I also found major companies that had really misleading labels.

I won’t mention the exact companies as these concerns are about me as a purchaser of free from food, not as the manufacturer of a potentially competing company. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Major National Gluten Free Company:
Front of package: Nut Free
Back of package disclaimer: Made in a facility that also processes tree nuts

Small Local Company:
Front of package: No Wheat, No Soy, No Dairy
Back of package disclaimer: Produced in a facility that may process wheat, dairy, eggs, nuts, shellfish, and/or soy

See anything that concerns you here? From my perspective, if a manufacturer is going to make a front of package “free from” claim, they are being misleading if they also feel that they must put on a disclaimer. It’s either one or the other, not both, in my opinion.

I did talk to the buyers at the stores of the above products (2 different stores). One store buyer agreed that it was a concern but that they were having great difficulty sourcing products that were completely free of many allergens.

The store buyer at a different store figured the “nut free” on the major brand gluten free muffins was just fine because there were no nuts in the muffins. Obviously, cross contamination concerns were not on her radar and she didn’t show much interest in my concern as the parent of a child with life threatening nut allergies.

What do you think about this kind of labeling? Am I being overly picky?

I just finished posting this post on the Facebook Gluten Free and Allergy Friendly Discussion Group but if you are not linked into that group, you can check out the post here:

I was driving back home from Victoria yesterday morning and saw a billboard on one of our local restaurants that said, “Celiac Menu Now Available”. How do you trust a restaurant with your Celiac Disease?

Last year the owner of a local pizza company talked to me about how they had developed a gluten free pizza at their current pizza business and that they were going to start offering it. I asked her what steps they were taking to avoid cross contamination and how they were verifying that their ingredients and final product was gluten free. Unfortunately, she couldn’t answer. This was not because she was an uncaring business owner, far from it. She just didn’t have any personal experience with food allergies to know that offering a gluten free pizza was about more than developing a recipe.

So what do you need to feel comfortable with eating out safely? While having an owner/chef who has food allergies or Celiac disease themselves can make us feel more comfortable, we all know people with food allergies who cut corners, eat products that “may contain” the avoided food or cheat on their gluten free diet because they are asymptomatic. So is it enough to have a “with it” chef or do you want to see a written policy?

You can put in your two cents by commenting on this blog post or you can go to the Facebook page link and make your comments there. Get in on the discussion!

Did you know that agricultural cross contamination is a common issue in North America? In fact, it is considered so commonplace that the US Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require agricultural products to list contamination with other crops, even if they are a top food allergen.

Case in point: we are bringing out raw, shelled, unsalted sunflower seeds tomorrow as part of our new Fab 5 Products. Sunflower seeds can be cross contaminated with soybeans, corn and wheat. While millers/producers of these agricultural products have cross contamination procedures in place to identify and eliminate unexpected seeds/grains, the reality is that crops are taken off the field with the same machinery and trucks and are often stored in bins that previously contained another crop.

This is the same reason why pure, uncontaminated oats are controlled from the field to machinery to storage to milling. Otherwise, cross contamination is a real potential along the way.

Our new sunflower seeds do have a “may contain: soy” warning on them but this is also because we package them on the same line as our chocolate chip/chocolate chunk pouches (soy lecithin) and Energy Explosion trail mix (soybeans). We test ALL ingredients that come into our facility for wheat and gluten before they’re released to the production floor so you know that our sunflower seeds have been checked for that allergen.

For corn, we do not test nor do we have an allergen warning as corn is not a top food allergen. However, we will be adding a note into our corn declaration on our allergen declaration page regarding the sunflower seeds.

We provide this information to you, not because our sunflower seeds are more cross-contaminated than others, simply that we let you know about this potential cross contamination in the interests of keeping you informed about your food choices. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our team.

One of the many food allergy research projects being funded right now is a Chinese Herbal Formula. In the last several years, it has been quite well publicized, especially since the Food Allergy Initiative raised a significant amount of money to provide a research grant to the project.

It looks like that money has paid off as peanut allergic mice who were given the formula have shown no peanut anaphylaxis compared to the control group. It appears that the formula was successful for up to 6 months. It is very promising news and now the research can enter phase 2; human trials for those with peanut, tree nut, sesame, fish and shellfish allergies.

To read more, see this link: http://www.faiusa.org/?page=Chinese_Herbal_Formula_to_Enter_Phase2_Trial

Last Sunday, Rob and I had a booth at the BC Foodservice Show in Vancouver and it was quite the whirlwind of a day. We started serving up our new granolas, new trail mixes and our best-selling vanilla caramel granola and we just didn’t stop putting out samples to try as our booth had a continuous stream of people – including those who went around the show and came back for more.

Not only was it great to see so many people enjoying our products and taking samples of granola bars home for family, friends and colleagues, it was truly overwhelming to see so many people who needed special diets. We lost count of how many people came to our booth who personally had peanut/nut allergies, not to mention Celiac Disease or gluten intolerance. We do expect this response at consumer shows for food allergies but not at your average food industry show.

And for those who didn’t personally have food allergies/intolerances, very few needed any education about the need to offer specialty products to their clients. While some were not familiar with pure oats for a gluten free diet, all professionals who came to our booth had been receiving requests for meals and snacks that would meet the needs of various food allergies. We talked to deli owners, bakeries, ice cream producers, chefs, caterers, universities, schools and more.

What a difference from when we first started Nonuttin’ Foods and we had to explain why a peanut free granola bar was a necessity. While I still think we have a long way to go, it’s really nice to see that support groups, allergic people and allergic parents everywhere have begun to turn around a very slow moving industry. I look forward to the day when eating out with food allergies is a breeze.

The Allergic and Celiac communities in Canada have been in an uproar since November regarding our new food allergen and gluten source labeling laws that have been languishing for years. The laws began their journey in the 1990’s and by 2008, after pressure from allergy/Celiac groups, our government promised that we’d have definitive labelling laws in due course. In November, we began lobbying the Canadian government yet again as we were told that the laws were in jeopardy if they weren’t passed by December 31, 2010.

That date has come and gone yet our government says that the laws will be finalized shortly. We’ve been writing letters, signing petitions, contacting our MLA’s, meeting with the Health Minister and more to just get this done so we Canadians can have a law just like our American neighbors. Health Canada held countless roundtables and there were input periods for all manufacturers with the last one for comment on pure oats ending July 11, 2010.

Now, beer companies are lobbying to stop these upcoming laws on the premise that they will cause undue hardship to beer companies and that Celiacs all “know” that beer has gluten in it so why would beer and spirits need to be labelled?

I don’t know what’s in beer because I don’t drink it. Yet, somehow all allergic/Celiac individuals are supposed to innately know what’s in their spirits? And as one person suggested, what if I can’t drink something but my hostess doesn’t know that as she makes her special recipe with beer, liqueur, etc?

With years to weigh in with Health Canada during the consultation process and an 18 month phase in of any new labelling laws, the beer industry needs to give their head a shake and figure out that keeping people safe and healthy is really what’s in their best interest.

Want to know more? Here’s link on the story at CTV news: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20110125/food-allergens-beer-110125/

We’re putting the finishing touches on our new products that will be ready to launch in mid-February. So far, we’ve introduced 2 of those new products on our Facebook page. We will continue to give you sneak peaks at those products in the next couple of weeks but here is what we’ve shown so far:

Blueberry Maple Granola: With tender little blueberries and maple sugar, you’ll love the blend of 2 Canadian tastes!

Berry Delight Trail Mix: This is our new favorite and I have had to hide the samples. It has softy and yummy blueberries, cranberries, raw sunflower seeds and semi-sweet chocolate chips with just a touch of sea salt. Sunflower seeds are a new ingredient for us… but we had so many people asking for them that it was time to give them a try.

Watch our Facebook page as we update posts several times per week. Don’t forget to give us your feedback too.

Barry Callebaut USA has recalled Kroger Value brand semi-sweet chocolate chips after chips with dairy in them were mistakenly packed in the non-dairy/Kosher pareve packaging for Kroger. The recall notice may be seen at: http://usfoodsafety.com/02af0007.asp and the kosher alert for dairy can be seen at: http://www.ok.org/alerts.asp

I’m bringing this recall to your attention since you may be aware that Barry Callebaut is the manufacturer who produces our semi-sweet mini chocolate chips and 70% dark chocolate chunks in a peanut/nut free plant and on a dairy free line. Our chocolate is manufactured in the Quebec, Canada, plant however, not in the US and is not affected by this recall.

Further, we test every incoming ingredient for several allergens prior to releasing it into the manufacturing process, with dairy being one of the many tests we perform. If we were to discover dairy in any ingredient, it would be isolated in our warehouse and not be allowed into our production area. We would then work with the manufacturer to discover the source of the contamination problem before ordering any more ingredients from them.

If you have any questions, please let our team know at info@nonuttin.com or toll free: 1-866-714-5411.