Celiac Disease affects a small body of the world’s populace but it has a big punch for those that do have it. As a result of an allergy to glutens, which are proteins found in grass foods such as rye, wheat, and barley, an immunity reaction is generated when gluten is ingested, which in turn affects the lining of the intestinal wall and prevents the intestine from absorbing crucial proteins and nutrients. In spite of a large volume of foods being eaten, the Celiac patient can literally starve to death and as such they need gluten free foods.
Although Celiac Disease only affects about one percent of the world’s population and it isn’t as wide spread as many other afflictions and allergies, for those who have it, careful management of dietary intake is absolutely important. However, some nutrition experts about Celiac Disease have co authored a report that suggests that many of the foods that have been considered to be gluten free may not be so free of Gluten after all. Subsequent to a new study that was recently undertaken, a more intensive evaluation of flours, grains and seeds which were considered gluten free were found to have trace amounts of gluten. Researchers have suggested that this may be a result of the gluten free grains having been grown so close to those grains that do have gluten proteins.
Prior to this study there was a conclusion among those who have Celiac Disease that grains considered as being gluten-free foods were just that. However after the evaluation of 22 of those grains considered gluten-free commonly found on the shelves of many supermarkets seven items listed as gluten free were found to fail the criteria required by the FDA in order to be considered gluten-free. In one instance, a gluten count of 3,000 parts per million was found in a kind of soy flour and other cereals such as grain, sorghum flour and millet flour were also found to contain trace amounts of gluten.
While the study wasn’t large enough or comprehensive enough to yield a solid idea on how often it is that these products are contaminated, it is a huge warning to the food industry that products produced under the label of being gluten-free may not all be so completely free of the protein after all. Therefore, more testing must be done of these products by the companies who make them and maintain a careful monitoring of the potential for contaminants to penetrate them. Although there remains no regulation within the framework of the FDA, and therefore no actual federal definition of just what constitutes a state of being gluten-free, there is proposed legislation that would enable officials from the FDA to conduct random inspections of products generated by food manufacturers who make the claim to have gluten-free products. Although there is a consensus that a more intensive study of gluten-free food products has to be done to provide more solid evidence, the information provided by the recent study shouldn’t dissuade Celiacs from continuing to purchase those foods advertised as being gluten-free.
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