Health Canada Delays Allergy Labelling

As we reported on in July 2008, Health Canada has proposed new labelling laws. We expected them to be in place by now; but it seems that because they want to make the regulations perfect, it has been delayed until 2010. As reported by Allergic Living, Health Canada received over 140 comments on the new regulation.
The hard part is over; now they just need to put the rules in place. Come Spring 2010, companies will have 12 months to update packaging to adhere to the new regulations.

We’re almost there. It’s been a long time coming.

Health Canada review

Allergic to Other Foods? Quaker Has Warnings for You Too.

Today, I contacted PepsiCo Canada, and they kindly faxed me the notice regarding the introduction of new allergens in their Rice Cakes and Crispy Minis products (see our previous article ”News of Quaker Rice Cakes New Allergen Warnings Slow to Spread”). In addition to peanut, which may now be present in all Quaker Rice Cakes and Crispy Minis, several other allergens have been added (in addition to the allergens that previously were present):

If you are allergic to barley, be aware that Butter Toffee Cracker Jack Rice Cakes now contain barley.

If you are allergic to egg, be aware that the White Cheddar and the Butter Rice Cakes now contain egg, and the BBQ, Ketchup, Sea Salt & Lime, Cheddar Cheese, Caramel Kettle Corn, Dill, Sour Cream & Onion, and Butter Crispy Minis now may contain egg.

If you are allergic to sulphites, be aware that Caramel Kettle Corn Crispy Minis now contain sulphites.

If you are allergic to wheat, be aware that Ketchup, Sea Salt & Lime, Cheddar Cheese, Caramel Kettle Corn, Dill, Sour Cream & Onion, Butter, and BBQ Crispy Minis now may contain wheat.

If you are allergic to soy, be aware that BBQ Crispy Minis now may contain wheat.

News of Quaker Rice Cakes New Allergen Warnings Slow to Spread

Although it has been a little over three months since PepsiCo Foods Canada announced that their Quaker Rice Cakes and Crispy Minis now may contain peanut, I’ve been disturbed that they are still on the menu at daycares with peanut-allergic children in our city. In fact, these products were for so long considered a staple as a “safe-snack,” and many still consider them as such. I was a regular consumer of these rice cakes, and I might not have learned of the formulation change (which is the result of the introduction of the new peanut butter flavours) if I wasn’t a regular visitor to the Allergic Living message board where someone had posted an alert. I think these alerts were sent to those who have registered to receive Quaker Foods product alerts and not many, if any, other folks.

Luckily for me, I was pre-warned of the change, and carefully inspected the packaging of the Quaker Rice Cakes, eventually finding the “MAY CONTAIN PEANUTS” warning. Shortly after, when a friend of mine was packing a few bags of these rice cakes to bring on a trip she was taking with her peanut-allergic son, she was shocked when I told her that she’d better look for a warning on the packaging. Her shock turned to annoyance as we both tried to straighten out the top of the rice cake package, scrunched together with a bread-bag-type tie, to read the warning. The warning is, shall we say, NOT obvious.

These rice cakes were a staple at my son’s child care centre, and I’m having some difficulty erasing the concept of Quaker Rice Cakes being a safe snack from their minds. I’ve finally found them an alternative brand (NoName) for which I’ve obtained the manufacturer’s assurance that they are free from peanuts. But change is slow, and this week the child care centre accidentally purchased and served the Quaker brand (I was able to intervene before my son was given any).

I’ll continue to spread the news to others and hope the news continues to spread. It would be nice if the multinational, billion-dollar-earning, food-producing corporations could help out too.

Parents offered new choices in allergen-free food

Enjoy Life is by now a well-known brand, and one that many of us have grown used to seeing in our grocery stores if not in our cupboards. This is a great story of a couple of guys who wanted to help out the growing population of allergy sufferers.

An idea that started as a class project between two friends is big business in the booming food allergy and intolerance market that one research firm estimates will reach $3.9 billion this year.

Scott Mandell and Bert Cohen, classmates at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in 2000, founded their allergen-free food company, Enjoy Life Natural Brands LLC, in 2001. The pair drafted their initial business plan for a school assignment in their last class before graduation. Their idea for an allergen-free food company was inspired by Cohen’s mother, who had multiple sclerosis and serious dietary restrictions.

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The Nut-Free Mom Blog: New Peanut Flour Warnings for General Mills Cereals

Jenny at Nut-Free Mom has sent us this warning, and all should read!
This just goes to show you that our everyday foods can become unsafe for those in our homes. 

New Peanut Flour Warnings for General Mills Cereals

I just got an alert from my local food allergy support group and wanted to pass it along.

Please check the ingredients lists of your General Mills cereals very carefully. The company is adding peanut flour to Cocoa Puffs. Some of their other cereal products contain new allergy warnings for nuts as well as for other foods including gluten.

The link above contains an exchange in the comments section of the blog between someone at General Mills and the Allergy Moms web site readers. The General Mills exec maintains that you can trust the labels on General Mills products and that they explicitly list allergy warnings wherever appropriate.

I know that Frosted Cheerios (a General Mills cereal) contain almond flour despite the fact that the name of the cereal contains no reference to nuts–we found that out just as our daughter was about to eat Frosted Cheerios at a relative’s house. This was about a year ago and as I recall, there was no “called out” allergy warning. Almond flour was simply listed as an ingredient. The labels may have changed since then–I’m sure we’ll all check our cereal boxes now!

We still eat the plain Cheerios without incident at my house but it just goes to show you that you must read all labels, all the time. As ingredients labels continue to evolve, I’m sure we will all be faced with new decisions about old standby foods.

via The Nut-Free Mom Blog: New Peanut Flour Warnings for General Mills Cereals.

From peanuts to shellfish… Why are so many adults suddenly getting allergies?

I found out myself, well into my 20s, that I could not eat hazelnuts. It was as an adult that I found out I could not eat one of my favorite snacks. Here is a story about another adult who finds herself allergic to foods she had grown used to eating without any issues.

When Edwina Galloway started to feel a strange knot in her throat after eating some peanuts, she tried to ease it by drinking tea.

But within minutes her throat was constricting and she was struggling to breathe. Her husband bundled her into their car and rushed her to hospital.

Fortunately, it was only a mile from their home in Sevenoaks, Kent; had it been much further, Edwina could have died.

‘By the time I got there, I was shivering and shaking as my body was going into shock,’ says Edwina, 48, who runs her own administration business. ‘It was terribly frightening.’

Edwina was suffering from anaphylactic shock – an allergic reaction which causes puffy lips and eyes, other symptoms such as vomiting and breathing difficulties as the air passages swell. Untreated, it can prove fatal within minutes.

Edwina was immediately given antihistamine, which eased her symptoms. She later underwent tests to see what had brought on such a violent reaction; the results couldn’t have been more surprising.

‘I was told I’d developed an allergy to peanuts and hazelnuts,’ Edwina recalls.

‘It was a real shock, as there is no history of allergies in my family, and I certainly had never had an allergy before.

‘In fact, my husband is a vegetarian and so nut roast had been a staple of our diet. This allergy just came on out of the blue.

‘Now I have to carry an adrenaline jab with me at all times in case I have a really bad reaction.

‘Luckily, that hasn’t happened yet, but the allergy has changed my life. I have to be incredibly careful about what I eat because it takes only a trace of nut to set me off.

‘I went to a friend’s house for lunch a year ago, and although she was very careful to prepare food without nuts there must have been a tiny hint somewhere because I took a mouthful and blotches started to come up on my face.

(continued)

Read on via From peanuts to shellfish… Why are so many adults suddenly getting allergies? | Mail Online.

Refusing Food: Get them used to it early

“No thank you, that could make me sick.”

At my son’s daycare they celebrate every child’s birthday. On most occasions they are accommodating to nut allergies as there are usually a couple children who suffer from this life-threatening condition.

From an early age, we have impressed upon our son how important it is that he is careful with food that is offered to him. He is five years old and on one occasion made us proud that he is so well aware of his situation.

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Hemp Seed Butter Offers Fresh Nutty Flavor, Nutrition & Relief from Allergen Concerns

Always on the lookout for more peanut butter replacements, this is a new one I’d not heard of. Hemp has been used for ages in textiles, rope, lotions etc.  But as a nut-sustitute?

Have you had a chance to try this?
Also have a look on thier website for a HUGE list of recipes. 

Peanut butter has long been one of North America’s favorite comfort foods, but the recent, massive product recall scare and the growing number of people with tree nut allergies have boosted culinary experimentation with ‘alternative’ seed spreads that are pleasing health-minded consumers. One of the popular new healthy alternatives to peanut butter is Hemp Seed Butter. While peanut butter has often been touted as a nutritious spread, nutrition experts and consumers are recognizing that Hemp Seed Butter with its 2000 mg of Omega-3 and 11g of protein per serving (2 Tbsp) blows peanut butter away.

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Introducing Mr. Christie’s Snak Paks

Mr Christie's Snak Paks

Kraft Foods has just introduced a selection of single-portion packs of mini cookies called Mr. Christie’s Snak Paks, and today our five-year-old son and I had the pleasure of trying out the four types that carry a “Peanut-Free” symbol.* Our son is allergic to tree nuts as well, and we were assured by a public relations executive representing Kraft, that these four products were completely peanut-free: Barnum’s Animal Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Mini Chips Ahoy!, and Barnum’s ABC’s Cocoa cookies. They come in brightly coloured, whimsical, 30 g packages — a good treat size.

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Food Allergy Awareness Week in Canada

According to Journal 47 from Tuesday April 28th, 2009 a Motion was passed approving May4-May 8 to be Food Allergy Awareness Week!

No other info has come out of this but be sure we will be keepign an eye on this! Great news!

Source from here.

Food Allergy Buzz: Since When Does Heat “Kill” Allergens?!!

In order to help spread this news, please note what FAB has to say below. This is important!

Anyone who knows me well or even visits Food Allergy Buzz on a regular basis probably knows that I spend a good amount of time each day reading food allergy related news. I have many Google Alerts, sometimes more than I can reasonably read in a day. Early Tuesday morning, I came across this article–Food allergies: Tips for Ordering Meals Out–which contained very disturbing misinformation about cross-contamination from a restaurant manager. He was being cited as an expert of sorts on eating out with food allergies. The article also mentioned food allergy mom, author, and advocate, Linda Coss–she was not interviewed for the article, but information from one of her press releases was used in the article. Linda has followed up with the newspaper to correct and clarify the information in the article.

Here is what I found troubling (emphasis added):

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The Nut-Free Mom Blog: A “Green” Approach to Your Food-Allergic Child’s School Lunch

Nut Free Mom has a great focus in honour of Earth Day. Litter Free Lunch offers products and ideas on how to prepare a safe and clean lunch for your children. Have a look at what she has to say!

At the FAAN conference last Saturday, I had the pleasure of meeting Felice Farran, a mom of 2 school-aged boys with nut allergies. She also happens to be the co-owner of a company called Litter Free Lunch.

As moms of kids with food allergies, we are all very familiar with packing school lunches! Felice is concerned about the environment as well as her child’s food allergies and she couldn’t find a decent, earth-friendly alternative to paper napkins for her kids’ lunches. So she came up with the idea of offering washable cloth napkins that are perfect for taking to school. The company also has an organic line. Check out their growing product selection at http://www.litterfreelunch.com/.

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ALLERGY ALERT – UNDECLARED PEANUTS IN BERGEN BRAND APPLE CINNAMON

ALLERGY ALERT

UNDECLARED PEANUTS IN BERGEN BRAND APPLE CINNAMON COOKIES

OTTAWA, April 16, 2009 – The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Dollarama are warning people with allergies to peanut proteins not to consume the Bergen brand Apple Cinnamon Cookies described below. The affected product may contain peanuts which are not declared on the label.

All Best Before date codes of the Bergen brand Apple Cinnamon Cookies, product of Poland, sold in 150 g packages are affected by this alert.

This product has been distributed nationally.

There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of this product.

Consumption of this product may cause a serious or life-threatening reaction in persons with allergies to peanuts.

The importer, Dollarama, Montreal, QC is voluntarily recalling the affected product from the marketplace. The CFIA is monitoring the effectiveness of the recall.

For more information, consumers and industry can call the CFIA at 1-800-442-2342 / TTY 1-800-465-7735 (8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday to Friday).

For information on peanuts, one of the nine most common food allergens, visit the Food Allergens web page at:

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/labeti/allerg/peaarae.shtml

For information on receiving recalls by e-mail, or for other food safety facts, visit our web site at www.inspection.gc.ca.

via ALLERGY ALERT – UNDECLARED PEANUTS IN BERGEN BRAND APPLE CINNAMON COOKIES.

What to ask at a restaurant/resort.

When you visit a restaurant or on vacation at a resort do you go into detail with the staff regarding the menu and allergy practice in the kitchen? There are many ways to go about getting the ‘good feeling’ about a restaurant from just going on a recommendation and eating there (McDonalds used to be this way) or giving the manager/head-chef the third degree. 

We have come up with some standard questions we like to ask. Sometimes we feel the need to ask them all, sometimes we are satisfied if the management has a strong grasp without the need to ask all the questions.

It is especially wonderful when a staff member offers to give you a tour of a buffet or the menu outlining what is safe and what to stay away from. When someone suggests to stay away from something I also like to ask about the preparation of that dish, if it is prepared separately and safely from the safe dishes.

Do you have a standard list of questions different from what we have below?

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LA Cooking Examiner: Passover recipe: Nut-free haroset

Here is another posting for our Jewish readers, and anyone interested in trying this Passover menu item!

My kids’ school is a no-nuts zone, so when my 7-year-old’s class celebrated Passover last week I created this nut-free version of the traditional haroset. Haroset is one of the symbolic Passover foods, meant to resemble the mortar the Jewish slaves used to build the pyramids of their Egyptian masters.

An Ashkenazic haroset is normally made with chopped apples, walnuts, cinnamon, sugar and sweet Passover wine. I substituted pumpkin seeds for the nuts to accommodate the school rules. I make my haroset in the food processor and prefer a finer texture, but if you like yours chunkier, by all means chop the ingredients by hand.

Nut-free haroset

4 apples, cored, peeled and cut into chunks

1/2 cup raw unsalted pumpkin seeds

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup sugar

pinch of salt

2 Tbsp sweet Passover wine

Toast pumpkin seeds in a dry nonstick pan over medium-high heat until seeds start to brown and pop, about 3-4 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool 10 minutes.

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture is chopped and combined but still has a little texture. Let sit at least 1 hour, and up to 4 hours, to let flavors meld.

via LA Cooking Examiner: Passover recipe: Nut-free haroset.