New Food Labelling Guidelines In Canada Benefit Allergy Sufferers

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Food labelling is under scrutiny in Canada and this bodes well for allergy sufferers. Check the labelling on food products and you will find that they often contain the term “may contain” under the list of ingredients used. If you’ve not understood what these mean, you are not the only one.

Many times while reading food labels during my grocery trips, I’ve puzzled over why the word “may” is used. Trying to read labels on packaging is cleary no easy task. Also, wouldn’t this loose word be subject to interpretation by food manufacturers?

Well, Canada is finally doing something. Its health authorities say that the confusion may lead to the statements being ignored and allergy sufferers eating foods that can trigger life-threatening allergic reactions. It also noted that the number of allergy sufferers are on the rise, with a population of 1.2 million patients in its country.

Food manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers are being notified of the proposed changes and are encouraged to use the new terms with immediate effect, even while the review is underway.

I would think that a term like “not suitable for consumption by persons with an allergy to “X”, currently being studied as one of the many options for food labelling, leave little room for doubt. With allergy cases on the rise around the world, it will be great if health authorties in other countries follow suit in issuing similiar guidelines.

Sep

29

Allergy Stats On The Rise

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If you are to read the new set of allergy stats announced in the U.K., you will be shocked. It appears that Britain is right in the middle of an epidemic allergic outbreak. The number of people with allergies have trebled in the last 20 years and a third of the population, 18 million people, is set to develop an allergy, it said in a recent report. Although Britain now has the world’s highest number of allergy cases, it has been apparently been “lagging” behind the other European countries in dealing with the problem.

In 2004, research showed that 39 per cent of children and 30 per cent of adults had been diagnosed with one or more of asthma, hay fever and eczema. Hospital admissions due to anaphylactic shock, the severest allergic response, rose seven-times from 1990 to 2004.

The most common triggers are insect stings and foods such as peanuts. Anapyhlectic shock can cause death, if no immediate treatment is sought at the time of the allergy attack.

What was interesting was also that the report suggested that pregnant women and children should not be advised not to eat peanuts because it may actually be worsening the problem of peanut allergy. In Africa, where peanuts are made into a soup used for weaning and in Israel where they are incorporated into a rusk for babies, there has been no major reported problem of peanut allergies. Hence it would appear that not giving children an exposure to peanuts early in life might increase the risk of an allergic reaction later.

The leading theory to explain the rise in allergy stats was proposed by David Strachan in the 1980s: due to leading cleaner, germ-free lives, we are exposed to fewer illnesses in childhood; thus causing our immune systems to become under-developed and over-react when exposed to allergens. Allergens can range from grass pollen, house dust mites and pet hairs. The theory has been verified by many studies since. According to another recent allergy stats, children raised on farms with livestock have a third fewer allergies than those who are not.

With figures not as dramatic, other countries are reporting rises in allergy stats as well. It is likely to be a whole host of factors contributing to our weakened immune system: air, food, water and the products that we use and/or ingest. There clearly is a need to find ways to build our internal resistence to allergens and externally, to reduce the rate of their incidences.

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