Often people ask me what they should do when they see a “๐ฎ๐ข๐บ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ต๐ข๐ช๐ฏ” label.โฃ
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My first question to them is, how many variations of that wording have they seen?โฃ
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๐๐จ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ค๐ง๐จ๐ฐ, ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐ฌ ๐ฆ๐๐๐ง ๐๐ฑ๐๐๐ญ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐๐ฆ๐.โฃ
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Several other studies went to see what was the actual variation of allergen concentration.โฃ
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What did they find?โฃ
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In reality, there is still a significant risk of a not labelled food, to contain a substantial amount of allergens.โฃ
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But why is it that the food industry has this massive variability in warnings they use and still have so much potential cross-contamination of allergens?โฃ
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The problem tracks back to political parties, the way they are funded or the individual politician’s financial interest.โฃ
What I am saying might be controversial, but let’s look at what is known.โฃ
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Most of you have never heard of the “๐๐ถ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฏ ๐๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฅ ๐๐ฐ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฎ“.โฃ
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In theย ๐๐๐ย alone, in the 2014 elections, the food industry donatedย $๐๐๐, in total, to both parties.โฃ
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This comes to the ๐’๐ฌ I have spoken about before.โฃ
Those, also calledย ๐๐‘๐ฌ (๐๐ญ๐ช๐ค๐ช๐ต๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ), look into the dose needed to cause an allergic reaction and the percentage of allergic people who will react.โฃ
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So a ๐๐ or ๐๐๐ means that the potential cross-contamination in a particular food will lead to 1% or fewer allergic people reacting to that food.โฃโฃโฃ
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The best collaboration done so far is the one between the food industry inย Australia, theย Governmentย andย Allergy Organizations.โฃโฃโฃ
(see the attached table to see the ED for the 14 main allergens)โฃโฃโฃ
Such an agreement does not exist in theย ๐๐ย at present.โฃโฃโฃ
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The hope for theย ๐๐, at the moment, is that the so called “๐๐๐ญ๐๐ฌ๐ก๐’๐ฌ ๐๐๐ฐ” will lead to a change in this practice.โฃโฃโฃ
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But we need to go deeper than simple labelling, look into manufacturing practices, and avoid allergens altogether.โฃโฃ
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