Often people ask me what they should do when they see a “𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯” label.⁣
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My first question to them is, how many variations of that wording have they seen?⁣
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• In a study done many years ago, the researchers found over 20 different ways of writing an allergy warning in food.⁣
• They asked people how they would act, depending on what was written, and the variability was incredible.⁣

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𝐒𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰, 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞.⁣
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Several other studies went to see what was the actual variation of allergen concentration.⁣
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What did they find?⁣

• In products with a warning, 6.5 to 93% contained an allergen.⁣
• In products without a warning, 11 to 53% contained an allergen.⁣

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In reality, there is still a significant risk of a not labelled food, to contain a substantial amount of allergens.⁣
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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?⁣
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The problem tracks back to political parties, the way they are funded or the individual politician’s financial interest.⁣
What I am saying might be controversial, but let’s look at what is known.⁣
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Most of you have never heard of the “𝘌𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘍𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘶𝘮“.⁣

• This is the most powerful lobby within the 𝘌𝘜 – the 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐛𝐲.⁣
• They have offices inside the 𝘌𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 and manage to block all resolutions that can lead to improvement of food quality when this affects the profit the food industry has.⁣
• It is easy to see what they have done so far, as most are widely published. (the list is far too long for me to place it here).⁣

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In the 𝘜𝘚𝘈 alone, in the 2014 elections, the food industry donated $𝟏𝟕𝐌, in total, to both parties.⁣
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This comes to the 𝐏’𝐬 I have spoken about before.⁣
Those, also called 𝐄𝐃‘𝐬 (𝘌𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘋𝘰𝘴𝘦), look into the dose needed to cause an allergic reaction and the percentage of allergic people who will react.⁣
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So a 𝐏𝟏 or 𝐄𝐃𝟏 means that the potential cross-contamination in a particular food will lead to 1% or fewer allergic people reacting to that food.⁣⁣⁣
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The best collaboration done so far is the one between the food industry in Australia, the Government and Allergy Organizations.⁣⁣⁣
(see the attached table to see the ED for the 14 main allergens)⁣⁣⁣

Such an agreement does not exist in the 𝘌𝘜 at present.⁣⁣⁣
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The hope for the 𝘜𝘒, at the moment, is that the so called “𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐚’𝐬 𝐋𝐚𝐰” will lead to a change in this practice.⁣⁣⁣
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But we need to go deeper than simple labelling, look into manufacturing practices, and avoid allergens altogether.⁣⁣
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