When Are “Gluten Free” Foods Not Really Gluten Free?

by Robert Wilkinson

It’s a “freaky Friday,” a slow spot in the news cycle when the system tries to sneak some things out there they hope we’ll ignore. It turns out that our US FDA is still trying to figure out how to twist the label “gluten free” into “some gluten some of the time.”

Thanks to the AP story by Mary Clare Jalonick, courtesy of the sometimes reliable NBC News, “FDA defining what 'gluten free' means on food labels,” we read that

The Food and Drug Administration is at last defining what a "gluten free" label on a food package really means after more than six years of consideration. Until now, manufacturers have been able to use their own discretion as to how much gluten they include.

Under an FDA rule announced Friday, products labeled "gluten free" still won't have to be technically free of wheat, rye and barley and their derivatives. But they almost will: "Gluten-free" products will have to contain less than 20 parts per million of gluten.

That amount is generally recognized by the medical community to be low enough that most people who have celiac disease won't get sick if they eat it....

The rule would also ensure that foods with the labels "no gluten," "free of gluten," and "without gluten" meet the definition. Manufacturers will have a year to comply, but the FDA urged companies to meet the definition sooner.

So the manufacturers are taking the standards from the bought and sold medical community and feeding those numbers to the FDA. They are willing to say some gluten is no gluten believing that some who cannot tolerate any gluten may be able to tolerate some gluten.

Our government is off the rails. Corporatism is a deadly virus when it’s allowed to make public policy in the name of profits.

© Copyright 2013 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[Diane S]

Is that like being a little bit pregnant? And yes, the foxes are guarding the hen house! FDA...EPA...I feel like we' re in a bad dream.