Are Refined Oils OK?

[Gloria]

When I was looking at the list of allergenic ingredients in Arbys foods, I was surprised to read that they didn't consider it necessary to list refined oil as an allergenic ingredient.

This apparently comes from a decision by Congress:

There are ingredients that can be derived from major allergens that may contain extremely small levels of allergenic protein. When the level of allergenic protein is present at these low levels, it is believed that the food-allergic individual should be able to safely eat the food. By way of example, there are clinical studies demonstrating that highly refined oils can be safely consumed by food-allergic individuals, even though these oils may contain very small levels of protein. Congress exempted highly refined oils from the allergen labeling requirements.

- found on http://www.foodallergy.org/

Anytime that I see soybean or peanut oil in the list of ingredients on a product, I put the product back. Is it safe to consume these highly refined oils? I seem to remember Polly saying that a potato chip company switched to corn oil and she began having a reaction to their product.

Does the answer depend on the individual's level of intolerance?

Gloria

[tex]

Does the answer depend on the individual's level of intolerance?

I believe that's the correct answer.

To add insult to injury, it appears that our govt. is going to endorse the Codex Alimentarius standard for the definition of gluten-free, for this country, in the coming year. IOW, with the new "world" standard, any food can contain up to 20 parts per million of gluten, and still be labeled as gluten-free. It totally sucks, but I'm sure our government has our best interest at heart.

There will be a lot more "gluten-free" food products available, after the law goes into effect, and the theory is that this will be a good thing. The problem, of course, is that every one of those "new" GF products will contain up to 20 ppm of gluten. No longer will manufacturers be required to worry about tiny amounts of gluten in their products, so you can jolly well bet that they certainly won't waste any time worrying about it. True GF products will probably become much more scarce in the marketplace after a few years.

In fact, up until this summer, the maximum amount of gluten allowed by the Codex standard was 200 ppm, and apparently, Europe has been following that standard for many years. Canada has been using 20 ppm, though, and after the U. S. began considering adopting 20 ppm, the Codex Alimentarius commision decided to lower the approved threshold to 20 ppm. I have no idea what percentage of the gluten-sensitive population might react to 20 ppm, (I'm sure it will be very low), but there's no question that more than an insignificant number of celiacs reacted to the 200 ppm limit.

Tex