Thomas Paine famously said, “Lead, follow or get out of the way.” Sadly, American regulators appear to have opted for the third, when it comes to labeling for certain allergens. Take gluten. While the U.S. has reportedly been working to create a gluten-free standard, with various deadlines dating as far back as summer of 2008 and further, the country has no standard for gluten-free as of yet.
Meanwhile, the Codex Alimentarius, run by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N., essentially limits the amount of gluten in products labeled as “gluten-free” to 200ppm. (It is 20ppm for products containing intrinsically gluten-free components, but 200ppm for products rendered free of gluten, i.e., certain wheat starches.) However, the major support groups in the U.S., Canada and Europe have no consensus as to the definition of gluten-free. North of the border, for instance, the test presently used by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to determine the gluten content of foods has a sensitivity to a minimum of 20ppm, the current allowable tolerance for Canadian products.