Companies caught selling falsely-labelled food

New Australian research has found that some companies manufacturing gluten-free foods might need to test their products more frequently, after some samples were found to contain gluten.

While the majority of gluten-free food tested had no detectable gluten, the research suggests that in some cases manufacturing processes could be improved in the interests of patients trying their best to adhere to a strictly gluten-free diet.

The study, published today in the Medical Journal of Australia, was conducted by a team led by Dr Jason Tye-Din, head of coeliac research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and gastroenterology consultant at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

The study tested 256 commonly purchased manufactured foods labelled as ‘gluten-free’ at the National Measurement Institute in Melbourne.

If gluten was detected and confirmed with a follow up test, then a fresh sample was purchased and analysed to assess whether the contamination was isolated or affecting multiple batches.

The findings revealed that one in 40 foods labelled as ‘gluten-free’ did not comply with the national standard of ‘no detectable gluten’.

Dr Tye-Din said the results were important for coeliac patients whose health depended on a gluten-free diet.

“Patients with coeliac disease require a strict gluten-free diet for their treatment and should be able to trust that food labelled as ‘gluten-free’ is what it says it is.

“While it was pleasing to see that the majority of samples had no detectable gluten, the fact that gluten was detected in some samples tells us better processes could be put in place in the interests of people who require a gluten-free diet.

“For instance, the study found a ‘gluten-free’ pasta that contained more than 3mg of gluten in a standard single serve. This is a minimal amount but it could have a harmful impact on patients with coeliac disease if consumed frequently,” Dr Tye-Din said.

Dr Tye-Din said the researchers had notified the manufacturers of products containing detectable gluten to initiate a constructive dialouge about how their gluten-free food production processes could be improved.

Do you try and buy gluten-free products? Do these findings disturb you?

7 comments

A dear friend of mine was celebrating her 70th birthday. She is Jewish and they had on the table Bagels, they were delicious, so next time I went along to Woolies I checked out the bread department and found the Bagels, they were sweating inside the bag and squeezing them found they had been frozen and were now defrosting. They were supposed to be FRESH as the label showed.  I left them alone. 

Maybe the bagels were classed as "freshly frozen". 

HOLA..Woolies sell fake bagels. If you want the real thing you have to go to a Jewish bakery. The Bagel Co. in Sydney is great.

Try spreading some cream cheese and top with thin slices of smoked salmon..yummy!


Thanks Sophie for your message. My friend had smoked salmon and cream cheese on them, that's why I wanted to try the same. I'll check out The Bagel Co. 

No. People '...try TO buy gluten-free...'.

Unless someone has Celiac disease..having a gluten free diet can be very damaging to their health..


No Sophie it is not damaging to your health if you go gluten free as long as you don't eat all the crap gluten free packaged junk. Gluten can cause a lot of problems and if you are unwell should consider stopping eating it. I only eat sourdough spelt bread and feel a lot better since giving up wheat and I am not celiac. 

I agree on that musicveg. I'm not coeliac but I avoid wheat as much as possible. Eat only spelt and feel much better for it.

Musicveg..

I’m glad you feel better after giving up wheat. However spelt and wheat have similar nutritional value and both contain gluten. Despite the health benefits of whole grains spelt may be harmful for people with IBS.

Hope no one takes too much notice of you or I but consult with their doctors before taking or giving up anything :)



Doctors did not help me at all, I actually got sicker after they prescribed anitbiotics and set me back further on the road to health. This is why I am so passionate about using good food for health. Spelt can be a problem for some people with IBS, I can only have it if it is sourdough bread, but don't consume in any other way. IBS sufferers get a lot of relief from the fodmap friendly diet which I did a vegan version of, I had immediate relief, now I am still slowly introducing things back into my diet but I find a lot of food I don't need anymore.

Never ceased to be surprised by the current level of people with various such disorders. Never heard of gluten free stuff or problems with gluten years ago.

Is this a symptom of our current life style and eating habits? Is it a sign of over consumption of processed rather than fresh foods. Could this be a root cause of the large increase(seemingly) of things like ATHD and other such issues?

A lot of current research seems to be pointing to diet and gut bacteria as being fundamental to many aspects of our overall health, even correct brain function. Maybe later generations have just not eaten enough "dirt" being cossetted away from things that may build up our resistance to various such sysmptoms. Jury still out!

The awareness by doctors of people potentially having coeliac disease has increased substantially in recent times. Coeliac disease affects 1 in 70 Australians, owever, around 80% of this number remain undiagnosed.

20years ago a lot of doctors wouldn't think of it, people would have stomach issues and they'd treat it with antacids, but the good doctors know and now it's become the forfront of peoples minds. So, so many people don't know they have a problem, all they may know is they feel a bit sick sometimes and put it down to too much food, the wrong or whatever.

And I can attest to how it affects the brain - when I've been "glutened" accidentially I become very groggy, and forget what's happened for a few hours, just totally gone from memory, a very strange feeling that I would rather not repeat. 


Pedro, it has a lot to do with the over hybridization of wheat and also the overprocessing, white bread for example has no fibre and is unhealthy.

Recent studies have indicated that white bread is not bad for people with good gut bacteria. Naturally..one would not want to consume a lot of anything. Personally..I like white artisan bread and have been eating it for years with no ill effects. 

Remember Grandma’s old saying “a little bit of what you fancy, does you good” :)

Just make sure it is organic, so you don't consume all the pesticides and fertilizers another reason why bread can be unhealthy and cause allergy problems in some people. Also sourdough is better as it is easier on the digestive system.

As far as falsely labellin goods as "gluten free" goes, I wonder how they get the gluten out of the foods to begin with!

Surely it must involve some tricky chemical manipulation or such which may alter the food anyway. Again we have to deal with overprocessed foods.

So a study found 3mg of gluten in a single serve. Wow, that would be enough to kill a lot of people, wouldn't it.

So the companies involved are "falsely labelling". There are many cases of false labelling in marketing and its done deliberatley to get around our labelling laws relating to sources of products, maybe they should concentrate on that so we can ensure we can make a real choice of where we source our foods from.

Actually Pedro even a trace of gluten from say a contaminated production line, or a bench in a restaurant can cause severe injury to someone with coeliac disease. That's the problem with these food fads that everyone jumps on, those that really need it are disadvantaged by those that just think it is healthy. Manufactured gluten free foods are actually not healthy at all (except for those that really want to eat bread and can't eat the regular kind). Next time you are in the supermarket just compare the nutritional panels of say bread or pasta and you will see exactly what I mean.

I have a medically diagnosed condition which means I had to stop eating gluten. I just don't buy those foods. Junk is junk whether it has gluten or not!

 

No tricky food manipulation, the manufacturers just don't put gluten ingredients in the foods - wheat, barley, oats and rye are the grains and are not included in Gluten Free foods. There's a couple of exceptions (glucose syrup for example) which comes from wheat but is so highly processed that the gluten is gone - but that's just normal processing.

The 3 mg is high, not going to kill you but kill well make you very sick for a day or two. they measure the gluten as parts per million (ppm), Australia has a standard of less then 3 ppm, most of the world has less then 20 ppm and that pasta in question was 49 ppm - so not massive but if you ate a lot of that particular pasta every copule of days for a few weeks say....well you'll likely to be pretty crook in the guts.

What annoyed me with this testing was it's from early this year, no brands mention only pasta, rice cakes, etc so we don't know if we have been consuming these foods, people may still have packets in the kitchen but we don't know. It's a shocking situation, the foods should have been recalled at the time, we've become a third world country where we can't confidently rely on food labelling to be correct.

 

FYI - There's lots of foods that are gluten free by ingredient, say milk, cheese, some soups, etc, etc but they don't say gluten free on them. If a company wants those words "Gluten Free" on their packaging they must test the product and show a "Nil Detected" to gluten on the nutritional panel - these are the products that were tested.

I love Bagels but they have to be REAL ones -- unable to get here at all  -- oh how I would love a REAL bakery here --  we had some good ones but Woolies & Coles saw to that

Best to stay away from packaged gluten free foods anyway, make your own. The only thing I buy is rice pasta and buckwheat pasta, I make my own sourdough spelt bread which is low in gluten. I don't eat anything with wheat by choice, I feel better without it.

 

musicveg, I think you ought to be congratulated. You've devised your own eating plan and it works for you. I have a couple of friends from the Seventh Day Adventist church and they are strict vegetarians. I enjoy the occasional lunch at their homes, they do wonderful things with legumes and veggies. I have to be honest I could never be vegan nor a total vegetarian, but I am a flexitarian (new buzz word for someone who is mostly vegetarian).

I wish you continued good health.

Thanks Kiah, I like flexitarians because at least they are open to try new things. Sadly legumes don't agree with me, I keep trying though in small amounts. I am growing snow peas, picking some for tonights dinner.

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