<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
My name is Merete Askim, and I am a College Lecturer at the Department of Food
Science, Soer-Tronedelag College, Trondheim, Norway. In my teaching in
nutrition and food chemistry, I am very interested in food allergy and
intolerance. My students get jobs as food technologists, so it is important for
them to be aware of food allergy and intolerances.
 
I have invented a new concept which I call ALLERGY-HYGIENICS.
 
This combines both the aspects of avoiding contamination by
(1)  harmful baceteria
(2)  ingredients not meant to be part of the food in question.
 
A traditional concept in industrial food production is called HACCP
(Hazard Analysis Critical Points), which is concerned primarily with
bacterial contamination. My new concept ALLERGY-HYGIENIC improves upon
HACCP, by adding the concept of consideration of allergic and intolerant
ingredients, either directly through insufficient consideration of the
impact of an ingredient on the population, or inadvertently through
contamination by ingredients not meant to be part of the food in question.
 
We teach  the students to start the analysis of food production with the
least complex product, and end with the most complex, to have knowledge
of every ingredient, down to the smallest, including the food-additives.
 
For example,  some firms use vacuum tubes to deliver ingredients from
storage facilities to their production machinery.  If a gluten free product
is being made, and the tube used to deliver rice flour was previously used
to deliver wheat flour, there is likely cross-contamination which cannot
be removed by simply cleaning the final production machinery.  The tube
itself would have to be cleaned out, or the facility would have to be
designed so that gluten free flours are never transported in tubes which
at other times contain gluten.
 
Another example is when a dairy produces both "strawberry-yogurt"
and "raspberry -yogurt" on the same day, the ALLERGY-HYGIENIC concept is
to avoid any strawberry contamination in the raspberry product, or vice
versa.
 
Our goal is that all products will eventually have ALLERGY-HYGIENIC
qualities!
 
But we know this takes time and can be expensive in some occasions. It is
a new concept in the traditional way of hygienic thinking.  Even with
ALLERGY-HYGIENICS, we can not gaurantee no contamination, but we are
attentive, and make our preventions.
 
At our Department of Food Science, Trondheim, Norway, want this new concept
ALLERGY-HYGIENIC  to catch-on all over the world, and become common
knowledge.  So please tell others, and if you don't mind, remember that
it was created here.
 
When you are in contact with the food-industry, you might ask them:
is your production according to ALLERGY-HYGIENIC principles?
Have you taken  ALLERGY-HYGIENIC considerations in your production?
 
If you find this concept useful, please let me know by private email at
<[log in to unmask]>, or if your experience would be helpful to
others, tell the whole CELIAC-list.  I would also be interested in your
experiences as Celiacs with locating cross-contamination in foods.  By
cataloging your real-life experiences in the field, I can help my students
and their companies determine likely problem areas in food production.
 
Good luck !
 
Merete Askim
Inst. for n.m.fag    Phone (work)      +47 73 91 96 25
N-7004 Trondheim     Fax               +47 73 90 20 44
NORWAY               e-mail   [log in to unmask]