<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> At 02:15 PM 6/25/01 -0400, one member of the list wrote: >This is a horror ...We have the one disease where a >molecule is as bad as a lb, according to our Assocations. When I asked Cynthia Kupper, executive director of GIG this question: "does GIG say anywhere that "one molecule of gluten is as bad as a pound." She answered: "Absolutely not! CSA is the only one to my knowledge that does. In fact, I discussed this 'myth' in a talk a couple years ago." Later she continued: "You also will find that CDF will not support this notion." So certainly "our associations" do not tell us this old bromide. It's only CSA that makes this statement, in the most recent edition (second) of the CSA handbook, "On the Celiac Condition." It's on page 21 under the title of the chapter (6). It's also in the first edition, likely in the same spot. (Ann Sokolowski gracefully furnished the preceding CSA info.) And the CSA has always been far too slow to accept and incorporate new information into their instructions. Recently they seem to have shown some tendency to make some changes at least in the area of accepting distilled vinegar and alcohol. Perhaps soon they will purge their site of this ridiculous bromide about the "one molecule." The following quote is from an article that comes to us from Frederik Willem Janssen, Zutphen, The Netherlands, e-mail: [log in to unmask] If you have specific questions about it, please contact him directly. "Codex Alimentarius Explained - European Gluten-Free Standards": From Scott Adam's website: http://www.celiac.com/codex_wheat_starch.html#Codex_01 "There is a new Codex Standard in preparation, and a proposal to set the limiting level of gluten to 200-mg gluten/kg (20-mg/100 g) gluten-free food on dry matter. If we assume that half of the gluten is gliadin, this equals 10-mg gliadin/100 g o.d.m., so the level has gone down by a factor two in comparison to the "old" standard. If accepted, the new standard will be valid for end products and not for raw materials." This would mean even by the new more rigid standards that 10 mg of gliadin (the protein in gluten that actually harms us) in 100 grams (which is a little more than a quarter pound) of GF food is acceptable for celiacs, if they are not allergic to wheat as well, thereby being much more sensitive to minute particles of wheat. Now this is reasonable, and I have seen this "10 mg" estimate in at least three other places in my reading. Even by the yet newer and strictest yet standards in Canada, this would factor out to 5 mg of gliadin in a quarter pound of GF food is acceptable. Now if we figure that only about half of gluten is actually gliadin, then 10 mg of gluten in a quarter pound of GF food is acceptable even by the newest and strictest GF standards. Actually, the newest study on the harmful parts of gliadin tell us that it's only 2 linked proteins of gliadin that is harmful, out of the entire array of gliadin, which actually consists of 51 different proteins. So it's fine to have zero gluten as a goal, but don't expect to achieve it. You breathe in at least a molecule of gluten every day in the air. It's hard enough to keep the gluten intake down to the 10 mg without making it impossible by telling people they must have "zero tolerance," as the children nowadays are wont to say. Telling people that "one molecule of gluten is as bad as a pound" is tantamount to the Puritan preacher who told his flock that if they'd ever committed even one little sin they were surely doomed to spend eternity in hell. I don't know about you, but I'd think: Well hell, already done that, I might as well enjoy this time before I go down to Dante's Muse. And it would sure be Sin City after that :) But not at my age now. I'm afraid to even buy green bananas any more :) vance