<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
Below is what I sent e-mailed to my Congressman today, he happens to
be a lead sponsor of this Bill.  If you're going to respond to your
representative, DO IT NOW.  HEARINGS START THURSDAY JULY 18 ON
THIS BILL.
 
Jere Cordell
 
H.R. 3200, as part of the three-bill effort to streamline the FDA
processes, seeks a commendable purpose.  What I wanted to caution
against was using the streamlining process to sidetrack or derail efforts
for a little more specificity in the labels of prepared foods.  Many people
have food allergies that are kicked off by "hidden" ingredients that may
seem innocuous to the manufacturer, but can be horrid to the
unsuspecting consumer.
 
In my instance (and in hundreds of thousands of others'), the offending
food happens to be wheat (and barley, rye and oats), known as Celiac
condition.  As you can imagine, wheat is the cheapest and most plentiful
food stuff in the world with which to thicken, stabilize, stick together or
keep unstuck various foods.  So virtually all sauces and salad dressings;
tomato sauces and pastes; gravies; soups and chowders; formed deli
meats and wieners and many other products have these under the
heading of "starch" or "modified food starch" or "dextrin" or
"maltodextrin."  Try finding a prepared food without these.  Spaghetti and
pizza sauces all list tomato paste (or puree or concentrate, etc.) as the
lead ingredient.  What it doesn't tell you is what that paste or puree is
thickened with.  It should say simply "from wheat flour" or "from corn
starch", and people would know if they can eat it.
 
As the result of the efforts of many people in various countries, food
labels are now more and more listing the "hidden" ingredients, like corn
starch or oat starch in grated cheeses or in hot dogs.  It doesn't really
put any additional encumbrance on the manufacturer as to what they put
in there, we just want to know.  More now we're seeing "wheat free" or
"gluten free" on packages.  Gluten is the offending factor in the above
grains.  I wouldn't want the Bill to reverse this.
 
An upshot of H.R. 3200 is that it encourages the FDA to meet with the
FDAs of other countries.  While this is ostensibly to exchange ideas on
how they streamline their food labeling, the FDA may be surprised when
they find out that while we may be ahead in listing fat content as a % of
daily requirements, other countries are way ahead of us in listing actual
ingredients, particularly the above offending ones.