casein & lactose levels in "caseine & lactose free" foods

October 15, 2009 5:25 PM

Can someone tell me the minimum safe level of casein and lactose found in "casein free" &/ or "lactose free" foods that would not trigger an allergic reaction. (In ppm.) i.e. the lowest safe level allowed if you were trying to produce such a food product. (It will be for ghee, which has the milk solids removed, but residual trace amounts could potentially remain.) In striving to get it as low as possible, what would be an acceptable level to not trigger allergic response?

We want to safely label the ghee as "caseine & lactose free". From my research, the FDA doesn't currently have any law defining this or offer any guidelines, but we would like to know if their are acceptable levels which would be safe for people who are allergic to these substances.

TIA

posted by Mimidae to food & drink (5 comments total)

In the time-honored tradition of not answering the hard question, here's an article I found a while ago with amazing levels of outrage at foods that are falsely labeled as such. Which is to say, as you probably already know, not everyone avoids these foods because of allergies.
posted by gensubuser at 5:50 PM on October 15, 2009

See answer here.
posted by klangklangston at 6:24 PM on October 15, 2009

You're going to have to word your label carefully to avoid the wrath of the FDA and the folks that gensubuser mentions.

I'm not sure what the threshold dose of an immunogen is. It certainly varies on a case by case basis. I do know that an few nanograms of impurity can elicit an immune response in some cases but that's with an injected mixture plus an adjuvant prepared for the purpose of eliciting a response.

One ppm of contamination is about 30 billion molecules of casein per gram and more of lactose.

The right answer might be to say "This product contains less than XX ppm Lactose and YY ppm casein." and put the onus on the consumer to see if it triggers THEIR allergy. Remember too that virtually no one uses the term allergy precisely.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 6:34 PM on October 15, 2009

I know a couple of people who have confirmed allergic responses to allergens in the order of parts per billion while others can tolerate gram levels in their diets before it kicks in, so this really is a highly individualised thing. It also seems like the labelling regulations differ by country. For example, In Australia/New Zealand gluten has to be below 5 ppm (the limits of detection) to be labelled as gluten free whereas the FSA in Britain sets the level at 20 ppm (recently down from 200). (I know you're dealing with casein, gluten just seems to be easier to google). There isn't one hard and fast answer.

Ideally you'd get your casein and lactose measured with the most sensitive method available to you and label accordingly, then the consumer can decide for themselves (assuming any shows up, if it's below detection then the "free" labelling seems reasonable). I generally don't like the buyer beware argument so much but given how individual the response is and if there are no set rules from the FDA then it seems to be the only way to be safe.
posted by shelleycat at 7:13 PM on October 15, 2009

You probably should talk to some professional allergists or the AAAAI. Getting it wrong could put you on the bad end of a lawsuit.
posted by JJ86 at 6:33 AM on October 16, 2009 [1 favorite]