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Tag: Gluten

  • INFOSAN Quarterly Summary, 2020 #1

    Food safety incidents

    During the first quarter of 2020, the INFOSAN Secretariat was involved in 38 food safety incidents involving 109 WHO Member States and 9 territories of WHO Member States. There were 25 incidents involving a biological hazard (Salmonella spp. [8], Listeria monocytogenes [5], Norovirus [3] Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli [2], Clostridium botulinum [2] Bacillus cereus [2], Cronobacter spp. [1], Shigella sonnei [1], unspecified biological hazard [1]), 6 involving an undeclared allergen (milk [3], peanut (1), egg [1], gluten [1]), 5 involving a physical hazard (undetermined foreign matter [2], glass [1], metal [1], plastic [1]), one involving a chemical/toxin hazard (histamine), and one linked to an unspecified hazard.

    The food categories that were most commonly involved in the 38 incidents during the first quarter of 2020 involved fish and other seafood (8), herbs and spices (4), legumes and pulses (4), milk and dairy products (3), nuts and oilseeds (3), snacks, desserts and other foods (3), cereals and cereal-based products (2), composite food (2), fruit and fruit products (2), meat and meat products (2), vegetables and vegetable products (2), products of special nutritional use (1), and food for infants and small children (1). One incident involved an unknown food source.

    During such international food safety incidents, the INFOSAN Secretariat relies on the swift action of national INFOSAN Emergency Contact Points to respond to requests for information. Rapid sharing of information through INFOSAN enables members to implement appropriate risk management measures to prevent illness in their respective countries.

    Geographic scope

    The outlined incidents involved Member States from all WHO regions: Europe (39), followed by the Americas (24), Africa (24), the Western Pacific (18), the Eastern Mediterranean (8) and South-East Asia (6).

    Recall in several countries of frozen spring roll sheets from Singapore due to the presence of an undeclared allergen

    In February 2020, the INFOSAN Secretariat was notified by the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) and INFOSAN colleagues in Australia of a recall in Australia and several European countries of frozen spring roll sheets due to the detection of an undeclared allergen (milk), imported from Singapore. In collaboration with RASFF, the INFOSAN Secretariat was informed that the implicated frozen spring roll sheets were distributed internationally to 46 Member States from four WHO regions and 4 territories in Europe and the Western Pacific. Moreover, through engagement with the INFOSAN Emergency Contact Point (ECP) in Singapore, the INFOSAN Secretariat also received details of further distribution of implicated products to additional WHO Member States from all WHO regions, taking the total number of Member States involved to 65. It was also reported that the products involved had been redistributed by some countries to Europe, the Americas and Africa. Consequently, several countries recalled the implicated products to relabel them and investigated the issue to identify illnesses related to the consumption of the implicated frozen spring roll sheets. No illnesses were reported to the INFOSAN Secretariat.

    This incident has highlighted undeclared allergens as an important category of hazards that can result in a largescale international response to implement risk management measures and prevent illness. In addition, it exemplified efficient communication among INFOSAN members and the Secretariat.

    Outbreak of Listeriosis in the United States of America linked to enoki mushrooms imported from the Republic of Korea

    In March 2020, the INFOSAN Secretariat was made aware by the United States (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of an outbreak of Listeriosis in the US linked to the consumption of enoki mushrooms, imported from the Republic of Korea. In total, 36 cases including 4 deaths have been reported in the US. Following investigations in Canada, carried out in collaboration with the US, the INFOSAN Secretariat was informed of 6 cases of Listeriosis between 2017 and 2019 in Canada potentially related by whole genome sequencing (WGS) to the ongoing outbreak in the USA. In addition, food isolates (from enoki mushrooms from the Republic of Korea) genetically associated with the cluster of cases have been collected in 2019 by authorities in Canada. The WGS information pertaining to the cases and food isolates were shared on the INFOSAN Community Website to assist the identification of cases in other countries.

    The INFOSAN Secretariat engaged the INFOSAN Emergency Contact Point (ECP) in the Republic of Korea to seek details on any further international distribution of the implicated enoki mushrooms. Investigations are ongoing. 

    News & activities

    Food Sector and the COVID-19 outbreak

    On 31 December 2019, WHO was alerted to several cases of pneumonia of unknown origin in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The virus, a previously unknown coronavirus has been named SARS-CoV-2 and is the cause of the COVID-19 disease.

    The WHO Epidemic Information Network (EPI-WIN) aims to share information tailored to specific sectors, including food and agriculture. The INFOSAN Secretariat has recently developed a guidance document for food businesses with regards to COVID-19 and food safety which is now available online. The guidance has also been disseminated through EPI-WIN and presented during two webinars.

    Call for applicants: INFOSAN Train-the-Trainer Workshop

    In February, the INFOSAN Secretariat issued a call for applications for the INFOSAN Train-the-Trainer workshop. With the constant growth of the network, and the increased need for training that this entails, the INFOSAN Secretariat, in collaboration with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), has announced this workshop which aims to increase the human resources available to train INFOSAN members on a range of INFOSAN-related topics, online or in-person. As a result, it is expected that the understanding of the roles and responsibilities of INFOSAN members will be improved, resulting in greater participation that will enhance speed and efficiency during the response to food safety emergencies at the global level. The INFOSAN Secretariat, together with CFIA, look forward to hosting this important workshop later this year.

    Developing the new INFOSAN Community Website

    The INFOSAN Community Website (ICW) continues to be an effective tool for the network to disseminate information during food safety emergencies. Over the past year, through the INFOSAN member survey, the Secretariat has gained a better understanding of how members use the ICW and how it can be improved to enhance information sharing. The information collected, together with the experience of members of the Secretariat, has provided numerous innovative ideas to guide the development of the new ICW. The Secretariat is pleased to announce that the competitive process to select the vendor that will develop the new INFOSAN Community Website has concluded and the work on the creation of the new ICW has begun. 

    Voice of an active network member

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    https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/23-04-2020-infosan-quarterly-summary-2020-1

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  • Eating Organic Foods Is Part of A Health Plan for Your Gluten Free Diet

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    How to be healthy is a subject with a wide swath of opinions. There are opinions about a vast group of different special diets. The negative health symptoms from eating certain foods is a very big challenge today.

    Gluten sensitivity is one of those symptomatic challenges that so many people are dealing.

    As you explore and venture onto a gluten free diet you may or may not see that all your troubling symptoms are going away. Symptoms you had hoped eliminating gluten would solve. Perhaps some symptoms have stopped or have eased but others that you thought might relate to gluten are still causing you grief.

    Lets also ask the question, are you still eating a diet consisting of manufactured processed commercial foods? Is the only change that now the foods you eat contain no gluten?

    Many people who are gluten sensitive, have Celiac disease or are gluten intolerant and just trade the same potentially toxic commercially processed foods for toxic gluten free foods. All the preservatives, additives and toxic chemicals are still there and may be contributing to many of the symptoms you are hoping to stop and control.

    What’s the solution? Go organic. This means start looking for the organic label on all the food you buy. Organic foods may in some circumstances and with certain items cost more, but what is your health and well being worth. If you would rather eliminate symptoms that may be connected to hidden gluten and additives with the use of pharmaceutical drugs or would you rather pay a bit more for your organic diet.

    Organic means clean food, no preservatives, no chemical additives, no binders. flavor enhancers or ingredients with laboratory names you can’t pronounce and have no idea what they are. Organic foods are grown naturally in soil without synthetic compounds added.

    One of the benefits of eating organic foods is that you can also test to see if any of the additives in the commercial processed foods you have been eating are contributing to any symptoms.

    Organic is the healthiest for you and the Earths environment? Here is another benefit from eating organic, you become part of the solution for a healthier planet and sustainable future for us all. While you make substantial changes to your diet like becoming gluten free consider making other kinds of substantial changes like eating organic foods in a Paleo diet or whole foods diet. It’s a serious win win for you and your health and for helping to solve an important environmental problem facing us all.

    What we choose to eat has an affect on the environmental health of the world. Eating gluten free organic foods makes a statement that you care about not only the chemicals going into your body but also all the chemicals being pumped into the Earth through non organic commercial agriculture.

    Going gluten free is just one part of the equation for getting healthier and reaching for new levels of health and quality of life. Making your gluten free lifestyle an organic lifestyle will serve you well.

    Organic Gluten Free Foods Are Bountiful

    The gluten free foods industry includes organic foods. Beyond the foods that would be substitutes for foods that would commonly contain gluten there are also all the organic foods that naturally don’t include grains and gluten. Organic vegetables and fruits, nut, seeds, beans, mushrooms, garlic, onions and all the other wonderful healthy foods are that much healthier when they are organically grown.

    Organic grains that are gluten free are the best kind of grains you can eat, like amaranth, quinoa, millet, rices, buckwheat and non corn are choices if you want to have gluten free grains in your diet. Organic foods help you avoid GM (genetically modified) ingredients as well.

    Another organic foods diet that is really good for you in the Paleo diet. Eating the diet of the hunter gatherer should be organic, the caveman’s diet was organic.

    Prior to the industrialization of farming and food production there was no need for the word organic to differentiate foods that are naturally grown and those that are commercially grown.

    One way to look at how natural organic foods should be for anyone’s diet is to realize that foods were organic for centuries and have only been industrialized for a very short time. There is evidence that the industrialization of foods is part of the cause of the rise of the gluten sensitivity epidemic.

    Making your gluten free diet an organic gluten free diet makes total sense and is very clearly the healthiest choice. In fact to take this a little further, an organic whole foods diet or Paleo diet is probably ultimately the healthiest diet for you.

    Take the leap and go organic all the way.

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    Source by Michael Chadd

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