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By Fred, February 9, 2010 8:00 am

On February 5, 2010, the NY Times ran a piece outlining thoughts at the FDA of re-evaluating the portion sizes found on food labels.

For those of us who follow a specialty diet; the issues with food labels are no surprise.  While we are all hunting through to understand what items may indicate wheat, gluten, shellfish, peanuts, tree-nuts, dairy or soy, most of us have learned to ignore the seemingly random aspect of portion size.  One bag of chips may be 2 servings, another 1, another may be fractional.  Bags from within a product family may have different portion sizes by weight and not be internally consistent.

One other item that is near and dear to those of us who await any gluten-labeling guidelines is that the FDA is no better at dealing with this issue than any other.  The article states midway through, that;

The F.D.A. has vowed to re-evaluate serving sizes before. Amid concern over obesity, it said in 2005 that it was considering changes. That effort languished, but has now been revived by the Obama administration.

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By Fred, February 2, 2010 10:46 pm

Photos of the defendant, Seelig / Gleason, as the injunction stopping him from selling Gluten Free products and ordering his website be taken down. Photo taken by WRAL, property of Capitol Broadcasting Company.

A preliminary injunction was granted in the case of North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Plaintiff v. Paul Evan Seelig a/k/a Andrew Jeffrey “Jeff” Gleason d/b/a Great Specialty Products, defendant.

Excerpts below:

29. The Defendant has committed much of his adult life to defrauding and victimizing people, most recently endangering their health and safety;

30. The Defendant is not engaged in an honest business enterprise, but rather, is engaged in a scheme to defraud particularly vulnerable, sick people;

32. The North Carolina Department of Agriculture brings this lawsuit on behalf of the people of this State who have been or soon may be victimized by the Defendant’s illegal conduct;

33. These people, especially those with Celiac Disease and Gluten intolerance, are particularly vulnerable to injury and harm by reason of the Defendant’s business activities;

Summary of the findings - the Defendant is ordered to accomplish the following within one day;
1. Provide a list of all of his ingredient, product and bread suppliers.
2. Share a customer list (presumably so they can be notified of the issues with the bread products).
3. Provide samples of all of the products to the State.
4. Permit the State to inspect all facilities.
5. Take down his website and all advertising.

Further, the defendant must include, in all capitals and in bold print, “THIS PRODUCT(S) IS NOT GLUTEN FREE.”

Bail was set at $100,000 as the court considered Seelig / Gleason a flight risk.

GlutenFreeRaleigh coverage from the courtroom is here.

NBC 17, Raleigh News coverage here.

WRAL coverage of the story is here.

A copy of the original court filing against Seelig / Gleason and Great Specialty Products is here.

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By Fred, January 21, 2010 10:16 pm

Find Zach Becker at Gluten Free Raleigh’s coverage of today’s hearing against Great Specialty Products [dot] com here.

NBC News 17 in Raleigh covered the story as well.

Here is a longer article by the Raleigh News and Observer from this morning, published after the State Attorney General’s office made their initial filings public.  We appreciate the reference.

And again, note our original post on GSP’s products, our subsequent post, and this post at the GFCF Cookbook.

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By Fred, January 20, 2010 10:57 pm

The North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Safety takes an unprecedented step in the legal defense of those with Celiac Disease.

Pursuant to past posts here, and at the GFCF Cookbook, about Great Specialty Products [dot] com.

This action is being brought to stop the dissemination of false and misleading advertising previously made and now being made by Defendant Paul Evan Seelig, alk/a Andrew Jeffrey “Jeff” Gleason, d/b/a Great Specialty Products (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Defendant Seelig” or individually referred to as “Gleason” or “Great Specialty Products”), using, inter alia, the internet website www.greatspecialtyproducts.com (hereinafter referred to as the “Great Specialty Products’ website”) and via telecommunications. Said advertisements falsely and misleadingly state and misrepresent that certain bread products sold by Defendant Seelig via the Great Specialty Products’ website are and were gluten-free when, in fact, said bread products contain gluten that causes harmful physical reactions and other serious health-related problems when consumed by people who have, inter alia, Celiac Disease.

This is taken from the first page of File No. 10CV001020 issued on Wednesday, January 20 at 3 PM against Paul Seelig, the Plaintiff, by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

We will link to the full document as it becomes available.

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By Fred, January 5, 2010 7:45 am

What would be the impact of eating these items?

Spectrums are everywhere, from the classic visible light spectrum of ROY G BIV (or his Russian cousin, VIB G YOR), to the progression from birth to death, gradual changes and their delineations provide useful frameworks for understanding how things work.

There is an obvious spectrum of the impact consuming an item could have on an individual.  On one side we have severe negative reactions, and on the other, we have extremely positive reactions.  In the middle we have neutral events.  Our focus here is on the impact on an individual, not on an entire population.  The spectrum has five clear values:

• Strong Negative: If the item ingested kills the individual, it is a poison.
• Weak Negative: If the item harms the individual, it is a toxin or allergen.
• Neutral: If the item has no impact, it is a non-actor.
• Weak Positive: If the item sustains the individual, then it is a food.
• Strong Positive: If the item improves the individual, it is a medicine.

From a severity standpoint, gluten is somewhere between the weak and strong negative for those with CD.  For those with some kind of wheat anaphylaxis, it is clearly a poison.  For the population at large, it is somewhere between neutral and weak positive.  While this framework for thinking about gluten is focused on individuals, it is a first step in exploring the impact of gluten on a population.

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By Fred, January 4, 2010 7:21 am

A recent New York Times article discussed the adventures of a pair of students from Manhattan’s Trinity School as they collected DNA samples for analysis by Dr. Mark Stoeckle of Rockefeller University.

The most fascinating mention in the article was that one in six (11 out of 66 to be precise) of the typical household food items were mislabeled, ”including sheep’s milk cheese that was in fact made of cow’s milk, venison dog treats that were made of beef and sturgeon caviar that was actually Mississippi paddlefish.”

Because of the differences between animal cell structure and those of plants, DNA barcoding, as discussed in the article, still is a long way away from being helpful in our efforts to identify wheat, barley and rye to avoid gluten.

Creating mechanisms by which consumers can double check manufacturer’s statements about food contents creates interesting dynamics in any setting. As such mechanisms become more socially acceptable and a fact of life for complex supply chains, such as the food industry, they will benefit those of us who pursue specialty diets.

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By Fred, January 2, 2010 12:32 pm

As noted previously on our site, and on other blogs, a number of products sold at Great Specialty Products [dot] com having a gluten free product claim contained measurable amounts of gluten.  Our initial post showed five products to have gluten, an additional four tests have also shown high levels of gluten in three other products. We know of no tests which have shown a gluten free product (using 20 ppm as the definition of gluten free). Tests using both the R5 and Skerrit antibody have been used.  The lone test used capable of showing very high levels of gluten indicated the levels were similar to that of regular bread (>5,000 ppm of gluten).

We are providing this information due to the number of inquiries we have had since our initial post. Any investigations being pursued are the domain of the appropriate authorities and we make no comment about those efforts.

If you have purchased these products and they have affected your health, please contact the relevant state agency.  Despite the regulatory and labeling constraints around gluten, we are fortunate to have state agencies which are very quick to act when someone says, “I ate this and it made me or my child sick.” Please contact only the relevant group, while we appreciate the efforts of those who are disturbed by the implications of this information, our efforts are focused on providing factual information to the appropriate parties.

• North Carolina:  North Carolina Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Safety (”NCDA&CS”) ask for a Food Compliance Officer; (919) 733.7366.
• South Carolina: South Carolina Department of Agriculture; (803) 734-2210.
• Virginia: Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services; Toll-free within VA (800) 552-9963. Virginia has an online complaint form available here.
• Maryland: Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Community Health Administration; (410) 767-5300.
• Washington, DC: We have received inquiries from Washington DC, however we have been unable to identify the appropriate regulatory body to approach. If you know of the appropriate group, please let us know at contact@junonutrition.com so we can update this link.
• Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has an online complaint form.
• Ohio: Ohio Department of Agriculture, Food Safety Division; (614) 728-6250

If you have samples of the product please keep them in a refrigerated environment and pass that information on as you call the parties mentioned above. Other records which indicate the date or purchase, any labeling that was provided should be retained and shared with the appropriate authorities. To date we know of no attempts by the manufacturer to issue a recall or alert previous customers.

These products were available by purchase in person, by delivery and via the mail service. The website appears to still be functioning (we are not linking to it). Their first efforts to sell products can be dated to October 1, 2009.

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By Fred, December 13, 2009 10:08 pm

[UPDATE 12/15/2009 4:30 PM: We received feedback from the EZ Gluten manufacturer. We were informed that the EZ Gluten reading of high is not a clear indicator of > 200 ppm. A 'High' reading is simply a relative indicator, and the only clear ppm reading from the test is the < 10 ppm of a low reading. 'High' may indicate higher or lower than 200 ppm.  Further, the 3rd party test that was used was not the 'AOAC approved' test; rather it was a modification of the AOAC OMA 991.19 that has been modified to go down to 5 ppm.  As a point of transparency, our errors are left in with strikethrough.]

Five (5) different products which had a ‘Gluten Free’ product claim from Great Specialty Products, a physical and online seller of GF products, show high levels of gluten based on seven (7) different gluten tests.  Six were over the counter test kits, one was sent off to a 3rd party lab for independent confirmation.  We purchased two products, a white-bread loaf, and a sourdough loaf from Great Specialty Products - a website (greatspecialtyproducts [dot] com), and formerly a physical store, based in North Carolina.  Both samples, when evaluated with an EZ Gluten Kit, showed ‘High Gluten’ (photos and details below).  We were present for two other samples (a dinner roll and another white-bread loaf) when other EZ-Gluten Kits were run and showed ‘High Gluten’.  Two others shared results which were not run in our presence, which both showed high gluten.  For an EZ-Gluten kit, a reading of ‘High Gluten‘ indicates 200 ppm or more.

One of these six samples was sent to a 3rd party lab for independent testing, it too found ‘High’ levels of gluten.  For the [3rd party] AOAC approved test, High levels of gluten meant 80 ppm or more.  As of this writing, seven (7) different tests show products from Great Specialty Products to be high in gluten as defined by the relevant test.

EZ Gluten has shown 'High Gluten' on 6 Great Specialty Products breads.

A summary of the results are listed below:

• White Loaf / Delivered 12.7 / Tested 12.10 / EZGluten EZG90529-9 / Result = High Gluten, >200 ppm (JN)
• Sourdough Loaf / Delivered 12.7 / Tested 12.10 / EZGluten EZG90529-9 / Result = High Gluten, >200 ppm (JN)
• French Dinner Rolls / Delivered 12.3 / Tested 12.5 / EZGluten EZG90529-9 / Result = High Gluten, >200 ppm (JN)
• Sourdough Loaf / Delivered 11.25 / Tested 12.3 / EZGluten EZG90529-9 / Result = High Gluten, >200 ppm
• Flour Tortilla / Delivered 11.25 / Tested 12.3 / EZGluten EZG90529-9 / Result = High Gluten, >200 ppm
• Multi-Grain Bread / Delivered 11.25 / Tested 12.3 / EZGluten EZG90529-9 / Result = High Gluten, >200 ppm
• French Dinner Rolls / Delivered 12.3 / Tested 12.10 / 3rd Party AOAC Quantitative Gluten ELISA / Result = High Gluten, >80 ppm (JN)

We believe the likelihood of contamination of these samples since delivery is very low; they were handled by individuals with CD or by establishments that are well-versed in GF food preparation.  Chain-of-custody for each of these samples has been recorded.  For the four samples marked (JN), we have retained frozen representatives.  All users of the EZ Gluten kits were experienced in their use and photos of their use have been retained.

Product Delivery

The products were delivered door-to-door, but had no labeling, nor an ingredient list. We called a Food Compliance Officer at the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (”NCDA&CS”), who stated that if such a delivery had occurred, it would be a violation of North Carolina State Law.  NCDA&CS further stated that the same laws would be applied to an online retailer as would those that applied to a physical store.  North Carolina law also supports Federal law in relation to following GMP and allergen labeling.

Re-Packaged Desserts

In past weeks, Great Specialty Products had an area on their site titled, “Gluten Free Specialty Desserts.”  Two desserts from this area had been delivered to a customer with the original wrappers from the primary manufacturer, an un-associated private-label food manufacturer.  When the original manufacturer was called, they stated that their products were not gluten free.  Website photos from the non-gluten free photos were being used to promote the Great Specialty Products desserts, again the Great Specialty Products were represented with a Gluten Free product claim.  The original manufacturer immediately set about correcting the situation.  It appears that this portion of the site has now been removed, an archive of the page can be found here.

Notification

Prior to this post Great Specialty Products was informed that based on the results we had received that their products contain gluten.  We attempted to ask questions about ingredients and the source of their product claims.

Final Comments

Several products from Great Specialty Products have been to have high levels of gluten in contrast to their product claims of 'Gluten Free.'

As someone with CD on the GFD, I am immensely grateful to any group that makes GF products.  We recognize that kits have their weaknesses, that suppliers may provide ingredients that are out of spec, and that accidents do happen.  We routinely run EZ Gluten kits when it is difficult to tell if ingredients have gluten or not.  The kits were run in this instance after the products were delivered unlabeled without an ingredient list.

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By Fred, December 5, 2009 5:45 pm

Sushi is being identified through genetic means

The WSJ just published a great article on the use of DNA ‘barcodes’ for speciation of food products.  Unfortunately, species identification is much simpler in animals than it is in plants.   While the methods employed are not immediately valuable, they do show that clear identification of food products and their components continues to grow as a societal issue.

The article, reported by Robert Lee Hotz, outlines how rapid genetic sequencing is increasingly being used to identify animals for food, environmental and other reasons.  He focuses on a recent test of 68 samples from 31 sushi restaurants in New York and Denver (why would you eat Sushi in Denver?) which found that restaurant patrons weren’t always getting what they ordered.  Lower cost, endangered, and even potentially dangerous fish species were served in their place.

A similar survey in Canada of 18 sushi restaurants found that half the orders were mislabeled.  A 2004 study by the University of North Carolina estimated that 3/4 of all snapper sold in the US was mislabeled.

This also matters for food labeling and species conservation.  Current guidelines restrict the label Grouper to 33 species of fish.

This has profound implications for all of us who are concerned about the presenece of gluten, or other foods, in our diets.  We are not alone.  Almost as important as the health, safety and species conservation aspects of this article is the fact that there are clear economic implications.  It matters what people eat; there is money to be had for those who pay attention.

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By Fred, October 20, 2009 8:10 am

Unite for GFD Education!

Just when we thought Zach at Gluten Free Raleigh couldn’t do anymore to help those with recent CD diagnosis or those who pursue the GFD, he has topped himself.  Today he’ll be presenting this petition to the City Council to increase awareness of the big eight food allergens and gluten.

Please take the time to sign up to the petition here.