FREE FROM BITES
Alex Gazzola Freelance Journalist Alex is a writer specialising in food intolerance, coeliac disease, IBS, restricted diets and ‘freefrom’ food. He is the author of five books and regularly blogs at his site: www. allergy-insight.com
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NIMA COMES TO UK SHORES The Free From Show Winter held in Liverpool at the beginning of November saw the UK launch of the Nima portable gluten sensor, which has already been making waves among the coeliac community and beyond in the US. Promising ‘peace of mind at meal time’, the sensor is designed to accept pea-sized samples of foods, inserted within single-use capsules and to then test for the presence of gluten. There are limitations. Some forms of gluten cannot be detected or tested, including fermented or hydrolysed products (soy sauce, beer, malt vinegar) and alcohol. Uneven distribution of theoretical gluten contamination in a meal means that any peasized sample may not be representative of the whole. Particulates can be missed. Each test takes three minutes, meaning a long wait and cold food if several items on the plate are analysed. Test data on food samples containing gluten at above 20 parts per million (20ppm) seem good, with the Nima accurately reporting ‘gluten found’ around 95% of the time. Where results seem far less reliable are in the middle-range of the gluten-free ‘zone’. Independent evaluation of the device by the Food Allergy Research & Resource Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the results of which are published by The Journal of Food Protection, found that over half of tested samples of prepared food at 10ppm – safely within glutenfree levels – returned ‘gluten found’. A third did likewise at 5ppm. One concern here is that consumers would likely refuse these potentially safe foods and unfairly register a ‘gluten found’ mark against the food service provider via the app to which the Nima can be linked. In early October, some of this ‘real’ reported data from US Nima customers was collated, analysed and published in a paper by Columbia University scientists and Shireen Yates, Nima’s CEO. The widely publicised headline claim resulting from this – ‘one third of restaurant foods labelled gluten free contained at least 20ppm of gluten’ – caused alarm. One critic of both the Nima and this study is dietitian Tricia Thompson, who runs independent food testing agency Gluten Free Watchdog (www. glutenfreewatchdog.org), and has written extensively on the subject. She argues that the Nima is not scientifically validated according to the US Food and Drug Administration’s own definition, and that the key claim was misleading, given that Nima is not a quantifiable test. With half of 10ppm meals likely to test positive, the one in three figure likely overestimates the scale of the problem. Having previously stated that it could not recommend the sensor, Coeliac UK has now taken a more neutral approach based on informed choice in guidance to its members. The charity has emphasised its limitations and advises coeliacs to always ask for more information on food preparation. Debates will continue to rumble, and at £189.99 for the gadget and 12 capsules, which cost £59.99 separately (both from ALK’s https://uk.klarify.me), it is unlikely to be within budget for all coeliacs.
www.NHDmag.com December 2018/January 2019 - Issue 140