Food Insight Food scientists, allergenicity experts and members of the medical and academic communities have developed a decision tree approach to ensure that foods produced through biotechnology can be introduced into the food supply without any significant risk to food allergic individuals. Almost all food allergens are proteins. In biotechnology, proteins are transferred from one crop to another in order to enhance certain characteristics such as insect protection, delayed ripening, viral resistance and nutritional modification. The modern techniques of plant breeding enable farmers to produce a bounty of healthier crops and better tasting food. Although this percentage is small, food allergies are a serious problem.
Some food allergies can cause unpleasant reactions such as tingling lips and diarrhea.
Others can cause more severe reactions such as bronchospasms, choking, nausea, vomiting, hypertension and even death. The transfer of allergens is a key issue in food biotechnology. According to the IFBC report, the first step in assessing allergenic potential is to classify the source of the gene being transferred as commonly allergenic, less commonly allergenic or non-allergenic. Commonly allergenic foods include eggs, milk, fish, shellfish, peanuts, soybeans, wheat and tree nuts, and account for 90 percent of food allergies. Depending on the source of the gene, different data are required to assure that the introduced protein presents no significant allergenic concerns.