How Many P.p.m. (gluten) Can You Safely Tolerate?

[doodle]

Hey everyone, we are busy baking up a storm for our first day of gluten-free baking at the market and much to my horror I had a call from a supplier I know to inform me that he had one of "our" (his and mine from the same distributor) flours tested independently and found that they were over our Canadian "legal limit" of 20 p p m. (parts per million) All the rest were fine but it was just one product that was a bit over our Cnd safety standard.

It is my understanding that in the states, your allowable p p m is much higher than that and I wanted to find out how many celiacs are able to tolerate:

any VS some VS up to XX p p m of gluten in their flours and products.

I realize in a perfect world it would be great to have 0 ppm but that seems to be unrealistic according to my research. The cost to have each and every bag of flour tested would be astronomical and then what can I do with "almost" gluten free product ?

You see as it turns out, my distributor takes every precaution to avoid cross contamination but I have no control as to what has happened before it gets to my doors. So I would appreciate hearing from you to help me with my dilema.

And yes I am diligently sourcing another supplier , it's just the short term issue I need to deal with and your information would be very helpful.

thanks , doodle

[Tim-n-VA]

It is a long article and I don't have time to sort thru it but a recent discussion on this cited this article as a source for threshold info:

Open Original Shared Link

[nutralady2001]

In Australia gluten must be <5 ppm to qualify as gluten free (but must still be stated on the label)

[jrc121]

Zero.

I have celiac disease.

[psawyer]

This is one of those seemingly simple questions that does not have a simple answer.

The reason is that ppm is not the real issue. You must consider the total amount of gluten consumed over the course of time, say, a single day.

If I eat four slices of bread which are 5 ppm that is the same as one slice of bread that is 20 ppm.

[MaryJones2]

Tim and Peter are correct about the PPM being a complex beast. 20PPM is generally accepted in the US but not yet a regulation. This is also a good explanation of PPM: Open Original Shared Link (There is one update to the doc - Europe also set their limit to 20PPM recently)

Did your supplier say what a bit over was? There are quite a few suppliers of flours made in dedicated facilities that would consistently fall well under 20ppm so maybe going with one of those companies would make you feel at ease knowing that you didn't have to test every batch that came in or worry about getting a call like that after the fact.

As you said, the immediate concern is the "almost gluten-free" bread and what to do with it. My concern is that you serve it to people who can't tolerate it and they get sick. People talk a lot when a product makes them sick and it could potentially hurt your future sales. Maybe if you put up a sign explaining the situation and let your customers know that you're getting a new supplier? The ones that know they are very sensitive would wait and the ones that know they could eat your bread would certainly try it. I think everyone would appreciate the honesty.

[Tim-n-VA]

A standard in PPM makes sense as a way to keep us from doing complex arithmetic in the grocery store. It does have implied assumptions. The two big ones are that a typical celiac can eat some small amount of gluten without clinical results and that a "reasonable" amount will be consumed.

[Lisa16]

Oh doodle, I am so sorry this happened to you.

I know you were trying really hard to undertake the new business the best and most respectful way possible. You really did your homework. I bet you are hopping mad. I would be :-(

Yes, I think if I were in your shoes, I would put a special label on that batch of product to explain what happened-- maybe you can give an approximation of the ppms you know about. I don't know what "slightly over" means, exactly. If it were 21 ppm, say, many people might not feel so bad about eating it. But if it is more like 50ppm, a lot more people wouldm't touch it. But people who are gluten light would.

Unfortuantely gluten is such a tricky beast and it turns up in so many places you don't expect in small quantities. I saw a post on here about Domata flours that said they actually walk the fields to make sure there are no gluten grains growing nearby or mixed in with the crop. Maybe you can check them out.