THURSDAY, Nov. 6, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Three kits that test for peanut proteins in cereal, cookies, ice cream and milk chocolate have been approved by the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC).
These test kits offer the food industry a quick and reliable method to more readily detect the presence of peanuts in food that's not labeled as containing peanuts. The kits will help prevent such products from getting onto store shelves.
Research and industrial food operations and others with limited laboratory facilities will be the most likely users of these test kits.
The tests will let these operations quickly determine whether their food-processing operations prevent the inclusion of peanuts in foods declared to be peanut-free. The test will also reveal whether plant cleanup operations avoid cross-contamination and whether the finished product is peanut-free.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) performed a joint review and evaluation with the AOAC on the test kits. An FDA laboratory prepared and distributed coded samples to participating laboratories.
About 40 analyses can be done with each kit. The cost per kit ranges from $450 to $650.
Nearly 7 million Americans have food allergies of varying degrees of severity. About 8 percent of children younger than 3 and about 2 percent of adults are affected by food allergies. About 90 percent of all food allergy reactions are caused by eight foods: peanuts, eggs, milk, shellfish, wheat, soy, fish or tree nuts.
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