Importance of Gluten Allergen & Gluten Testing

The term "gluten sensitivity" has gained a lot of traction these days in the field of food safety. It has surpassed its trend phase and is directed towards a lifestyle or medical shift. The gluten-free products on the shelves of supermarkets have taken a major shift from being consumed by celebrities for nonmedical reasons to common people consuming them because of gluten allergies. In this blog, let us understand the facts about gluten and its health impact on sensitive groups.

Key takeaways and facts: Gluten sensitivity in the food safety space

Gluten is a complex protein matrix composed of two main groups, glutenin and gliadin, and is naturally found in wheat products, rye, barley, etc. Consumption of even trace amounts of gluten for individuals with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity may impact their health, ranging from mild to severe symptoms. In food manufacturing units, there is often a high chance of unintentional gluten cross-contamination during processing. This necessitates food producers to use an accurate gluten testing protocol to detect hidden gluten to avoid mislabeling and safeguard public health.

Gluten: The hidden threat in your meal

Imagine you went to a restaurant to enjoy a tasty meal. In the menu, you cautiously place the order for gluten-free tagged pasta or some snacks and explicitly inform the restaurant staff that you are allergic to gluten. You enjoyed the tasty food, and things were going well; suddenly, you started feeling cramps, bloating, and sharp abdominal pain. You went to the restaurant to enjoy the tasty food, but, in return, you suffered and got pain.

Despite carefully using a separate cooking pot for a gluten-free dish, cross-contamination of food took place. In spaces like shared kitchens or other food processing or manufacturing facilities, cross-contamination is very common and uncontrollable. Cross-contamination can occur in any way; for example, the same rolling board or rolling pin was used to make both gluten-free bread and wheat bread in the kitchen. Similarly, in the large-scale food manufacturing units, using the same equipment or a conveyor may cause cross-contamination in food. For those with celiac disease, even a minute amount of gluten in their food might trigger an immunological reaction.

Gluten Simplified: The Science and Impact 

Gluten is a unique and complex protein known to be naturally present in certain cereal grains, like wheat and wheat varieties (durum, spelt, etc.), barley, and rye and absent in starches such as rice, corn, millets, buckwheat, fruits, vegetables, meat, and poultry. Apart from these, many food items such as beer, soy sauce, ice cream, meat substitutes, ketchup, personal care products, and pet foods have been reported to contain gluten.

The concept of gluten actually exists when water is added to the flours and kneaded. When the flour is mixed with water, two protein groups, gliadin and glutenin, create a complex protein called gluten. Gliadin is responsible for the thickness and stretchability of the dough; in simple terms, it gives the dough a rubber band effect, the ability to stretch without tearing. Whereas glutenin gives the dough firmness, a spring effect, i.e., the ability to come back to its original shape. Gluten serve as a key ingredient in food industries due to its binding, stabilizing, and texture-enhancing properties for the production of many food items such as bakery products, pasta or noodles, snacks, etc. 

Understanding Gluten reactivity: Facts and side effects of gluten intake

Before getting deeper into the side effects and symptoms of gluten, it's very critical to understand the causes of gluten intolerance. Generally, in the human digestive system, most of the proteins, such as eggs, lean meats, fish, etc., break down into simple amino acids, which make them easy to digest. In the case of gluten, this digestive reaction is a bit complex. As per the sources, gluten contains two specific amino acids: one is proline, which creates a rigidity in protein chains, and another is glutamine, which shields the protein from breaking down. Due to lack of post-prolyl activity in human enzymes like proteases, this leads to the formation of toxic peptides (33-mer peptide). In simple terms, proline and glutamine are like strong braided steel cables, which are difficult to cut with the normal scissors that can cut paper, leaving coarse fragments. For normal people, these coarse fragments pass through the digestive tract and get eliminated as waste, and immune systems don't respond to these, as there's no breach of the intestinal walls. But, for the people with gluten intolerance or celiac disease, these residual fragments enter into the intestinal walls, which makes the immune system assume the waste as an intruder and attack the waste as well as the body itself (villi in the small intestines).

The Key symptoms: Signs of Gluten allergies

The symptoms of the allergy differ from person to person and may range from mild to severe in children and adults. From the sources the following are the major symptoms:

1. Digestion-related symptoms: The most common symptoms in this section are constipation, diarrhea, bloating, nausea, vomiting, stomach pains or cramps, and steatorrhea.

2. Non-digestion-related symptoms: The symptoms mentioned in this section often go undetected as most of us believe these are common and not related to the gut. This includes brain fog; skin-related issues such as rashes; numbness in hand and feet; headaches; migraines; pain in the bones or joints; fatigue, and sometimes shortness of breath.

Some of the symptoms are even related to weight loss, malnutrition, irregular or abnormal periods, or pregnancy issues in females. It is absolute important to understand that even though the symptoms are identical, the underlying cause may be different. It may be non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) or celiac disease or a wheat allergy.

Why is gluten testing in food critical for health? 

In this busy world, groups with food sensitivity, or a gluten allergy, often deal with the fear of hidden gluten, from the food consumption to the medications or even personal care. Cross contamination became an ongoing concern due to shared equipment, unintentional mislabeling, or infrequent cleaning of the production machinery. Verifying the ingredients before distribution has become a necessity in safeguarding the public health for food and personal care manufacturers. Implementing a thorough gluten testing protocol before reaching the consumer allows the manufacturers and processors to back up their claims, prevents cross-contamination, enhances food safety, and effectively manages life-threatening risks for allergic individuals. 

How to test for gluten in food? 

Gluten is a microscopic protein that hides in processed foods. Gluten testing in foods can be done using laboratory-based advanced molecular methods like RT-PCR, which uses a Gluten detection kit. It offers a DNA-level precision with high sensitivity and specificity that can detect even trace amounts of gluten in processed foods. The process is simple, doesn’t need a technical person to run it, and takes around 2 hours to finish off the process and get the results. 

Conclusion: Staying safe with the right testing

Currently, in this fast-paced era, finding or relying on gluten-free food from a packet or some food in a restaurant is as challenging as playing with fire. Every time we consume, there’s an anxiety behind it that it will lead to a health crisis, maybe due to a hidden gluten threat. Simply trusting the ingredients used in making food or printed on the label is not working anymore. There is a need for essential gluten testing with the right tool that can detect hidden gluten or cross-contamination during the process before the food reaches consumers with allergies. At Seqlo, we are redefining gluten testing with molecular accuracy, committed to safeguarding individuals with gluten intolerances. 

End the guesswork! Get your processing plant a precise system for gluten detection!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What are the main reasons for gluten cross-contamination in food packets?

A: In food manufacturing units, gluten cross-contamination can occur at any stage or by any means during processing. The reasons behind this may be the poor handling of raw materials or using the same equipment without a thorough wash for both gluten-containing and gluten-free products or the suspended fine flour in the air.

Q: Can we eliminate gluten from the finished products?

A: No, it is not possible to remove the gluten from any of the finished food products. The cross-contamination in food production can be eliminated by thorough washing of the equipment or using different machinery for gluten-containing and gluten-free production. In any way, accurate gluten testing methods is must to ensure that the facility is gluten-free.

Q: Does gluten get eliminated with high-temperature processing during production?

A: No, high-temperature processing does not eliminate gluten in the food products. While providing heat eliminates certain pathogens, for gluten its not the case; it may denature the structure and still be dangerous to people with sensitivities.

Q: Is gluten found in wheat products only?

A: No, wheat is not the only source of gluten in food products; there are several other grains. The primary grains that contain gluten beyond wheat are barley, rye, and wheat varieties like durum, spelt, emmer, kamut, and hybrids of wheat and rye. 

Q: Will there be any symptoms for celiac patients if I use the same rolling board to make wheat bread and ragi/jowar roti?

A: Yes, there is a high possibility of cross-contamination when using the same rolling board or environment to make both wheat and ragi/jowar roti. This cross-contamination may cause symptoms in celiac patients, as even a minute amount of gluten triggers the symptoms in these individuals.