Food Label Reading 101

Jul 6

With Alpha-Gal Syndrome, label reading becomes a highly important life skill. It becomes as important as life and death. A mistake could possibly cost you your life depending on how reactive you are, because a severe allergic reaction can lead to anaphylaxis.

Fortunately for me, (or maybe not so fortunate), I was diagnosed with food allergies as a child. Those food allergies led me to read food labels from an early age.

However, Alpha-Gal has really increased my label-reading skill level. Reading food labels is more pertinent with Alpha-Gal, because the reactions can be so much worse than with my previous food allergies.

Common Ingredients to Look For

Who knew that mammals were used in so many things? I certainly didn’t!

Here are some easy ingredients to look for:

beef
pork
deer/venison
rabbit
beef casings
milk
lard
whey
buttermilk
cheese
cream
sugar
gelatin

The ingredients listed above are commonly known as mammal products and byproducts. Unfortunately, the list also extends into lots of ingredients that aren’t quite as recognizable. Here are a few you might not think of:

bone char
butter fat
carmine
casein
lactose
vitamin D3
some natural flavorings
casein
gelatin
lactose
lard
tallow
sometimes L-Cysteine
mono & di-glycerides
glycerin
carrageenan (a seaweed that contains alpha gal)

Quite a list, right? For a more in-depth look at some hidden no-no ingredients, go to my post on the top 5 hidden ingredients to avoid.

Example Food Labels

Now that you know the words to look for, it's time to dig into the ingredients lists on food labels. (There are more ingredients to look for in cosmetics, medicines, and personal care items…but that's too much for now. Let’s focus on the food.)

Example #1

Here’s an example of an ingredients list. Let's look at it together. Look for these keywords in the cereal food label below: vitamin D3, sugar, brown sugar.

Did you see some of the key words in the label?

You may ask, how do these things can cause reactions?

Well, Vitamin D3 usually comes from lanolin, which is found in sheep wool. This is easiest to produce for mass consumption and is the least expensive form. Thankfully with the rise of veganism, plant-based vitamin D is more readily available. Most vegan vitamin D3 comes from lichen. The food label may say from vegan cholecalciferol or from lichen.

On a side note, while writing this post I just checked a label on my vegan vitamin D3 K2 supplement. Well, evidently I was so busy looking for mammal issues that I didn't realize the K2 comes from chickpeas. Chickpeas happen to be an additional allergy I have. See, we all make mistakes, and that mistake sure explains a lot!

As for the sugar and brown sugar, they are problematic in that regular refined sugar is often processed through bone char. The bone char helps to decolor the sugar. Yes, I know that's ridiculous and you've never heard of such. Please do your research. I didn't believe it at first myself.

Example #2

Below is another example of a label. It comes from Applegate Uncured Turkey Bacon. The only questionable thing here is the spices, which are not specified. Because spices is the very last ingredient, it is probably a very minimal amount. Depending on your own reactivity level, this may be a safe option. It would be safe for me.

Food Label Reading is Vital

The most important thing is to read and reread every label. You cannot get lazy and just glance over a label. Skimming and being a lazy label reader will get you in trouble.

Lately, I have seen several folks in the Alpha-Gal Facebook community who have done just this. They admit that they glanced at the front label, read “turkey sub,” but missed the fact that it was turkey and ham.

Another person commented that they had grabbed their go-to non-dairy substitute without reading the label thoroughly. Unfortunately, the ingredients had changed. Boom, blindsided with hives. Yuck!!! Absolutely none of us want that to happen.

Here a few additional helpful hints: carrageenan is found in many lunch meats. Be sure to check those carefully. I love a good turkey jerky, but unfortunately, many of those are stuffed into a beef or pork casing. This is also the case with turkey kielbasa. Skinless kielbasa is the way to go.

Thankfully, developments in technology have brought us wonderful apps for your phone. These can make labels easier for you. While I wouldn’t rely wholly on the apps, they really help you double check and triple check. The apps I recommend are FIG and Is It Vegan.

The best advice remains simple: when in doubt, don’t eat it.

Lori Miller