When Product Ingredients Change: The Struggles of Having “Uncommon” Food Allergies

Changing Ingredients

If you have celiac/coeliac disease, food allergies, or food sensitivities or intolerances, then you probably spend a lot of your time reading food labels or packaging. If you have multiple food sensitivities (like Isabelle), then you know how challenging it can be to find something that 100% meets your needs.

So, when you do find that “holy grail” item in the grocery store, you probably purchase it over and over again without checking the ingredients. Why would you even need to read that label again? If it’s tried and true, then that wouldn’t change… would it?

Unfortunately, we’ve seen ingredients change on us. It’s not common that it does, but we’ve had a couple of these incidents lately. Whether it’s potato chips or a non-dairy cream cheese alternative, we’ve seen the ingredients of some of our favorite foods change (even in small ways) so that they suddenly don’t meet Isabelle’s dietary restrictions.

 

To make this worse, we found this all out by accident. For example, we found out that Kite Hill almond milk cream cheese (which we love) sometimes contains vinegar (which Isabelle cannot have) depending on the store. However, we only found this out because a friend was planning on cooking us dinner and he was checking every ingredient with us along the way. Had he not shown us the packaging, then we wouldn’t have had any idea.

What this (and other incidents) made us realize is that sometimes a company can change the ingredients of one of their foods without any warning depending on the allergen in question.

“Uncommon” Food Allergies

When it comes to seeing if what you’re allergic to is in something, your best bet is if it’s one of the 8 most common allergens. These are: cow’s milk, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, shellfish, wheat, soy, and fish.

While these ingredients are often labeled well, if you have a less common allergen (like corn), then you might not be so lucky. These kinds of allergens are not labeled well. Even worse, if an item’s ingredients change to include that allergen, you’ll only find out if you read the label for yourself every time.

No Warning Needed

That’s right. If you have a food allergy or sensitivity to something that isn’t considered a “common” allergen, then companies can change their ingredients to include that allergen without any warning. The packaging doesn’t have to indicate that it’s a new recipe, and you won’t know that the ingredients changed until you have a reaction or happen to read the label.

There might also be inconsistencies when product ingredients change. Back to that Kite Hill example, we found that sometimes their plain cream cheese includes vinegar, but sometimes it doesn’t. This is probably a matter of where the newest stock is distributed, and how recently they changed their ingredients.

Example: Cape Cod Potato Chips

Recently, we found out that one of our favorite snacks — Cape Cod’s Sweet Mesquite Barbecue potato chips — changed its ingredients. We found this out by accident when Peter was eating some of these chips and noticed that the ingredients list looked different than it had before. He saw three corn-based ingredients (which Isabelle cannot have): vinegar, maltodextrin, and modified food starch (i.e. corn starch).

Soon after this, we contacted the company to ask about this switch. It turns out that they changed the recipe over a year ago. While some of their other products were still fine (like their plain potato chips), we were frustrated.

This had been one of our favorite allergy-free finds for Isabelle, and on top of that, it made us realize that we would have to read and re-read food labels every time we bought a product. Even if something had worked out for us for a long time, it doesn’t mean that they would forever because ingredients change — especially if you have a less common food allergy.

What to Do When Companies Change their Ingredients

We definitely can’t change the food industry overnight. However, we can do some things to prevent having a serious problem in the future. When ingredients change and you have food sensitivities or allergies, you might find out in time, but you also might not.

Check the Label

As annoying as it is to have to re-read food labels every time you buy something (especially if you’ve bought and eaten it many times without any issues), it’s better to play it safe. If you have a less common food allergy (as in, not in the Top 8), then you have more of a chance of running into the same issues that we did.

Because we can’t change the rules and regulations around food labeling, we have to be the ones to monitor whether a product’s ingredients change.

Contact the Company when You See Ingredients Change

While it might not actually change or undo anything, it’s worth a shot to reach out to food companies when you find that they’ve changed their ingredients on you. They might be able to give you answers, or they might try to help you in other ways.