Background: Patients with food allergy may be advised to introduce specific foods into their diets, both to increase tolerance gradually and as next steps after completing oral immunotherapy or other therapeutic interventions. However, the safe use of retail foods depends on the ability to establish the specific allergen protein content of these foods.
Objective: To develop a systematic approach to estimate the protein content of peanut, milk, egg, wheat, cashew, hazelnut, and walnut in a variety of retail food equivalents for each allergen and associated patient education materials.
Method: We created an algorithm that used a multistep process with information from product food labels, nutrient databases, independent weighing and measuring of foods, and information provided by manufacturers, including certificates of analysis, and e-mail communication to estimate the allergen protein content of multiple retail foods for each of seven allergens. Once a variety of retail food equivalents for each allergen and allergen serving size was determined, we developed participant education handouts, which were reviewed by study teams at 10 food allergy centers, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Consortium for Food Allergy Research coordinating center. After 1 year of use, multiple queries were addressed and the retail food equivalents and educational materials were reviewed and edited.
Results: We identified a variety of retail food equivalents for seven allergens at six serving sizes, and created 48 unique patient education materials.
Conclusion: Our results provide extensive guidance on a variety of retail equivalents for seven foods, and a method to estimate retail food protein equivalents systematically with ongoing reassessment.
Keywords: Allergens; Consortium for Food Allergy Research; Diet; Food allergy; Nutrition; OUtMATCH; Omalizumab; Oral immunotherapy; Retail food equivalents.
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