Wheat Starch

[chrissy]

after someone on here asked about finding tritamyl flour, i did a little research on wheat starch. i found some articles on celiac.com that say studies have been done that show wheat starch does not harm a celiac. some of the info on wheat starch comes from other countries, who are supposed to be ahead of the USA in celiac research, and they are allowing the use of wheat starch in a celiac's diet. why are we different here in the USA?

i know i have seen many people say the USA is behind in celiac research, but i also see people who would never dream of including wheat starch in their diet-----maybe these are not the same people sayaing this?

is there anyone that has consumed products with wheat starch and then had follow up blood work done?

[ravenwoodglass]

after someone on here asked about finding tritamyl flour, i did a little research on wheat starch. i found some articles on celiac.com that say studies have been done that show wheat starch does not harm a celiac. some of the info on wheat starch comes from other countries, who are supposed to be ahead of the USA in celiac research, and they are allowing the use of wheat starch in a celiac's diet. why are we different here in the USA?

i know i have seen many people say the USA is behind in celiac research, but i also see people who would never dream of including wheat starch in their diet-----maybe these are not the same people sayaing this?

is there anyone that has consumed products with wheat starch and then had follow up blood work done?

I would not touch wheat starch with someone else's hand but with that being said I believe, and this is only my opinion folks, that in the US it takes so very long to diagnose us while they hand us pills and tell us we need therapy that we in the US end up being much more sensitive than folks in countries where they routinely screen or where diagnosis takes an average of 2 to 3 weeks rather than 10 to 15 years.

[pamelaD]

Technically the wheat protein (giladin- what we react to) can be separated from the wheat starch. I am sure it is a similar process to making corn starch (separating the starch component from the protien, fat) and tapioca starch, etc...

My concern would be the same in any manufacturing process - cross contamination. We don't care if corn or tapioca starch might be contaminated with trace amounts of corn or tapioca protiens because we do not react to them.

So I would demand gluten testing or some sort of assurance from the manufacturer before I would try it.

Pam

[aikiducky]

Also not all wheat starch is made equal. The wheat starch that is used in SOME gluten-free products here in Europe is specifically made to contain gluten only under a certain norm. NOT all european products containing wheat starch are in this category, just the ones that use the wheat starch that is "pure" enough. Even so, not all european celiacs (including me) eat wheat starch, and if people don't improve on a gluten-free diet containing wheat starch they are adviced not to eat it anymore. Oh, and people are usually warned not to eat "too many" wheat starch containing products in one day. Where you draw the line though is what I always wonder...

Personally I think it's a bit crazy to try and continue eating wheat in any shape or form but apparently lots of people over here do keep eating wheat starch products, and I assume at least some of them are being monitored by a doctor, too, to see that their antibodies don't go up...

Pauliina

[Ursa Major]

I myself wouldn't eat wheat starch. Even though they are ahead in Europe on testing and diagnosing people with celiac disease, I think they are behind in that with them being gluten-free doesn't mean being 100% gluten-free, because of their codex alimentarius, allowing products being labelled gluten-free that still contain small amounts of gluten.

Many professionals also think that wheat germ oil doesn't contain gluten and won't be harmful. But I've found that I react badly to it.

So, I guess it's everybody's own decision what they want to believe, and if they want to risk it.

[jerseyangel]

I know I reacted to wheat starch--and I didn't even eat it!

It was an ingredient in some hair gel I was using before I knew better--I tend to bite my fingernails when I'm anxious, and I glutened myself that way. The mystery afternoon gluten episodes ended once I tossed the hair gel.

[KaitiUSA]

Stay completely away from it.

[Ruth52]

I stay clear of products that contain wheat starch. I know that i reacted to marshmellows and the only ingredient on the packet that was suspicious was the wheat starch.

[gfp]

Lets put this straight.....

Firstly wheat starch is usually produced by washing the grain in water.

Starch is soluble and gluten and glutamine are not ..... except there is really no such thing as not.

So parts of the gluten are carried intot he product BUT since the gluten is "non-toxic" noone cares (except us)

The scientific way this is described is by partition coefficients....

That is say you have a product (gluten) it has at a certain temperature and pressure a partition coefficient between water and alcohol. So if you add a mix and the partition coeff is .9 water/alcohol then 10% of it will go into the alcohol.

If you then take the same refined product and do it again then again 10% of the 10% (=1%) will be left and a 3rd time only 0.1% ....

Commercially starch and proteins from gains are seperated using either:

1) alkalia reduction .... this is highly efficient but destroys the gluten making it unsellable as a byproduct.

2) The Martin process: pretty much as described

This process has been in use since the 1920s and is still in use today. It is based on

the principle of forming a dough (made by mixing flour with ~85% of its weight in

water) and then washing the starch out of the dough. This is better than the alkali

process as it prevents the protein from being damaged, allowing it to be recovered

and sold as a by-product. Another advantage is that it is a much cheaper process to

run, since it uses water instead of an alkali.

Washing creates a ‘milk’ which is processed in centrifuges to extract the starch,

further washing purifies the product and produces a ‘starch cake’ recoverable at

the output. In general 60% of the weight of flour will be recovered as high-grade

starch and a further 15% can be recovered as second-grade starch (by hydrocylone

concentration). High grade starch is defined by higher percentage of large granule

starch, lower liquid content, lower protein content and a lower content of

impurities, compared to the lower grade starch.

The protein (gluten) can be dried and sold for use as an additive to foodstuffs.

3/ The 'batter process'

This process has been in use since the 1920s and is still in use today. It is based on

the principle of forming a dough (made by mixing flour with ~85% of its weight in

water) and then washing the starch out of the dough. This is better than the alkali

process as it prevents the protein from being damaged, allowing it to be recovered

and sold as a by-product. Another advantage is that it is a much cheaper process to

run, since it uses water instead of an alkali.

Washing creates a ‘milk’ which is processed in centrifuges to extract the starch,

further washing purifies the product and produces a ‘starch cake’ recoverable at

the output. In general 60% of the weight of flour will be recovered as high-grade

starch and a further 15% can be recovered as second-grade starch (by hydrocylone

concentration). High grade starch is defined by higher percentage of large granule

starch, lower liquid content, lower protein content and a lower content of

impurities, compared to the lower grade starch.

The protein (gluten) can be dried and sold for use as an additive to foodstuffs.

4/ Alpha-Laval decantation

So you can wash wheat in water (basically what all these processes do) and end up with say 95% pure starch (this is normal wheat starch) BUT and now we hit the madness this is all wrapped up in a definition by the WHO's agriculture and food commision .... which is funded and run by ... the food industry.

Since the alkali process destroys gluten which can be sold its not much used!

Now according to this when they first defined gluten free they decided on a "practical" limit. This limit was determined not in any medical way BUT by the industry over what was cheapest.

Then the industry went away and did tests... they said food under 200ppm would be tested on celiacs and they went off and did tests to prove this did no damage.

If this was my job here is how i would prove it ....

I would take wheat starch that conforms with the CODEX <200ppm (actually though that includes the harmelss glutamine portion as well as the gliadin portion....)

I would then purify this so that it had only 1 ppb (billion) gliadin because 1ppb is still less than 200 ppm and so it cheats the test definition which I invented specifically to be cheated.

I would then run the tests and say that within statistical error CODEX wheat starch did no damage.

No need to publish that you actually used 1ppb not 200ppm you just keep saying <200ppm.

So this is cool right.... 1 ppb means that the chance of any one celaic receiving this molecule is really small....and you can still say it was wheat starch according to CODEX and contained <200ppm....

You can even do studies and add 198 ppm glutamine and say its was 200 ppm total nitrogen dry matter (the definition)