(This is a continuation of a series of posts on our experiences as we trial our son who has multiple food allergies with oral food challenges at home. Oral food challenges should always be performed under direct medical supervision based on each patients individual reaction history. Please do not try oral food challenges at home on your own without medical approval.)
We gave Mitch a corn tortilla which appeared to be safe for him to eat even with his multiple food allergies, and he began to have all the symptoms he had when we believed he failed his baked egg challenge; his legs flared with eczema and he started having difficulty breathing. All the ingredients in the tortillas should have been safe for him, so what was causing him to react so badly?
Hidden Food Allergies: What is Amylase?
The last ingredient on the packaging of the corn tortillas was Amylase, but what is Amylase?
According to Wikipdia, Amylase is is an enzyme that catalyses the breakdown of starch into sugars. No problem right? It’s an enzyme not a protein. Well, not so fast.
Uses for Amylase include:
- Modern bread making techniques have included amylases (often in the form of malted barley) into bread improver, thereby making the process faster and more practical for commercial use.
- In traditional beer brewing, malted barley is mixed with hot water to create a “mash,” which is held at a given temperature to allow the amylases in the malted grain to convert the barley’s starch into sugars.
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Maltogenic amylase can be used to extend freshness of corn tortillas.
Plant sources of Amylase include:
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Papain, Bromelain
- Barley Malt
- Soybean
Did you see how many time barley appeared within the information above?
Barley is the only allergen other than peanuts and tree nuts we were instructed by his allergist not to trial under any circumstances. Crap! We’ve been poisoning our son for weeks and not even knowing it. I never thought Amylase would contain a hidden allergen like barley.
Even though a food product doesn’t include the allergen itself, it may contain ingredients grown/developed within other food/animal products (similar to how flu vaccinations are developed in eggs) which may lead to traces of hidden food proteins in an assumingly safe food product.
How do you survive the challenges of having multiple food allergies and a limited diet?
About Stacy Molter
[...] baked egg challenge or if some other allergen set him off. Then we fed Mitch a corn tortilla with Amylase and he had the same reaction. Maybe he didn’t fail the baked egg challenge after [...]