A new open access article on gluten-free beer made from barley has just been published online by the journal Food and chemical toxicology. I’ll briefly summarize what I can understand of its contents below, but if you want it in all its highly technical glory, you can read it here.
Before you do that, remember that I have a list of barley-free and gluten-free beers on this site, including lagers, lagers, and beers made from grains like sorghum, millet, rice, corn and quinoa.
You might also like to check out the NGCIbeers Instagram page (not mine) which is dedicated to barley-free beers.
What does the newspaper say?
The title of the article asks whether gluten-free barley beers are “a blessing or an uncontrollable risk” – neither option seems particularly appropriate here – but the content, while sometimes difficult for the lay reader like me , offers an excellent summary of where we are on this topic: what we know and what we don’t know.
Here are my ten key points from it:
1/ Beer made from barley is not gluten free, but if it is treated with enzymes to “break down” the gluten, it can be reduced to a point where the beer tests below 20 parts per million (20 ppm) of gluten required to achieve ‘gluten-free’ status in the EU and UK, and to be considered safe by authorities.
2/ But that 20 ppm figure was based on research on solid foods and typical dietary intakes, not drinks. It was essentially a compromise between feasibility and health – an achievable goal for manufacturers in production and control, while still maintaining safety for the vast majority of celiacs.
3/ However, “the reliability and precise quantification of gluten in hydrolyzed products like beer, using current analytical methods, is under debate” – or more bluntly, there is much concern about whether analytical testing used for beers detect all gluten/gluten fragments present after enzymatic treatment.
4/ American authorities are not convinced: “gluten-free” beers in America must be made from grains that do not contain gluten, but barley beer brewers can use the expression “reduced gluten” s ‘they use enzymes, provided other conditions. are encountered. (Same in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and I believe Argentina.)
5/ A more accurate (and more expensive) gluten detection method is mass spectrometry, and this method has revealed that GF-marked barley beers may contain gluten fragments that could cause problems for people with gluten. celiac disease, as has been demonstrated. to “bind” to gluten antibodies in the laboratory.
6/ However, we do not know if or to what extent this would recur in the intestine of a patient with CD. Simulated digestion models showed that, in theory, the gut might be able to digest more and significantly reduce these toxic fragments.
7/ Detection and quantification of gluten in foods and beverages is difficult because gluten fragments come in multiple, complex varieties and it is impossible to design tests to detect them all; not all potentially toxic fragments have been identified, finding them all with certainty in beer is particularly problematic, the clinical relevance of many is uncertain, and celiacs are likely to vary in the amount and types of fragments that will trigger a reaction.
8/ In summary, we cannot know…. or, as the authors of the article put it more formally: “Based on current knowledge, it is difficult to assess whether gluten-free beer made from barley is safe for consumers with the disease celiac. »
9/ In the future, the authors recommend in vivo studies using isolated beer protein fragments administered to celiac patients (which researchers may be reluctant to undertake).
10/ They also recommend the “Development of standardized gluten-free production strategies to minimize the variability of the resulting gluten fragments”.
Should we follow the United States?
Many celiacs drink GF-labeled barley beer and find that they tolerate it very well; while others feel like they are reacting, and others avoid it due to the concerns raised here. The different experiences of patients with CD support the idea that the picture could vary considerably and would therefore be extremely difficult to pin down through research. It may not be possible to reach a point where standard advice can be given to everyone.
I don’t know how we got to this point, where GF-labeled barley beer is so popular, widely available, and deemed acceptable in the celiac diet, in the apparent absence of any solid research body and with other countries. adopt a more conservative position.
There is obviously deep doubt about this question, and I have a feeling that the expert authors of the article may now be worried and are laying the groundwork to take us in a new direction. It is certainly now fair to ask why celiacs are not more explicitly warned of this uncertainty, when they are normally advised to take a very cautious stance towards other matters subject to similar uncertainty, such as the labeling “may contain traces of gluten”, the crosses. -contamination and restaurant meals.
Could it simply be a matter of wanting to maintain the status quo while the research is undertaken, thus avoiding the potential scenario where we move to the US position and then have to reverse fury when the research concludes that all is well after all?
But… how much time will we have wasted if isn’t it OK after all? And what damage to the health of celiacs may have been caused in the meantime?
