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FDA does not include sesame on its \u201cTop 8 Allergens\u201d list\u2014commonly known as \u201cthe big eight,\u201d which requires food manufacturers to list any of the eight most common ingredients that trigger food allergies. Lots of people want to change that.
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More than 1.5 million Americans experience adverse reactions to sesame every year. The flareups can be relatively minor\u2014skin irritations like hives, for instance\u2014or serious and life-threatening, like whole-body anaphylaxis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sesame shows up in all kinds of foods, from beef jerky to candy corn. And more people are allergic to it than ever before: We\u2019re up from 0.1 percent of the population to 0.49 percent in less than a decade. But in spite of its ubiquity, sesame can be easy to miss on an ingredient label. That\u2019s because it does not have to be listed under its common name. It can fall under the category of \u201cspice\u201d or \u201cnatural flavor\u201d on a package, or it can be listed with an unfamiliar name like \u201cgingelly oil,\u201d \u201ctil oil,\u201d or \u201ctahini.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
To make matters even less transparent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not include sesame on its \u201cTop 8 Allergens\u201d list\u2014commonly known as \u201cthe big eight,\u201d which requires food manufacturers to list any of the eight most common ingredients that trigger food allergies. (They are: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Illinois thought it was time to change all this. In July, the state\u2019s Democratic Governor, J.B. Pritzker, signed into law HB 2123<\/a>, which amended Illinois\u2019s Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act to require that any packaged food list the presence of sesame on its label. For its part, FDA said nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n