Warning - Pea Starch

[charlie]

Now we are back on limited foods again I have had to restart reading labels again and found a new product creeping into some of our products here in the UK. I went to get some breaded chicken that used to be OK for Megs and spotted pea starch in the ingredient list. Then I picked up a different variety and there it was again, and again, and again. Having googled it a bit it confirms my suspicions that it is derived from green peas. I wonder how long it has been in the foods but undeclared?
From the free dictionary there is this definition:
the starch or flour of the common pea, which is sometimes used in adulterating wheat flour, pepper, etc.

[nicoleh]

I have been buying noodles with pea starch in for years - chinese glass noodles. They don't have any kind of sweet taste at all - the hospy dietician (the good one) recommended them as fine for Hannah on the HFI diet. I never noticed a problem with them so it might be ok to try? USDA database lists cellophane noodles as zero sugars (the noodles we use) but it says mung bean starch on the top as the only ingredient they mention - so I don't know if they're noodles have pea starch in them or not. can't find pea starch or the noodles on any other database.

[ukbill]

Starches are usually long chain Glucose molecules as such any pure starch should be fine for anyone with HFI so long as contamination is kept to a minimum.

Fructose being so very soluble tends to move into any water available and stay there so the processing of the pea starch should remove any or most Fructose (as with cornflour made form sweet corn, potato or Wheat)

I have never had a problem with instant Mashed potatoes crochets etc because the potato is so highly processed all the Fructose has gone off in the water. This is why I always felt sick if my mother made gravy by adding the water from the boiled veg to the meat stock.

She though all the goodness form the veg was in the water after they were boiled soft (as was the norm in those days when few people had all their own teeth, thanks to sugar intake)she needn't have bothered because Vegetables have so little goodness in them anyway.

I do not think anyone needs to worry about pea starch over much if they have an HFI child, it should be safe.

Peas are another issue of course and are NOT HFI safe!