Lentils!

Andy Burnham’s idea of putting more lentils and chickpeas in school meals has risks that should be carefully evaluated.

The National Institute of Health estimates that around one in 200 people have allergies to pulse vegetables, which include not only lentils and chickpeas but also peas and beans. Many others are allergic to legumes in general, which include all these as well as peanuts, soybeans, and other foodstuffs. These allergies are more prevalent in children. Some grow out of them, but many others (including my wife) do not; and severe cases can be life threatening.

The trouble is that — particularly with the rise of plant-based and gluten free foods (plus the rising population of people from South Asia, where lentils and chickpeas are very commonly used in cooking — pulses and legumes more generally are featuring more and more in our diet, adding to the risks for those who are allergic to them.

Increasingly, therefore, ingredients such as pea fibre, pea starch and pea protein, chickpea flour (gram, besan) and fava beans are being used as stabilisers, thickeners, bulking agents, stabilisers and binders in the foods we buy. But there is currently no obligation to highlight these on ingredient labels — allowing manufacturers to boast that their products are ‘allergen-free’ or ‘gluten-free’ (known in the trade as ‘clean labelling’ while actually containing what can be very serious allergens for a minority of people.

There is a case for making pulses more obvious on labels, as the legumes soybeans and peanuts are. But while more chickpeas and lentils in school meals might please some (including, no doubt, Mr Burnham’s voters of South Asian origin), adding yet more pulses into children’s diets presents a potential risk that should at least be researched beforehand.

Eamonn Butler