In This ArticleView AllIn This ArticleWhat Is Tara Flour?Is Tara Flour Safe?
In This ArticleView All
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In This Article
What Is Tara Flour?
Is Tara Flour Safe?
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Photo: Olga Kudriavtseva/Unsplash
In June 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began investigating complaints about “extreme stomach pain/sickness from Daily Harvest lentil leek crumbles.” This resulted in Daily Harvest recalling products that were eventually implicated in hundreds of illnesses, according to anFDAstatement.
In an initial statement that the meal-delivery brand released on July 19, 2022, Daily Harvest’s CEO, Rachel Drori, said, “We have identified tara flour as the cause of the issue … We have only used this ingredient in French Lentil + Leek Crumbles and we are no longer sourcing from this producer who does not provide any ingredients for our 140 other items. This was the first and only time we’ve used tara flour, which has been available and used in the North American market as a plant-based source of protein prior to our use. Our investigation team will continue working with the FDA, the tara flour producer and others to help determine what specifically made people sick.”
Several social media influencers took to Instagram and TikTok to share their experiences.Luke Wesley Pearson, a vegan lifestyle influencer, said that he had to have an organ removed after eating two servings of the Crumbles he received as part of a Daily Harvest promotional campaign. Others have described severe gastrointestinal symptoms and abnormal liver function per the FDA’s statement. Many victims, including Pearson, filed lawsuits against the company and the product’s manufacturer.
So what is tara four, what could have gone wrong and is it—or will it ever be—safe to eat? Here’s what health experts need you to know.
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Tara is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family. Tara trees, also known as Peruvian carob or spiny holdback, are grown in South America. This plant is a relative to alfalfa, clover, beans, lentils, lupins, peas, peanuts, carob, mesquite and tamarind, explainsDonald Schaffner, Ph.D., a distinguished professor of food microbiology and extension specialist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Tara is grown for several purposes, including as a food additive that’s mainly included in products as a gum, which acts as a stabilizer or thickener, says Diana Licalzi, M.S., RD, a registered dietitian and the co-founder of Reversing T2D in Boulder, Colorado.
“The legumes of this plant, like many plants, can be made into flour. Tara flour is a relatively new product that is not widely consumed,” says Schaffner.
“Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of information out there on tara flour, as it hasn’t been around in the North American food supply very long—about one year [since 2021],” saysRoxana Ehsani, M.S., RD, a registered dietitian nutritionist in Miami and a national media spokesperson for theAcademy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “We simply don’t know much yet.”
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According to anFDA memo, the Division of Food Ingredients’ toxicology review team concluded that tara flour derived from Tara spinosa does not meet the criteria for general recognition of safety due to insufficient scientific evidence and recent safety concerns. The lack of consensus among experts and adverse event reports further indicate that tara flour cannot be considered GRAS. Consequently, selling food containing tara flour across state lines is illegal.
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Therefore, it’s best to avoid tara flour until we know more about it and why it has caused so many people to get sick, agreed the experts we spoke to.
“Check the ingredients label of any type of prepared food to confirm that tara flour isn’t in it,” says Ehsani.
The Bottom Line
“Given the…hospitalizations from the Daily Harvest recall, I would tell friends and clients to refrain from ingesting tara flour until we have further information on what exactly caused the illnesses among so many people,” says Licalzi.
According to the previously mentioned April 2024 article inFood Research International, it’s still unclear if tara flour is potentially toxic to humans, whether a toxin was accidentally mixed with the tara flour used in the Daily Harvest products or if some people have sensitivities to tara flour.
The FDA, in the previously mentioned memo, determined that there is just insufficient information to confirm the safety of consuming tara flour.
“The risk is not worth taking,” says Licalzi. So be sure to check the label of any food product. If you visit a restaurant or purchase from a meal-delivery service, ask if any of their products contain tara flour. As always, if you experience symptoms that you believe might be related to something you ate, it’s wise to report it to your state health department or theFDA.
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