Kerry Watson, NTP, RWP
Nutritional Therapy Practitioner & Restorative Wellness Practitioner • Evidence-based food sensitivity guidance

Propylene glycol is the exact same chemical class used in antifreeze. It is also hiding in your salad dressing, your ice cream, and your daily vitamins. The FDA says it is safe. Your MRT panel says your white blood cells disagree.

What Is Propylene Glycol?

Propylene glycol (PG) is a synthetic liquid substance that absorbs water. The FDA classifies it as a “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) food additive. Food manufacturers use it as a solvent, a humectant, an emulsifier, and a preservative. It keeps baked goods moist and prevents ice crystal formation in frozen foods.

It is also used as a carrier for flavorings and food colors. But where else do you find this chemical? You find the same chemical in antifreeze, e-cigarettes, pharmaceutical preparations, and cosmetics. Most people are shocked when they learn they are eating it every single day.

Why It’s on the MRT 176 Panel

All disease starts in the gut. The MRT test specifically includes propylene glycol as a chemical antigen because it triggers mediator release in sensitive individuals. When your immune cells encounter PG, they release histamine, cytokines, and prostaglandins. This creates a delayed immune response, not an IgE allergy. Reactions take 24 to 72 hours to appear.

When these inflammatory mediators flood your system, you get in to trouble. Symptoms include severe migraines, skin reactions like eczema flares and rashes, intense GI distress, brain fog, and debilitating joint pain. Because this chemical is in so many food products and medications, clients who react to PG often cannot figure out why they keep having symptoms even when they think they are eating clean.

Where Propylene Glycol Hides

You will find propylene glycol in salad dressings and marinades because it keeps the ingredients mixed. You find it in ice cream and frozen desserts. It is in flavored coffees and drink mixes. It is heavily used in cake mixes and baked goods as a humectant to retain moisture.

It is a standard carrier solvent for food colorings. If a product has artificial color, PG is present. It is also used in “natural flavors” as a carrier for flavor extracts. Medications use it too. Soft gel capsules and liquid medications often have gel shells made with PG. Most liquid vitamin supplements rely on it. Even pure vanilla extract uses it as a common solvent.

The Label-Reading Problem

The real problem with propylene glycol is that it does not always appear by name on food labels. When manufacturers use it as a processing aid or carrier for flavors and colors, FDA rules exempt it from labeling requirements. You eat it without ever seeing it on the ingredient list.

When it is listed, it appears under different names. You will see it called propane-1,2-diol, E1520, methyl glycol, or trimethyl glycol. This is exactly why generic elimination diets fail for PG-sensitive clients. You cannot eliminate what you cannot identify on a label. The MRT test is a big deal because it catches this sensitivity by testing your blood directly against the chemical. Your blood knows what you are reacting to, even if the label hides it.

The Connection to Artificial Colors

From our recent analysis of 20,683 grocery products, we found FD&C synthetic dyes in 6,633 products. The majority of those dyes use propylene glycol as their carrier solvent. This means your PG exposure is far higher than any ingredient list suggests.

We also saw polysorbate 80, another emulsifier on the MRT panel, in 141 products. PG and polysorbate 80 often appear together in highly processed foods. Our data showed citric acid in 38.4% of products. We also found glycerin, or glycerol, in 1,110 products. Glycerin is related to propylene glycol but they are completely different chemicals tested separately on your MRT panel.

What to Do During Your LEAP Protocol

During LEAP Phase 1, all PG is removed by default. You are eating single-ingredient whole foods. The challenge hits in Phase 2 and Phase 3 when you start reintroducing packaged foods. Foods that appear clean on the label contain PG as a hidden carrier.

You need to check all medications and supplements with your practitioner. Many clients react during LEAP not because of the food they eat, but because their daily supplements contain PG in the capsule or as a filler. When you are in doubt, you must contact the manufacturer directly and ask them if propylene glycol is used as a processing aid.

Kerry Watson, NTP, RWP
Nutritional Therapy Practitioner & Restorative Wellness Practitioner • Evidence-based food sensitivity guidance

Soy derivatives show up in 7,549 of the 20,683 grocery products we analyzed. That is more than one in three items on the shelf. We found this alarming volume of triggers when we built our complete grocery product report. Most people think they are avoiding soy if they skip tofu and edamame. They do not realize soy lecithin is hiding in their daily staples. Let us look at why this ingredient is everywhere and what it means for your healing protocol.

What Is Soy Lecithin?

Soy lecithin is an emulsifier extracted from soybean oil during processing. It keeps fats and water from separating in packaged foods. The food industry uses soy lecithin because it is extremely cheap. It is a byproduct of soybean oil production. They take what is leftover from making oil and put it into your food to improve texture and shelf life.

The Numbers: Soy Is Everywhere

The data speaks for itself. Out of the 20,683 products we analyzed, soybean is found in 4,646 products. That is 22.5% of the total. Lecithin from soy is found in 2,903 products, hitting 14.0% of the items. The combined soy cluster gives us 7,549 product appearances. These are not small numbers. This means you will encounter a soy trigger in more than a third of the packaged foods you pick up. You can view the full data in our grocery product MRT trigger report.

Soy Lecithin vs Soybean on the MRT Panel

On the MRT panel, soybean and soy lecithin are tested as separate antigens. A client reacts to one and not the other. Cross-reactivity is common between the two. The MRT test measures mediator release from white blood cells when exposed to the antigen. These mediators include histamine, cytokines, and prostaglandins. This is a delayed immune response. It is not an IgE allergy. All disease starts in the gut. When these mediators flood your system, they create the systemic inflammation driving your symptoms.

The Sunflower Lecithin Swap

When clients try to avoid soy by buying soy-free products, manufacturers swap in sunflower lecithin. We found sunflower in 2,409 products. That is 11.6% of the database. Sunflower is also on the MRT panel and is highly cross-reactive for many clients. You think you are doing the right thing by avoiding soy, but you just end up getting in to trouble with a different trigger.

Hidden Sources You’re Missing

You already know to check obvious foods. You need to look closer. Soy lecithin is in chocolate, bread, salad dressings, protein bars, and frozen meals. More surprisingly, it is in most supplements and medications as a binding agent. Clients often do not realize their daily vitamins contain a trigger. You take a supplement to heal your gut and end up causing more inflammation.

What to Do During Your LEAP Protocol

During LEAP Phase 1, all soy derivatives are removed. Reintroduction happens carefully in Phase 2 or 3 depending on your MRT results. We look at whether your results were green, yellow, or red. Do not rush this process. Use our Food Checker to verify every single product before it goes into your grocery cart.

Kerry Watson, NTP, RWP
Nutritional Therapy Practitioner & Restorative Wellness Practitioner • Evidence-based food sensitivity guidance

Did you know that 58.2% of grocery products contain cane sugar? Or that 40.9% contain corn derivatives? When you start the LEAP protocol, reading labels becomes a full-time job. You turn over every package and scan the ingredient lists. It is exhausting. We analyzed 20,683 grocery products against the MRT 176 panel to see exactly what is hiding on supermarket shelves. The results are a big deal. They explain why you keep reacting to ‘safe’ foods and why food sensitivities are at an all-time high. All disease starts in the gut. The sheer volume of industrial additives and inflammatory triggers in our food supply is driving that process.

The Numbers

We ran a massive audit using our proprietary Wellbloom product database. We took 20,683 common grocery products and cross-referenced them directly against the MRT 176 panel. We tracked 171 unique triggers across this entire dataset.

We found that 32 different triggers appear in over 1,000 products. Another 55 triggers show up in over 500 products. The food industry relies heavily on a core set of cheap ingredients. These ingredients provoke your immune system. When you eat them day after day, you get in to trouble.

Top 10 Triggers Hiding in Your Grocery Cart

Look at this list. These are the top 10 offenders we found across the entire 20,683 product database. This data shows exactly what you are up against when you walk down the grocery aisle.

Cane sugar is the undisputed leader here. We see it in almost 60 percent of products. Fructose adds another 2,300 appearances (11.1%). Sugars drive inflammation directly. Corn is next at 40.9%. This includes high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, and maltodextrin. Grains as a whole showed up 14,232 times, with wheat at 11.7% and rice at 8.2%.

The Citric Acid Problem

Citric acid is in 7,950 products, making up 38.4% of everything we analyzed. Chemical additives had 11,245 appearances total. Do you think that citric acid comes from fresh lemons and limes? It does not.

Industrial citric acid is manufactured through a fermentation process. They feed sugars from corn to a black mold called Aspergillus niger. The mold ferments the sugars and produces citric acid as a byproduct. This is why our corn-sensitive and mold-sensitive clients react to it. It sets off alarms in the immune system immediately.

The Soy Footprint You Can’t Escape

The soy cluster hit 7,549 appearances. Soybean itself is in 22.5% of products and soy lecithin is in 14.0%. It acts as an emulsifier to keep processed foods from separating on the shelf.

Many people try to avoid soy by buying ‘soy-free’ alternative products. The problem is that manufacturers just swap in sunflower lecithin instead. We found sunflower in 2,409 products (11.6%). Sunflower is highly cross-reactive. Swapping one industrial seed oil derivative for another just trades one symptom for another.

Synthetic Dyes Are Still Everywhere

We logged 6,633 appearances of synthetic dyes. FD&C Red #40 leads the pack in 2,017 products (9.8%). Yellow #5 is in 1,396 products. Blue #1 is in 1,287 products. These petroleum-derived chemicals are everywhere.

Synthetic dyes are on the MRT panel because they trigger immune-mediated inflammatory responses. Your white blood cells see these foreign chemicals and release mediators like histamine and cytokines to fight them off. The ensuing inflammation causes headaches, skin rashes, and brain fog.

The Stealth Triggers: Garlic, Onion, and ‘Health Foods’

Not all triggers are unpronounceable chemicals. The ‘healthy’ stealth triggers cluster showed up 13,862 times. Garlic (17.7%) and onion (15.5%) are in nearly everything labeled ‘seasoned’ or ‘savory’. If you react to them on your MRT results, eating out or buying pre-made soups becomes incredibly difficult.

Then we have the ‘allergen-free’ health foods. Companies use oat (5.7%), tapioca (5.5%), coconut (6.8%), and almond (4.2%) to replace wheat and dairy. These are whole foods, but they are still MRT triggers. When you swap your standard bread for a gluten-free loaf full of tapioca and react just as badly, this is why.

What This Means for Your LEAP Protocol

This data proves why Phase 1 of your LEAP protocol is so strict. We pull you off all packaged foods and have you eat single-ingredient whole foods because the grocery store is a minefield. You cannot heal your gut when you are eating citric acid and soy lecithin multiple times a day.

In Phase 2, as you start adding mixed foods back in, you must check every single label. We built the Wellbloom Food Checker tool so you can quickly see the MRT trigger count for any product. You type in the food, and it scans the ingredients against the panel.