Did you know that the textile world is toying with fabrics made from milk proteins? Supporters of the new fabric say that it’s a good thing: it’s made from a renewable resource and creates a lovely, lightweight fabric.

My question is: are we going to have allergy alerts on this stuff?

Milk proteins are one of the top food allergens around, but that doesn’t mean you have to eat the stuff to have a reaction. Those with severe allergies can experience anaphylactic shock by coming into skin contact with an allergen. So, as you are handling the lovely blouses on a rack of clothes, what if one of them is made with milk “fiber” and you’re allergic?

It’s not just milk that’s being turned into clothes. Other new fibers are made of soy or corn. Soy is another one of the top food allergens. While corn is not, it is a fairly common allergen.

In fact, corn is now also being used for compostable water bottles. A number of “eco-friendly” brands of bottled water sport the new corn “plastic”. These bottles will biodegrade in 90 days in a municipal composting facility. No studies show that any corn molecules are released when you simply handle or drink from these bottles, but I’m not sure that anyone is looking at the impact of this packaging on the allergic.

You might think I’m just making hay but you’d be wrong. A study out of the University of Virginia has found that milk proteins in fabric are allergenic. Milk proteins from the cloth can be absorbed with perspiration when worn. If you are highly allergic, this could be enough to have you grabbing your EpiPen.

The good news is that these novel fibers are expensive. As a result, there is a limited, “high end” market for them. So you aren’t likely to run into these fabrics in your run-of-the-mill clothing chain. But it’s worth paying attention to, because as the price of creating these fibers drops, they could turn up where you buy clothes. After all, environmentally-friendly clothing shops could be bringing these fibers to a store near you.