The strategy of allergy assessment proposed by IFBC and ILSI for foods derived from genetically improved crop plants (Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr, Special Supplement (1996), 36: S165S186) is critically evaluated. Criticisms are illustrated by examples taken from results of our own studies and from the scientific literature. Comments are made on some assumptions of this strategy, in particular on the influence of breeding and genetic engineering, the abundance of allergens in foods, the minimal size of cross-reacting epitopes and the potential use of animal models, the application of which is not recommended in the assessment strategy. In conclusion, it is suggested (a) to exclude the expression level of proteins in foods as a criterion of the allergy assessment, (b) to reduce the minimal size of immunological significant sequences to four consecutive, identical amino acid residues and to perform sequence comparisons of known allergens and end-to-end alignments with newly introduced food proteins on the basis of that level. (c) lmmunogenicity testing of such new proteins in animals and rapid validation of established animal models of food allergy for their predictive value to assess the allergenic potential of genetically improved foods before releasing such foods to the market is also recommended.