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FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

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Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#61

Post by llamaimperative »

esd_g0d wrote: post #37
llamaimperative wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really counterproductive way to try to understand problems like this. No one is trying to do anything evil. Every step is individually quite reasonable and well within ethical bounds. The issue is that you can produce systems comprised solely of reasonable and ethical decisions that nonetheless yield an outcome that every actor would describe as bad. That is a useful way to interpret this situation and othe…

This, a million times. My dream is "game theory" taught in schools, so we can all more productively discuss public policy, etc. The field of "mechanism design" may interest those to whom this speaks to. From Wiki ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design ): > Mechanism design is a branch of economics, social choice theory, and game theory that deals with designing games (or mechanisms) to implement a given soc…

Have you found any good books on mechanism design for laypeople? I picked one up (can’t remember the name) but it was quite textbooky and mathy, and I’d prefer to start with a more conceptual overview.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#62

Post by quickthrowman »

utensil4778 wrote: post #29
Molitor5901 wrote: post #15

This seems like splitting hairs on the part of the FDA. FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product “may contain” certain allergens “could be considered truthful and not misleading.” Bimbo officials have until July 8 to identify steps taken to remedy the issue — or to explain why the labeling doesn't violate FDA standards. So a baker.. who adds (insert allergy ingredient here), in minute quantit…

This is about sesame. Last year or so, the FDA changed the rules about sesame as an allergen. Some bakeries then decided to just slap "may contain traces of sesame" on everything so they didn't have to pay the cost of actually ensuring there's no cross-contamination. This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually con…

Is a bakery obligated to sell sesame-free products?

If a bakery wants to limit their potential customers by saying their products may contain sesame to avoid liability, I don’t see why the FDA should step in and force them to take on liability and capital costs for sesame free factories.

If the FDA’s current allergen rules are leading to this outcome, perhaps it’s the FDA’s rules that are flawed.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#63

Post by tracker1 »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #42
underseacables wrote: post #32

This seems overkill. We should want to encourage food manufacturers to list all possible contaminants.

The driver should be to give people with allergies the information they need to know whether they can eat something safely. Allowing companies to list every possible contaminant regardless of how likely it is to be in a product doesn't help anyone. It just leads to the "contents may be hot" problem on a coffee.

Well... the FDA won't allow companies to just list "may contain" for sesame, they have to have effectively multiple plants in complete isolation, or... add a tiny bit of sesame to everything and affirmatively state so.

In this case, I prefer the "may contain" verbiage... saying something "does not contain" is a practical minefield. If you're that sensitive to something, find a producer that makes what you're asking for, or if you can tolerate a small amount, or make your own food from basic ingredients.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#64

Post by heavyset_go »

starttoaster wrote: post #36
utensil4778 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about sesame. Last year or so, the FDA changed the rules about sesame as an allergen. Some bakeries then decided to just slap "may contain traces of sesame" on everything so they didn't have to pay the cost of actually ensuring there's no cross-contamination. This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually con…

> It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. The bakeries caused harm for consumers as a way to avoid the coats of doing business safely. In the exact same way that every product ever invented may cause cancer in California, I assume? This is a problem with the FDA, not the companies. Give a dog a long leash, they're going to use the slack.

Companies aren't dogs, companies have obligations that they need to fulfill and they're choosing to neglect them.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#65

Post by nsilvestri »

umvi wrote: post #58
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes sense from a practical standpoint, but from a litigative standpoint not having the warning label on those products with allergens exposes the company to liability. I also suspect that if there is an incident, this company might be able to have the government found liable for preventing it from warning customers.

Seems to have worked for gluten, at least. i.e. Consumers look for "gluten free" labelling rather than "This product contains gluten" labelling. If I were the FDA I'd standardize the nutrition label to have a clearly labelled allergen section in which you can reliably use to check that the product is free of X allergen. Of course a naive implementation of this would mean that water bottles and stuff will have a big l…

As someone who can't eat gluten, we look for that label because gluten isn't included as one of the mandatory allergens in the US. I would prefer if things were simply labelled as "contains gluten" because instead I have to evaluate the ingredients of things without a GF label to see if it's suitable.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#66

Post by givemeethekeys »

gumby wrote: post #24

FWIW Bimbo (a Mexican company) is the largest baking company in north america -- when you go to the typical grocery store almost all the baked goods will be from Bimbo regardless of the label ( https://bimbobakeriesusa.com/our-brands )

Maybe this is why all these breads use such a large list of ingredients that don't sound like food.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#67

Post by javier123454321 »

Detrytus wrote: post #45
underseacables wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it says it on the label, and you're allergic to it, then you shouldn't eat it. This doesn't harm consumers at all.

It does harm consumers by severely limiting their choices, especially if companies start putting the warning on every product by default, instead of actually making reasonable effort to prevent contamination.

I suppose we have different definitions of harm. Providing a product which might contain an allergen and notifying you of that possibility is not harm in my book.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#68

Post by gumby »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #52
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are some of their brands just pictures of sandwiches?

Whatever the 7th row, 4th column is, it does not look appetizing.

I don't know, cinnamon bread french toast with sauteed apricots and cockroaches is a mix of carbs, fiber and protein, though probably should have more protein for a better nutritional balance.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#69

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gumby wrote: post #68
lotsofpulp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever the 7th row, 4th column is, it does not look appetizing.

I don't know, cinnamon bread french toast with sauteed apricots and cockroaches is a mix of carbs, fiber and protein, though probably should have more protein for a better nutritional balance.

They added the cockroaches to get the protein count up.
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