Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's evil.
It's the market being efficient. Markets solve everything, yay!
Markets respond to regulation, and are distorted by it. It's not a problem with the market.
FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
231–240 of 605 posts
Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If these facilities cannot keep unwanted visible particulates like sesame out of their products, how can they keep dirt and bacteria out? They seemingly cant. There is a federally allowable amount of rat droppings allowed in food and it is non-zero!
Then it should be on the label.
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Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
#233My understanding is this allergen over-labeling was inspired by the FDA in the first place. https://www.fastcompany.com/90830854/sesame-seed-allergen-fd... From the linked article (from Jan 2023): But sesame does differ in one distinct way from eggs, peanuts, shellfish, milk, and soy: The seeds are teeny tiny and hard to keep track of. This means they’re prone to “cross-contamination,” in food-allergy terms. If you o…
This feels like it’s going the way of prop 65. To be on the safe side, everything gets the label, thus making the label pointless -it no longer helps differentiating things.
There is no penalty for over-labeling. Maybe some lost sales. Not a big deal.
But there is a huge potentially downside for under-labeling e.g. people dying. There is an ethic issue here as well even if we ignore money.
Also, the production pipeline is not 100% perfect. They produce millions of items each year. Even with 0.001% defect / cross-contamination, it could be troublesome.
More importantly, the exec who decides to under-label might end up in jail if people die from their decision.
Basic game theory really. If I'm an exec who is paid millions of dollars a year, I wouldn't risk it. Big deal if I earn a little less.
Unless FDA tips the scale and provides some guarantees, this warning means nothing. If FDA really wants to punish for over-labeling, I'd start adding a really small allergen, so the warning becomes accurate lol.
Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are going to buy the cheapest option that satisfies the regulation. If giving shit about other people means systematically buying more expensive options they won't give any.
People can buy whatever they want, it's the producers changing their recipe or labeling that demonstrates not giving a shit. They aren't changing their recipe to make their product better or cheaper, they change it so that they don't have to deal with compliance. That's the not giving a shit.
They are changing the recipe in order to keep the product cheap, because compliance on this would be really fucking expensive, requiring completely and permanently separate facilities for products that contain each specific allergens and those that don't.
Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
#235This 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…
> Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually contain sesame, so you either get to eat nothing or take the chance.
If they never properly checked their production lines to ensure products without sesame don't contain sesame, there never was an effective way to know that you're not getting a surprise seed in your non-sesame-labeled food.
Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
#236Earlier 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…
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.
If there's no way to disambiguate "actually contains allergen X" and "almost certainly doesn't contain allergen X," then rather than being extra-cautious, eventually consumers may come to carelessly disregard the warning text, assuming (correctly) that it most likely falls under the second case. The harm ensues when the heuristic fails.
Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If these facilities cannot keep unwanted visible particulates like sesame out of their products, how can they keep dirt and bacteria out? They seemingly cant. There is a federally allowable amount of rat droppings allowed in food and it is non-zero!
Then it should be on the label.
Always ate buckwheat with mice droppings as a child. Yummy.
Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite is the Marriott in downtown Monterey. This building may contain substances which is known ... Utter crap.
My favorite one is in Anaheim. Everyone ready for a trip to the happiest place on earth? One of the first things you see walking in... > The Disneyland Resort contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. https://i.redd.it/utw067xgroh11.jpg
They should just have huge "The state of California contains..." signs all around the state borders.
Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
#239FWIW 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 )
As a Mexican, I'm still salty with Bimbo because I went to Spain, and they sold there better, bigger Bimbo-brand sliced bread than here, including varieties without crust. It takes guts to keep the brand name in English-speaking contries, though. > The name was formed as the combination of the Disney Bambi and Dumbo films names, which were the favourite movies of Marinela, Lorenzo Servitje's daughter. Later, the foun…
And in German, Bimbo is a very racist and insulting word for people with darker skin. Pretty close to the n-word in America.
Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
If producer A just puts sesame in their products, and that means they can undercut producer B who spends the money to comply with the spirit of the regulation, producer B goes out of business because their expenses are higher. So what do you expect would happen? Consumers like cheaper rather than higher prices, this isn't a new thing.
Pass regulations that prevent producer A from undercutting producer B?
Like how we passed regulation to get to this point? And we will pass regulation for the new loophole created by this regulation, right? And we'll keep doing this, as the overhead to comply with regulation gradually increases and prevents small competitors from entering the market as they cannot afford to meet the regulation overhead? Of course, we will address this problem with new regulation.