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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

#341

Post by stoperaticless »

marshray wrote: post #275
stoperaticless wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a straw man if you look at the spirit of the argument.

Yes, that's exactly what strawmanning is: "Ignore the stated argument, discuss my weaker mischaracterization of it instead."

Have you cooked anything? Have you never ever had a hair fall into a pot your mixing? (Even if you always wear a hat, and always clean it before hand, there is non zero chance)

Spirit of that previous parent message was that “never ever contaminated” is not a realistic option.

Yes op stretched that to molecules, but exactly same argument applies to seeds.

I guess you forbid any kind of hyperbole in 50m radius.

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

#342

Post by shiroiushi »

lukan wrote: post #327
shiroiushi wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, almost all food these days is an "industrial product" at some point in the pipeline. That's the reality of living in an industrial society and not an agrarian one.

Not at all. Even in this industrial society it is possible to buy raw ingredients and cook yourself and many people do it. (and as far as I know, many studies imply that is healthier, than heavily processed food, filled with conservatives, additives and whatever)

>Even in this industrial society it is possible to buy raw ingredients and cook yourself and many people do it.

Those raw ingredients are also "industrial products". Did you think that bag of flour you bought was hand-milled by someone after they hand-picked the wheat? It came from a factory, just like most store-bought bread.

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

#343

Post by robertlagrant »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #322
wolpoli wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a large company this is a millions of dollars The FDA was expecting that companies spend millions to ensure that the products are free of sesame to help people with allergies, but companies realize that it's easier to just add sesame into their products. I am not sure the government could do now to help people with sesame allergies. Ban sesame outright from certain products? Mandate that certain companies produ…

Adding an allergen in quantities where it has no meaningful effect is attempting to flout a regulation. It's like bringing money into the country by spitting it among fellow travellers. In a functioning system the authorities would have the power to investigate and use discovery to identify cases where allergens are being added deliberately for no other reason than flouting rules. They should then be able to issue su…

It's not flouting a regulation at all. It's the opposite of flouting. It's complying.

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

#344

Post by akoboldfrying »

isoprophlex wrote: post #252
jjallen wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s over regulation to everyone who doesn’t have sesame allergies. It’s lifesaving to those that do. Somehow bakeries in Switzerland are doing just fine with sesame being a declared allergen and keeping them separate but American ones just can’t be bothered to handle a life threatening ingredient thoroughly carefully.

A life-threatening allergy is fine and all but will someone please think of the profit margins?!

Almost every physical object you use in your everyday life, including the building you live in and the clothes you wear, was created by someone who cared about the profit margins on that thing, and didn't care about you personally at all. If you want to propose a different system for creating the stuff in the world, it might pay to look at the success rates of other systems people have already tried.

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

#345

Post by robertlagrant »

kalleboo wrote: post #293
jjallen wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s over regulation to everyone who doesn’t have sesame allergies. It’s lifesaving to those that do. Somehow bakeries in Switzerland are doing just fine with sesame being a declared allergen and keeping them separate but American ones just can’t be bothered to handle a life threatening ingredient thoroughly carefully.

https://www.coop.ch/en/brands-inspiration/diet/intolerances/... > In Switzerland, there are also the following rules regarding trace allergens when declaring allergens: in the event of possible contamination of more than one gram per kilogram of food, the note "May contain traces of ..." must be included. The limit for sulphur is 10 milligrams per kilogram and for gluten 200 milligrams It sounds like Switzerland does…

Making sure there is less than 10mg per kg isn't lazy. It's really difficult.

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

#346

Post by shiroiushi »

tuukkah wrote: post #300
stoperaticless wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Forbid sesame seeds for everybody?

Not a bad idea actually. If some people can die of sesame seeds, the rest of us can manage without, sprinkle the seeds on our bread at home or bake our own bread if we can't live without sesame seeds.

If you're going to do that, then you need to ban all prepared foods from having any kind of allergen, because someone might die of it.

That means bread made with wheat is now illegal, because some people are highly allergic to gluten. If you don't want gluten-free bread, you'll have to make it yourself.

Also, you can't have any food with shrimp or shellfish. Peanut butter is now illegal (but you can make it yourself). Pistachio ice cream is illegal.

Not only is wheat bread illegal, but any baked good can't be made with milk either, since some young children are allergic. And you can't substitute soy milk either, since some babies are allergic to that too. Baked goods in your proposed future sound really awful, quite frankly.

Gluten-free baked goods made with potato flour are illegal too, since some people are allergic to potatoes. So french fries are also illegal.

Some other things you won't be able to have either in a pre-made food, or at a restaurant: - celery - carrots - pumpkin - mushroom - onion - garlic - bell pepper - fish (so apparently you want to ban sushi restaurants too)

So I'm curious, in your vision of the future, what exactly do people eat? Beef and lettuce for every meal?

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

#347

Post by robertlagrant »

sangnoir wrote: post #269
BurningFrog wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to judge over-regulation as it relates to society as a whole.

What are your thoughts on mandatory wheelchair ramps, fire extinguishers or AED machines? Most of society won't make use of those either.

> What are your thoughts on mandatory wheelchair ramps, fire extinguishers or AED machines? Most of society won't make use of those either.

Are you saying these are examples of over-regulation?

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

#348

Post by robertlagrant »

portaouflop wrote: post #274
john_the_writer wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a scale difference. If you're making bread product for a million people you have a massive factory.. And nuts be there

Of course, everything weird and whacky about the US can be explained because it’s just so much bigger - you wouldn’t understand coming from such a tiny country.

The psychology of this comment aside, I don't think any country is so small it can't fit a massive factory in it. Unless you're writing from Vatican City, perhaps?

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

#349

Post by forgetfreeman »

NaOH wrote: post #148
forgetfreeman wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, this seems like a pretty bullshit argument on the part of manufacturers though. My expectation for a food prep area is that I should be able to safely eat off of any surface. This level of cleanliness should eliminate any contaminants from the environment bigger than airborne dust and given how relatively cheap air filtration equipment is a case could be made there as well. In any case sesame seeds are a hell of…

There aren’t food prep areas when it comes to manufacturing at this scale. There are silos, storage tanks, essentially duct work to transport ingredients from bulk storage to production, and large-scale machinery which is designed to minimize exposure to the environment and people while in use. That’s putting aside the equipment and facilities used to acquire ingredients or store products after production. Yes, all o…

So we're saying what, in an era of atomic scale manufacturing it isn't possible to design a manufacturing line that segregates macro-scale ingredients? I've spent time in pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. They don't routinely floof active ingredients between capsule lines. Corraling shit the size of a sesame seed is trivial in comparison. So yeah, this is still bullshit.

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

#350

Post by tuukkah »

netmare wrote: post #334
tuukkah wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad idea actually. If some people can die of sesame seeds, the rest of us can manage without, sprinkle the seeds on our bread at home or bake our own bread if we can't live without sesame seeds.

If A can die from sesame seeds and B can't and the A-to-B ratio is something like 1:1e+6, doesn't it make more sense for A to bake their own bread instead?

"Bake your own bread" - does not solve the situation when you want to travel, eat out etc.

Most bread types don't contain sesame seeds so why let the sesame seeds contaminate them and cause life-and-death situations?

Proposed legislation: allow large-scale production and sales of sesame seed bread only if you produce and sell more sesame-free bread.

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