Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 605 posts

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

#411

Post by dialup_sounds »

floxy wrote: post #75
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 )

>when you go to the typical grocery store almost all the baked goods will be from Bimbo regardless of the label Are those those the only brands they produce? I only recognize 3 of those brands, and I can't even be sure I've ever eaten more than one of those. Maybe they are big only in certain regions?

The store brand(s) of a given grocery store is typically made by Bimbo.

"Almost all baked goods" is a stretch, but easily 50% of your bread aisle space is Bimbo. Flowers (Wonder, Nature's Own, etc.) is maybe 25% after that.

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

#412

Post by crote »

RenThraysk wrote: post #394
nindalf wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says that is precisely what they did and the FDA found that it violated the spirit of the law.

No where in the article does it say allergens were added. If they were then the labelling could not possibly "misbranded".

From the article:

> Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn't previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost.

So yes, to avoid having to prevent cross-contamination, they started intentionally introducing trace amounts of allergens.

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

#413

Post by dwallin »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #380
aiauthoritydev wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The safest thing to do is to actually add the allergens to some degree and then warn people.

But that’s such a pain in the but for those of us with a mild sesame problem. If it says “may contain” then I’m fine. If it’s listed as an ingredient then I can’t risk having it. For people who can’t have any at all you’ve not improved the situation but at the cost of making it significantly worse for people with a mild reaction.

Although by adding small amounts of possible allergens to a bunch of common food items you help reduce the frequency of future generations developing the same allergy. So it's a bit of a mixed bag there.

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

#414

Post by JustBreath »

marshray wrote: post #188
ryandrake wrote: post #155

Earlier 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.

Kinda seems like you're arguing just to argue.

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

#415

Post by demondemidi »

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 )

Dave’s killer Bread and Franz are both made in Portland Oregon are not part of Bimbo. I love my city.

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

#416

Post by PopAlongKid »

gumby wrote: post #103
ASalazarMX wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It takes guts to keep the brand name in English-speaking contries, though. I think they mostly only sell bimbo-branded goods in spanish language shops (where the brand would help sell). In, say, Safeway you only see the US brands they have acquired, at least where I live.

Orowheat bread at Safeway, the name Bimbo Bakeries is printed just as large as the font for the ingredients list.

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

#417

Post by int3 »

daemin wrote: post #335
int3 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even if it were 10%, we shouldn't expect 90% of consumers to subsidize the other 10%

This sort of thought implies not believing in insurance of any kind. Why should people pay into a common fund when only a small percentage of them will ever use it.

People generally don't develop allergies randomly in life. There's no insurance value here.

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

#418

Post by kortex »

itsoktocry wrote: post #217
lisper wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If my child ingests sesame, they go into anaphylactic shock and without an epipen administered in minutes they will die. Please excuse my skepticism, I am asking this out of a genuine desire to become better informed: how can you possibly know this? Unless you happened to have an epi-pen handy the first time your kid ever ate a sesame seed, which seems unlikely, then if this were true would not your kid have died t…

Good question. The idea that coming into contact with a seed could kill you seems insane and terrible. Yet where are all the people dying of this? Is the implication that our prevention is so good we are somehow avoiding it? I'm also skeptical. I'm not denying that it exists, but common knowledge (you literally can't eat peanut butter at school) indicates it's so common. How could this be? The solution is to stock ep…

I think part of the confusion is that food anaphylaxis isn't automatic death sentence in all cases, but the risk is that it could be. I have a peanut allergy and carry an epipen. I've been exposed ~5 times in my life but it never was severe enough to deploy it, and instead took benadryl and closely monitored it with epipen in hand and 911 on speed dial. I also know people who eat their allergen occasionally because they just get hives and it's worth it as a treat, and I know people who had severe asthma in minutes after a cross-contamination and needed the epi.

It's just game theory. It's like asking how many metaphorical empty barrels do you want to add to your Russian roulette revolver before you are willing to risk it, the reward being basically "ordinary food". Oh and the risk can suddenly one day go from just causing hives to severe anaphylaxis at a much smaller dose.

Most people who learn of a sensitivity (I learned in elementary school after breaking out in hives from doing art involving peanut shells, the horror to think this is something schools just did!) just don't want to know that badly how dire their allergy is and assume it's life threatening, because it's not worth it to be cavalier.

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

#419

Post by tuukkah »

dialup_sounds wrote: post #385
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.

Apply that logic to more common allergens like wheat, eggs, milk, or soy.

Why? The cases are very different regarding different allergies, allergens and product categories.

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

#420

Post by kalleboo »

portaouflop wrote: post #356
robertlagrant wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My point was that all countries have big factories but in the US they are somehow unable to make sure no cross contamination occurs. It’s just impossible because US scale /s

The EU allows cross contamination with the same "may contain" labeling as the US previously did.
Post reply on HN