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This seems like splitting hairs on the part of the FDA. FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product “may contain” certain allergens “coul

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 quantity so they can legally say it contains it, is still in the wrong because that product does not normally contain said ingredient? What is a baker to do? I think it is wholly unreasonable to say a baker cannot say on the product that the product may contain traces of an ingredient, when they cannot 100% say it does not. This just seems like splitting hairs and unnecessarily penalizing the baker. We should want a food maker to list all possible allergens that could be present, not just are present in the foods.

utensil4778 2y ago
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 contain sesame, so you either get to eat nothing or take the chance. 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.
- underseacables 2y ago
  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.
  - Detrytus 2y ago
    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.
    - baggy_trough 2y ago
      Your definition of reasonable may differ greatly from those who must perform said efforts.
    - starttoaster 2y ago
      You couldn't write a more perfect allegory for what has already happened due to California's Proposition 65. The common denominator here is that the government gives companies new rules to follow, and enforces severe penalties for breaking them, and so the companies minimized their risk by following them to the extreme. It's almost like if you want a different outcome, the government agencies involved need to step up and do a more thoughtful job of architecting these policies in a way where the companies are forced to follow the "spirit" of them. I can't be mad if I create a policy, and someone follows it. My intention should have been in the policy, not just implied.
      - inferiorhuman 2y ago
        The common denominator here is that the government gives companies new rules to follow, and enforces severe penalties for breaking them, and so the companies minimized their risk by following them to the extreme. Hardly. Prop 65 initially contained minimal guidance and essentially no teeth. So rather than identify problematic chemicals companies just slapped generic Prop 65 warnings on everything. architecting these policies in a way where the companies are forced to follow the "spirit" of them. Prop 65 was updated so that companies were required to put specifics on the warning label. The state even went so far as to start enforcing the requirements, and then… I can't be mad if I create a policy, and someone follows it. And then the state got sued because apparently labeling your products is simply more difficult than legal action.
        Molitor5901 2y ago
        Prop 65 DOES contain teeth, of the worst possible kind. It works by an attorney finding a product without a Prop 65 label. Then the law firm sends a demand to the state that the product have the Prop 65 label. If the state does not take action, then the law firm may take private action by suing the company to force them to have the label, and get all of their legal expenses paid for by the state. It's lead to an entire industry of attorneys suing just to get the attorneys fees.
  - zuminator 2y ago
    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.
    - stoperaticless 2y ago
      That I feel is on the consumer as business just does a full disclosure. The business discloses, what was added as ingredients, and what contamination is possible. (Because production line is shard or similar) What more do you want? I guess results of regular random testing could be put online. Forbid using same knife to slice different things is another thing to be done.
      - Spivak 2y ago
        > What more do you want? That the labeling disambiguate "made in a factory that makes sesame products" and "actually contains sesame." What we now have with "may contain" could be either and everyone is worse off
- starttoaster 2y ago
  > 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.
  - heavyset_go 2y ago
    Companies aren't dogs, companies have obligations that they need to fulfill and they're choosing to neglect them.
    - starttoaster 2y ago
      > Companies aren't dogs Metaphor, but sure, quite literally they're not dogs. Very true. > companies have obligations that they need to fulfill and they're choosing to neglect them. From our eyes they're neglecting to follow the spirit of a policy. From their eyes, they're following it to the letter of the policy. Perspective.
      - Molitor5901 2y ago
        AFAIK you are required to follow the letter of the law, not the spirit. Whatever spirit moved the legislature into approving a law is secondary to the actual wording of the law. If congress wanted people to follow "the spirit of the law" then they should have made the law more explicit, instead of leaving it up to the FDA to decide what's the right spirit to have.
        wombatpm 2y ago
        For my friends everything! Fir my enemies the law!
      - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
        Presumably the majority of people that don’t have sesame allergy would prefer to pay less for bread so I’m not as clear that “our” and “their” are different here.
- hollerith 2y ago
  >Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually contain sesame You are catastrophizing. It remains the case that any baked product that doesn't have "may contain traces of sesame" on the label must by law be free of traces of sesame. And if no producer chooses to produce such a product, then it is because the number of people who want it is quite small (or the costs of complying with regulations is too high to make a profit), and it is not hard for someone to bake their own bread.
  - marshray 2y ago
    No one wins by some percentage of the population having to bake their own bread. If these facilities cannot keep unwanted visible particulates like sesame out of their products, how can they keep dirt and bacteria out? This regulation is not only good for people allergic to sesame, it's a brown M&M test. I see value in it.
    - brookst 2y ago
      > how can they keep dirt and bacteria out? They can't. It's statistically impossible. Even operating theaters and clean rooms can't keep every trace bit of dirt or bacteria out. All anyone tries to do is reduce the incidence to below a meaningful threshold. If the requirement is: either eliminate every last molecule of every offending substance, or use a label that the offending substance may appear in trace amounts... well, everyone is going to opt for the label.
      - marshray 2y ago
        I didn't say "every last molecule", I said "visible particulates". Nice attempt to straw-man though.
        stoperaticless 2y ago
        Not a straw man if you look at the spirit of the argument.
- quickthrowman 2y ago
  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.
- infecto 2y ago
  > 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. My view is that the business should be able to decide who they want to service or not. According to recent US studies, 0.2% of the population have a noticeable allergy to sesame. Seems like bakeries don't want to invest money for such a small percentage. It sucks but this opens the door for new bakeries to cater towards those with this specific allergy. Why does the government need to force business to do it?
  - jasinjames 2y ago
    The number might be 0.2% for just sesame, but roughly 10% of Americans have some form of allergy[0]. I'm guessing the reasoning here is to attempt to prevent "allergen creep", where the endgame would be major manufacturers throwing their hands up and listing most products as possibly containing many allergens (or, as in this case, intentionally introducing unnecessary ingredients). If this were to happen, we would expect a number approaching 10% of consumers to have a needlessly large selection of foods they couldn't reliably purchase, even if there would be negligible risk otherwise. At that point, the usefulness of requiring the labels to begin with is considerably diminished. Having a cottage industry of "actually correctly labeled" foods because the standard labels are poorly enforced seems inefficient, IMHO. [0]https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/facts-and-statistics https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/facts-and-statistics
    - int3 2y ago
      even if it were 10%, we shouldn't expect 90% of consumers to subsidize the other 10%
      - mitthrowaway2 2y ago
        I'm not sure how to separate this mindset from one that would have commercial buildings not be required to include elevators and wheelchair ramps. Do you also think that's an unfair burden to put on the roughly-90% of people who are not mobility-impaired? (Not implying any judgement either way, just curious if this is a consistent viewpoint).
- fargle 2y ago
  > This is about sesame. yes! > This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. maybe. more like: "This may have slightly annoyed..." > It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. nope. absolutely not. the did not say "may" they apparently said "contains". but what do you want them to do if there's a 0.0001% chance of two particles of sesame in a product? > The bakeries caused harm nope. the FDA caused harm for consumers by regulatory overreach the result will be one of three things: 1. FDA redrafts the sesame rule to define what is cross-contamination and what is not in a realistic way that bakers will agree to abide by and doesn't have these counter-productive side-effects. 2. Bimbo stops saying "contains sesame" and starts saying "may contain sesame" (the FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product "may contain” certain allergens "could be considered truthful and not misleading.") 3. Bimbo actually adds a tiny bit of sesame as other bakers did and keeps the packaging verbiage the same. which one is least unhelpful to the 0.2% of people with sesame allergies?
- bradleyjg 2y ago
  This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Their lobbying group caused the problem in the first place by pushing congress to pass unreasonably expensive cross contamination rules.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  The other (cheaper) alternative is to deliberately add sesame flour, which some bakeries are doing, according to the article. So what do you think is better: 1. Label bread with the "may contain" label. Meaning, truthfully, that people with severe sesame allergies shouldn't eat it. 2. Add sesame flour and then add a "definitely contains" label. I think #2 is much worse from a "significantly harms consumers" perspective.
  - bsder 2y ago
    That's not necessarily true. It depends upon the severity of the allergy and the percentage of people with mild vs severe allergies. If you have a mild sensitivity, the added sesame may be below your threshold. Now you know that the sesame is controlled so you can always buy the product. The problem is that the people with severe allergies expected that the new FDA rules would have manufacturers significantly retool to avoid cross contamination. Everybody with two brain cells to rub together predicted that they would absolutely not retool and would just add trace amounts of the contaminant.
    - kgwgk 2y ago
      > If you have a mild sensitivity, the added sesame may be below your threshold. Now you know that the sesame is controlled so you can always buy the product. If you can buy the product with the added sesame you could also buy the product without the added sesame, could't you? Nothing changes in that case - while in other cases the added sesame creates a problem. It doesn't improve the situation for any consumer (leaving aside pricing).
      - bsder 2y ago
        > If you can buy the product with the added sesame you could also buy the product without the added sesame, could't you? No. That does not follow. Before, with "may contain sesame" the product might or might not contain enough sesame to trigger your reaction as it was completely uncontrolled. Sure, 99 times out of 100 it was fine but when somebody ran sesame burger buns on the third shift it would make you barf for 48 hours. You simply cannot eat that product on the off chance that it might be bad even though 99% of the time it is fine. After, you know there is exactly X amount of sesame and never more than that. You can test the product once and it either affects you or it doesn't. At that point if it doesn't affect you, you can buy the product and be confident that it won't change. Manufacturing 101: Anything that isn't measured isn't controlled.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > 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.
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  So maybe the FDA shouldn't have changed the rules if it significantly harms consumers? And I don't see how it harms consumers. These foods that may contain traces of sesame, had always might have contained traces of sesame. So are traces of sesame dangerous or not? If they are, then consumers shouldn't have been eating these foods to begin with. If they aren't, why are the FDA forcing the labeling?
  - Spivak 2y ago
    I have a friend who is allergic to sesame, this law was really frustrating for her. The brands who purposely added sesame to comply with the law she couldn't eat anymore, the brands that just added the label she also couldn't eat because she couldn't tell the difference between the two. Before the law if sesame wasn't listed it meant it was at worst trace amounts and if it was listed it was off limits. She isn't "immediately dies on contact" allergic so to solve this problem we had a "loaf party" where we got one of every brand of bread in the grocery store, she would get to try all of them and each person goes home with the rest of a loaf. It was fun all things considered but silly that it was necessary. So yeah, I have no idea why the fda did this, it seems worse for everyone involved.
- stainablesteel 2y ago
  labeling a product for potential allergens doesn't hurt consumers, its meant to do the opposite otherwise they might hurt themselves if they're allergic to it. so now we have to play the game that its dangerous to label and dangerous to not label, this hurts producers because they'll be sued no matter what, it just makes business impossible. eating baked goods is not a right its a preference, capitalism says to find a bakery that suits your needs. and to be even more split over this, any food content can be some kind of allergen, now that what used to be normal spices are being converted to allergens one at a time we have to make distinctions like this, if i ran a bakery i would just label everything as being made with allergens too because we used to just call them "ingredients"
Miner49er 2y ago
The food manufacturer is supposed to follow GMP and prevent allergens for being in foods they shouldn't be in.
- thworp 2y ago
  "Prevent allergens" means a 100% certainty that there are no trace amounts. This would require clean-room conditions for the entire factory, deep cleaning everything (including the inside of machinery) between each batch, and doing similarly extreme things across the entire supply chain. How do you think this will be financed?
  - Miner49er 2y ago
    This is not the case at all. It's done for gluten free foods. Gluten free foods have to be under 20ppm to be called GF, and there are many gluten free foods out there. Even some made on the same equipment as gluten containing foods (just cleaned thoroughly).
    - thworp 2y ago
      Most gluten-free ingredients come from completely different crops, that are stored and processed in seperate facilities. But even if they weren't, have you checked the prices of certified allergen-free food recently? Even if a large part of the difference is a lack of scale, there would be riots if all foods had to follow those standards.
      - Miner49er 2y ago
        I have celiac, I buy a lot of GF foods. There are tons of foods labeled gluten free that aren't marketed as gluten free, and cost as much as normal food because they are normal food that's labeled GF. Only certain ingredients need to be handled specially like you say.
    - paulddraper 2y ago
      Gluten free foods are 50% more expensive, and far more restricted in availability.
jjmarr 2y ago
America has decided that able-bodied consumers should subsidize people with disabilities; companies are generally expected to make their products accessible even if there's not enough market demand for that to be profitable. Food allergies are a disability. Some people with food allergies cannot consume sesame. If you're a baker selling bread where sesame is not an ingredient, slapping "this product may contain sesame on your entire product line" or deliberately introducing sesame seeds into your recipe means a large part of the grocery store is inaccessible to people with a sesame seed allergy. I don't think that's equitable. Imagine if every company that didn't want to cater to people in wheelchairs only rented office space in historical buildings that couldn't have wheelchair ramps installed.
- stoperaticless 2y ago
  What world do you foresee? A world where sesame is banned from food industry? If no (which I assume), then what is the proposal? “No contaminants” does not seem realistic even in a cleanroom.
  - justin66 2y ago
    > “No contaminants” does not seem realistic even in a cleanroom. If the contaminants don't enter the room or touch the equipment, it's quite realistic. It's weird how many people buy into the silly "why are we forcing industry to do this impossible thing?" train of thought even though the thing is clearly not impossible (and it's been shown to be a self-serving lie on the part of some industry players). We're talking about sesame, not The Andromeda Strain.
    - bendbro 2y ago
      So each factory is purpose built to its ingredients OR you pray you don't get thrown in jail because a crumb of sesame was missed in the deep clean and some dysgenic child had an asthma attack? What's weird is you pretending your model of the world is tied to reality when all it is tied to is ideology. Make bullying legal again.
sn41 2y ago
I agree. If I am allergic to sesame, then I would also rather play it safe, rather than try a risk. By the way, Molitor 5901 is the phone number used by the Jackal to know if he could move, in "The Day of the Jackal", if I remember right.
- Molitor5901 2y ago
  The Jackal is blown. Wolenski talked before dying. Repeat: The Jackal is blown.
justin66 2y ago
> What is a baker to do? Keep allergens out of products where they aren’t ingredients.
jcl 2y ago
My understanding of the article is that some companies added sesame to their products and ingredients label, while others may have changed their label to say the product “may contain” sesame — but that Bimbo did neither of these things, instead changing their label to say that the product definitely contained sesame, when in fact sesame was not an ingredient.
- Miner49er 2y ago
  Exactly, most commenters here don't seem to understand this or understand how FDA allergen labelling works. Bimbo would be fine if they just used a "may contains" or actually added sesame to their products (although the FDA doesn't like this.)

utensil4778 2y ago

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 contain sesame, so you either get to eat nothing or take the chance. 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.

underseacables 2y ago
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.
- Detrytus 2y ago
  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.
  - baggy_trough 2y ago
    Your definition of reasonable may differ greatly from those who must perform said efforts.
  - starttoaster 2y ago
    You couldn't write a more perfect allegory for what has already happened due to California's Proposition 65. The common denominator here is that the government gives companies new rules to follow, and enforces severe penalties for breaking them, and so the companies minimized their risk by following them to the extreme. It's almost like if you want a different outcome, the government agencies involved need to step up and do a more thoughtful job of architecting these policies in a way where the companies are forced to follow the "spirit" of them. I can't be mad if I create a policy, and someone follows it. My intention should have been in the policy, not just implied.
    - inferiorhuman 2y ago
      The common denominator here is that the government gives companies new rules to follow, and enforces severe penalties for breaking them, and so the companies minimized their risk by following them to the extreme. Hardly. Prop 65 initially contained minimal guidance and essentially no teeth. So rather than identify problematic chemicals companies just slapped generic Prop 65 warnings on everything. architecting these policies in a way where the companies are forced to follow the "spirit" of them. Prop 65 was updated so that companies were required to put specifics on the warning label. The state even went so far as to start enforcing the requirements, and then… I can't be mad if I create a policy, and someone follows it. And then the state got sued because apparently labeling your products is simply more difficult than legal action.
      - Molitor5901 2y ago
        Prop 65 DOES contain teeth, of the worst possible kind. It works by an attorney finding a product without a Prop 65 label. Then the law firm sends a demand to the state that the product have the Prop 65 label. If the state does not take action, then the law firm may take private action by suing the company to force them to have the label, and get all of their legal expenses paid for by the state. It's lead to an entire industry of attorneys suing just to get the attorneys fees.
- zuminator 2y ago
  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.
  - stoperaticless 2y ago
    That I feel is on the consumer as business just does a full disclosure. The business discloses, what was added as ingredients, and what contamination is possible. (Because production line is shard or similar) What more do you want? I guess results of regular random testing could be put online. Forbid using same knife to slice different things is another thing to be done.
    - Spivak 2y ago
      > What more do you want? That the labeling disambiguate "made in a factory that makes sesame products" and "actually contains sesame." What we now have with "may contain" could be either and everyone is worse off
starttoaster 2y ago
> 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.
- heavyset_go 2y ago
  Companies aren't dogs, companies have obligations that they need to fulfill and they're choosing to neglect them.
  - starttoaster 2y ago
    > Companies aren't dogs Metaphor, but sure, quite literally they're not dogs. Very true. > companies have obligations that they need to fulfill and they're choosing to neglect them. From our eyes they're neglecting to follow the spirit of a policy. From their eyes, they're following it to the letter of the policy. Perspective.
    - Molitor5901 2y ago
      AFAIK you are required to follow the letter of the law, not the spirit. Whatever spirit moved the legislature into approving a law is secondary to the actual wording of the law. If congress wanted people to follow "the spirit of the law" then they should have made the law more explicit, instead of leaving it up to the FDA to decide what's the right spirit to have.
      - wombatpm 2y ago
        For my friends everything! Fir my enemies the law!
    - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
      Presumably the majority of people that don’t have sesame allergy would prefer to pay less for bread so I’m not as clear that “our” and “their” are different here.
hollerith 2y ago
>Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually contain sesame You are catastrophizing. It remains the case that any baked product that doesn't have "may contain traces of sesame" on the label must by law be free of traces of sesame. And if no producer chooses to produce such a product, then it is because the number of people who want it is quite small (or the costs of complying with regulations is too high to make a profit), and it is not hard for someone to bake their own bread.
- marshray 2y ago
  No one wins by some percentage of the population having to bake their own bread. If these facilities cannot keep unwanted visible particulates like sesame out of their products, how can they keep dirt and bacteria out? This regulation is not only good for people allergic to sesame, it's a brown M&M test. I see value in it.
  - brookst 2y ago
    > how can they keep dirt and bacteria out? They can't. It's statistically impossible. Even operating theaters and clean rooms can't keep every trace bit of dirt or bacteria out. All anyone tries to do is reduce the incidence to below a meaningful threshold. If the requirement is: either eliminate every last molecule of every offending substance, or use a label that the offending substance may appear in trace amounts... well, everyone is going to opt for the label.
    - marshray 2y ago
      I didn't say "every last molecule", I said "visible particulates". Nice attempt to straw-man though.
      - stoperaticless 2y ago
        Not a straw man if you look at the spirit of the argument.
quickthrowman 2y ago
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.
infecto 2y ago
> 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. My view is that the business should be able to decide who they want to service or not. According to recent US studies, 0.2% of the population have a noticeable allergy to sesame. Seems like bakeries don't want to invest money for such a small percentage. It sucks but this opens the door for new bakeries to cater towards those with this specific allergy. Why does the government need to force business to do it?
- jasinjames 2y ago
  The number might be 0.2% for just sesame, but roughly 10% of Americans have some form of allergy[0]. I'm guessing the reasoning here is to attempt to prevent "allergen creep", where the endgame would be major manufacturers throwing their hands up and listing most products as possibly containing many allergens (or, as in this case, intentionally introducing unnecessary ingredients). If this were to happen, we would expect a number approaching 10% of consumers to have a needlessly large selection of foods they couldn't reliably purchase, even if there would be negligible risk otherwise. At that point, the usefulness of requiring the labels to begin with is considerably diminished. Having a cottage industry of "actually correctly labeled" foods because the standard labels are poorly enforced seems inefficient, IMHO. [0]https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/facts-and-statistics https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/facts-and-statistics
  - int3 2y ago
    even if it were 10%, we shouldn't expect 90% of consumers to subsidize the other 10%
    - mitthrowaway2 2y ago
      I'm not sure how to separate this mindset from one that would have commercial buildings not be required to include elevators and wheelchair ramps. Do you also think that's an unfair burden to put on the roughly-90% of people who are not mobility-impaired? (Not implying any judgement either way, just curious if this is a consistent viewpoint).
fargle 2y ago
> This is about sesame. yes! > This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. maybe. more like: "This may have slightly annoyed..." > It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. nope. absolutely not. the did not say "may" they apparently said "contains". but what do you want them to do if there's a 0.0001% chance of two particles of sesame in a product? > The bakeries caused harm nope. the FDA caused harm for consumers by regulatory overreach the result will be one of three things: 1. FDA redrafts the sesame rule to define what is cross-contamination and what is not in a realistic way that bakers will agree to abide by and doesn't have these counter-productive side-effects. 2. Bimbo stops saying "contains sesame" and starts saying "may contain sesame" (the FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product "may contain” certain allergens "could be considered truthful and not misleading.") 3. Bimbo actually adds a tiny bit of sesame as other bakers did and keeps the packaging verbiage the same. which one is least unhelpful to the 0.2% of people with sesame allergies?
bradleyjg 2y ago
This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Their lobbying group caused the problem in the first place by pushing congress to pass unreasonably expensive cross contamination rules.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
The other (cheaper) alternative is to deliberately add sesame flour, which some bakeries are doing, according to the article. So what do you think is better: 1. Label bread with the "may contain" label. Meaning, truthfully, that people with severe sesame allergies shouldn't eat it. 2. Add sesame flour and then add a "definitely contains" label. I think #2 is much worse from a "significantly harms consumers" perspective.
- bsder 2y ago
  That's not necessarily true. It depends upon the severity of the allergy and the percentage of people with mild vs severe allergies. If you have a mild sensitivity, the added sesame may be below your threshold. Now you know that the sesame is controlled so you can always buy the product. The problem is that the people with severe allergies expected that the new FDA rules would have manufacturers significantly retool to avoid cross contamination. Everybody with two brain cells to rub together predicted that they would absolutely not retool and would just add trace amounts of the contaminant.
  - kgwgk 2y ago
    > If you have a mild sensitivity, the added sesame may be below your threshold. Now you know that the sesame is controlled so you can always buy the product. If you can buy the product with the added sesame you could also buy the product without the added sesame, could't you? Nothing changes in that case - while in other cases the added sesame creates a problem. It doesn't improve the situation for any consumer (leaving aside pricing).
    - bsder 2y ago
      > If you can buy the product with the added sesame you could also buy the product without the added sesame, could't you? No. That does not follow. Before, with "may contain sesame" the product might or might not contain enough sesame to trigger your reaction as it was completely uncontrolled. Sure, 99 times out of 100 it was fine but when somebody ran sesame burger buns on the third shift it would make you barf for 48 hours. You simply cannot eat that product on the off chance that it might be bad even though 99% of the time it is fine. After, you know there is exactly X amount of sesame and never more than that. You can test the product once and it either affects you or it doesn't. At that point if it doesn't affect you, you can buy the product and be confident that it won't change. Manufacturing 101: Anything that isn't measured isn't controlled.
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TeMPOraL 2y ago
> 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.
Ferret7446 2y ago
So maybe the FDA shouldn't have changed the rules if it significantly harms consumers? And I don't see how it harms consumers. These foods that may contain traces of sesame, had always might have contained traces of sesame. So are traces of sesame dangerous or not? If they are, then consumers shouldn't have been eating these foods to begin with. If they aren't, why are the FDA forcing the labeling?
- Spivak 2y ago
  I have a friend who is allergic to sesame, this law was really frustrating for her. The brands who purposely added sesame to comply with the law she couldn't eat anymore, the brands that just added the label she also couldn't eat because she couldn't tell the difference between the two. Before the law if sesame wasn't listed it meant it was at worst trace amounts and if it was listed it was off limits. She isn't "immediately dies on contact" allergic so to solve this problem we had a "loaf party" where we got one of every brand of bread in the grocery store, she would get to try all of them and each person goes home with the rest of a loaf. It was fun all things considered but silly that it was necessary. So yeah, I have no idea why the fda did this, it seems worse for everyone involved.
stainablesteel 2y ago
labeling a product for potential allergens doesn't hurt consumers, its meant to do the opposite otherwise they might hurt themselves if they're allergic to it. so now we have to play the game that its dangerous to label and dangerous to not label, this hurts producers because they'll be sued no matter what, it just makes business impossible. eating baked goods is not a right its a preference, capitalism says to find a bakery that suits your needs. and to be even more split over this, any food content can be some kind of allergen, now that what used to be normal spices are being converted to allergens one at a time we have to make distinctions like this, if i ran a bakery i would just label everything as being made with allergens too because we used to just call them "ingredients"

Miner49er 2y ago

The food manufacturer is supposed to follow GMP and prevent allergens for being in foods they shouldn't be in.

thworp 2y ago
"Prevent allergens" means a 100% certainty that there are no trace amounts. This would require clean-room conditions for the entire factory, deep cleaning everything (including the inside of machinery) between each batch, and doing similarly extreme things across the entire supply chain. How do you think this will be financed?
- Miner49er 2y ago
  This is not the case at all. It's done for gluten free foods. Gluten free foods have to be under 20ppm to be called GF, and there are many gluten free foods out there. Even some made on the same equipment as gluten containing foods (just cleaned thoroughly).
  - thworp 2y ago
    Most gluten-free ingredients come from completely different crops, that are stored and processed in seperate facilities. But even if they weren't, have you checked the prices of certified allergen-free food recently? Even if a large part of the difference is a lack of scale, there would be riots if all foods had to follow those standards.
    - Miner49er 2y ago
      I have celiac, I buy a lot of GF foods. There are tons of foods labeled gluten free that aren't marketed as gluten free, and cost as much as normal food because they are normal food that's labeled GF. Only certain ingredients need to be handled specially like you say.
  - paulddraper 2y ago
    Gluten free foods are 50% more expensive, and far more restricted in availability.

jjmarr 2y ago

America has decided that able-bodied consumers should subsidize people with disabilities; companies are generally expected to make their products accessible even if there's not enough market demand for that to be profitable. Food allergies are a disability. Some people with food allergies cannot consume sesame. If you're a baker selling bread where sesame is not an ingredient, slapping "this product may contain sesame on your entire product line" or deliberately introducing sesame seeds into your recipe means a large part of the grocery store is inaccessible to people with a sesame seed allergy. I don't think that's equitable. Imagine if every company that didn't want to cater to people in wheelchairs only rented office space in historical buildings that couldn't have wheelchair ramps installed.

stoperaticless 2y ago
What world do you foresee? A world where sesame is banned from food industry? If no (which I assume), then what is the proposal? “No contaminants” does not seem realistic even in a cleanroom.
- justin66 2y ago
  > “No contaminants” does not seem realistic even in a cleanroom. If the contaminants don't enter the room or touch the equipment, it's quite realistic. It's weird how many people buy into the silly "why are we forcing industry to do this impossible thing?" train of thought even though the thing is clearly not impossible (and it's been shown to be a self-serving lie on the part of some industry players). We're talking about sesame, not The Andromeda Strain.
  - bendbro 2y ago
    So each factory is purpose built to its ingredients OR you pray you don't get thrown in jail because a crumb of sesame was missed in the deep clean and some dysgenic child had an asthma attack? What's weird is you pretending your model of the world is tied to reality when all it is tied to is ideology. Make bullying legal again.

sn41 2y ago

I agree. If I am allergic to sesame, then I would also rather play it safe, rather than try a risk. By the way, Molitor 5901 is the phone number used by the Jackal to know if he could move, in "The Day of the Jackal", if I remember right.

Molitor5901 2y ago
The Jackal is blown. Wolenski talked before dying. Repeat: The Jackal is blown.

justin66 2y ago

> What is a baker to do? Keep allergens out of products where they aren’t ingredients.

jcl 2y ago

My understanding of the article is that some companies added sesame to their products and ingredients label, while others may have changed their label to say the product “may contain” sesame — but that Bimbo did neither of these things, instead changing their label to say that the product definitely contained sesame, when in fact sesame was not an ingredient.

Miner49er 2y ago
Exactly, most commenters here don't seem to understand this or understand how FDA allergen labelling works. Bimbo would be fine if they just used a "may contains" or actually added sesame to their products (although the FDA doesn't like this.)