3 ms·

IMHO this is getting close to the most surprising example of bureaucratic-red-tape-gone-wild I've seen, which is a "may contain traces of peanuts" warning on a

IMHO this is getting close to the most surprising example of bureaucratic-red-tape-gone-wild I've seen, which is a "may contain traces of peanuts" warning on a jar of peanut butter.

43920 2y ago
That’s not stupid though. It might seem obvious, but then you have things like sun butter, which are specifically designed to imitate peanut butter while not having peanuts. Sure, you can look at all the words on the package and ingredients and figure out if something probably contains allergens, but the point of the rule is that it gives you one standardized line of text that you can read and be 100% certain whether something is safe for you to eat or not.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  Then that SunButter should probably be probably labeled contains no milk. The absence of that one standard line of text would not be enough for me if my life were on the line.
  - JoshTriplett 2y ago
    > Then that SunButter should probably be probably labeled contains no milk. I do think it'd be better if there were a standard allergen block that contained an explicit "yes" or "no" for each standard allergen.
    - simoncion 2y ago
      _Maybe_. That'd take up more space on the packaging, and things with small packages may not have enough space to put the whole table. What do you do when the package is too small to contain the whole table? Do you leave things off? Now all of a sudden your standard table isn't so standard. Do you make the table smaller? Make it too small and folks who can't see well are proper fucked. I'm not saying your idea is BAD, but I am saying that it's likely the FDA thought about it and rejected it for not-entirely-unreasonable reasons.
      - JoshTriplett 2y ago
        That's an entirely valid concern. It's already true for today's "nutrition facts" labels, though, and the solution for those is that tiny packages say "not labeled for individual sale".
        simoncion 2y ago
        True. However, I find it difficult to believe that an easily-read, sufficiently-comprehensive table would fit on small packages. Marking even more things as "not labeled for individual sale" just because a new table that aims to be helpful [0] won't fit on their packaging seems to me to be a generally bad thing. [0] And also aims to replace existing allergenic ingredient class warnings that do fit on the current packaging...
  - akira2501 2y ago
    > should probably be probably labeled contains no milk. What about other products that contain no milk? Shouldn't they do this as well? Should every package list what it doesn't have? > that one standard line of text This is the point. The packaging is entirely up to the manufacturer. Should the FDA approve every food package before it's used? We obviously can't do that. What we can do is mandate a few "standard lines of text." So that regardless of the packaging decisions consumers can still determine the facts quickly and _reliably_. Think of people with allergies that have low vision or any other handicap which would make all these "good enough" ideas become dangerous.
    - jms55 2y ago
      Something else I haven't seen people mention in this thread, are kids. I've had a severe peanut allergy since I was like 5 (don't know the exact age, but as long as I can feasibly remember). If at 7 years old I was at a friend's birthday party and they had cake or some candy or whatever, how did I know if I can eat it? I was 7, I wasn't about to read an entire ingredients list and parse out what is or is not peanuts. I just checked the small list at the end for the standard "contains: peanuts" and that was it. As an adult, if I'm over at a friend's house or a family dinner, I need to know about allergies in whatever they cooked. I don't ask them "does it contain peanuts or peanut oil or made in a plant that would have cross contamination" - they often won't know. But they can fetch out the boxes of whatever they cooked, and I can easily scan several different boxes in a few seconds and confirm if it's safe for me to eat or not. I've never had a allergic reaction in the 20+ years I've been alive for, in large part thanks to regulations like these, and it makes me sad to see people condemn them over a small amount of mislabeled butter.
    - readthenotes1 2y ago
      -what about Other products that contain no milk?- Other products that are named like dairy products, yeah.
RayVR 2y ago
Are you from the US? It is not at all difficult to imagine a situation where a restaurant worker is trained to do something like the following when an allergen is raised as an issue by a customer: 1. Check the labels of any items used in the dish 2. substitute or leave out anything listing the allergen This may seem...basic. However, if the restaurant has an incident with an allergen affecting a customer that notified them, and they show they followed these instructions, they can shift liability to whichever food producer left the allergen off the label. Regulations and liability don't care about common sense. In fact, they supersede common sense.
- jey 2y ago
  > Regulations and liability don't care about common sense. In fact, they supersede common sense. Exactly. And there's a result in economics called the "Coase theorem" that basically says that as long as there's clear liability assignment, the negative externality (serious allergic reactions) can be efficiently avoided, in theory. So having regulations that make it unambiguous who is responsible for each step creates a better outcome for society (fewer deaths from allergic reactions). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem
- userbinator 2y ago
  Yes, and there is already a list of ingredients that should have everything, not just the common allergens. Regulations and liability don't care about common sense. In fact, they supersede common sense. That's the problem, and why more than half the country voted to want it solved.
tzs 2y ago
To put it in programming terms, this: if product.may_have_trace('peanuts') add_warning() is generally better than if product.may_have_trace('peanuts') if ! product.name_obviously_implies('peanuts') add_warning() Eliminating a special cast at the cost of a redundant warning on some products is probably a new win.
- userbinator 2y ago
  The (very short) ingredients list of the peanut butter already had peanuts.

IMHO this is getting close to the most surprising example of bureaucratic-red-tape-gone-wild I've seen, which is a "may contain traces of peanuts" warning on a jar of peanut butter.

43920 2y ago

That’s not stupid though. It might seem obvious, but then you have things like sun butter, which are specifically designed to imitate peanut butter while not having peanuts. Sure, you can look at all the words on the package and ingredients and figure out if something probably contains allergens, but the point of the rule is that it gives you one standardized line of text that you can read and be 100% certain whether something is safe for you to eat or not.

readthenotes1 2y ago
Then that SunButter should probably be probably labeled contains no milk. The absence of that one standard line of text would not be enough for me if my life were on the line.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  > Then that SunButter should probably be probably labeled contains no milk. I do think it'd be better if there were a standard allergen block that contained an explicit "yes" or "no" for each standard allergen.
  - simoncion 2y ago
    _Maybe_. That'd take up more space on the packaging, and things with small packages may not have enough space to put the whole table. What do you do when the package is too small to contain the whole table? Do you leave things off? Now all of a sudden your standard table isn't so standard. Do you make the table smaller? Make it too small and folks who can't see well are proper fucked. I'm not saying your idea is BAD, but I am saying that it's likely the FDA thought about it and rejected it for not-entirely-unreasonable reasons.
    - JoshTriplett 2y ago
      That's an entirely valid concern. It's already true for today's "nutrition facts" labels, though, and the solution for those is that tiny packages say "not labeled for individual sale".
      - simoncion 2y ago
        True. However, I find it difficult to believe that an easily-read, sufficiently-comprehensive table would fit on small packages. Marking even more things as "not labeled for individual sale" just because a new table that aims to be helpful [0] won't fit on their packaging seems to me to be a generally bad thing. [0] And also aims to replace existing allergenic ingredient class warnings that do fit on the current packaging...
- akira2501 2y ago
  > should probably be probably labeled contains no milk. What about other products that contain no milk? Shouldn't they do this as well? Should every package list what it doesn't have? > that one standard line of text This is the point. The packaging is entirely up to the manufacturer. Should the FDA approve every food package before it's used? We obviously can't do that. What we can do is mandate a few "standard lines of text." So that regardless of the packaging decisions consumers can still determine the facts quickly and _reliably_. Think of people with allergies that have low vision or any other handicap which would make all these "good enough" ideas become dangerous.
  - jms55 2y ago
    Something else I haven't seen people mention in this thread, are kids. I've had a severe peanut allergy since I was like 5 (don't know the exact age, but as long as I can feasibly remember). If at 7 years old I was at a friend's birthday party and they had cake or some candy or whatever, how did I know if I can eat it? I was 7, I wasn't about to read an entire ingredients list and parse out what is or is not peanuts. I just checked the small list at the end for the standard "contains: peanuts" and that was it. As an adult, if I'm over at a friend's house or a family dinner, I need to know about allergies in whatever they cooked. I don't ask them "does it contain peanuts or peanut oil or made in a plant that would have cross contamination" - they often won't know. But they can fetch out the boxes of whatever they cooked, and I can easily scan several different boxes in a few seconds and confirm if it's safe for me to eat or not. I've never had a allergic reaction in the 20+ years I've been alive for, in large part thanks to regulations like these, and it makes me sad to see people condemn them over a small amount of mislabeled butter.
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    -what about Other products that contain no milk?- Other products that are named like dairy products, yeah.

RayVR 2y ago

Are you from the US? It is not at all difficult to imagine a situation where a restaurant worker is trained to do something like the following when an allergen is raised as an issue by a customer: 1. Check the labels of any items used in the dish 2. substitute or leave out anything listing the allergen This may seem...basic. However, if the restaurant has an incident with an allergen affecting a customer that notified them, and they show they followed these instructions, they can shift liability to whichever food producer left the allergen off the label. Regulations and liability don't care about common sense. In fact, they supersede common sense.

jey 2y ago
> Regulations and liability don't care about common sense. In fact, they supersede common sense. Exactly. And there's a result in economics called the "Coase theorem" that basically says that as long as there's clear liability assignment, the negative externality (serious allergic reactions) can be efficiently avoided, in theory. So having regulations that make it unambiguous who is responsible for each step creates a better outcome for society (fewer deaths from allergic reactions). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem
userbinator 2y ago
Yes, and there is already a list of ingredients that should have everything, not just the common allergens. Regulations and liability don't care about common sense. In fact, they supersede common sense. That's the problem, and why more than half the country voted to want it solved.

tzs 2y ago

To put it in programming terms, this: if product.may_have_trace('peanuts') add_warning() is generally better than if product.may_have_trace('peanuts') if ! product.name_obviously_implies('peanuts') add_warning() Eliminating a special cast at the cost of a redundant warning on some products is probably a new win.

userbinator 2y ago
The (very short) ingredients list of the peanut butter already had peanuts.