California could become the first U.S. state to require restaurants to disclose common food allergens in each menu item under legislation being considered by state lawmakers.
By itself, this is not helpful. If you have a food allergy, you are used to mentioning it every time you eat out. You may be familiar with the usual answer of “we don’t use x but can’t guarantee our suppliers didnt contaminate something.” So what will happen is that restaurants will claim that everything contains allergens, or even add allergens to things that previously didn’t use them so that they can confidently say whether it does contain any. Maybe worse, they will list the allergens they use in their recipes but do not adequately communicate the risk of cross contamination in the kitchen or in the supply chain.
Instead, we also need to tighten food safety standards across the entire supply chain so that there is dramatically reduced risk of cross-contamination.
Supply chains are a major problem for people with allergies, because there are so many points where accidental contamination can happen that those at the end of the chain - like restaurants - are terrified of making assumptions because they know how unreliable the supply chain is.
Yep, that is exactly what happened with the CA cancer warnings. Got cancer warnings on basically everything now because it’s easier to just mark it than attempt to do anything else.
Exactly. I am strongly in favor of more stringent food handling and labelling guidelines, but labelling alone leads to abuse, misuse, and dilution. We need some concrete food safety regulations that take into account the entire supply line, preventing both accidental and deliberate contamination with major allergens.
By itself, this is not helpful. If you have a food allergy, you are used to mentioning it every time you eat out. You may be familiar with the usual answer of “we don’t use x but can’t guarantee our suppliers didnt contaminate something.” So what will happen is that restaurants will claim that everything contains allergens, or even add allergens to things that previously didn’t use them so that they can confidently say whether it does contain any. Maybe worse, they will list the allergens they use in their recipes but do not adequately communicate the risk of cross contamination in the kitchen or in the supply chain.
Instead, we also need to tighten food safety standards across the entire supply chain so that there is dramatically reduced risk of cross-contamination.
Supply chains are a major problem for people with allergies, because there are so many points where accidental contamination can happen that those at the end of the chain - like restaurants - are terrified of making assumptions because they know how unreliable the supply chain is.
Yep, that is exactly what happened with the CA cancer warnings. Got cancer warnings on basically everything now because it’s easier to just mark it than attempt to do anything else.
Exactly. I am strongly in favor of more stringent food handling and labelling guidelines, but labelling alone leads to abuse, misuse, and dilution. We need some concrete food safety regulations that take into account the entire supply line, preventing both accidental and deliberate contamination with major allergens.
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I am curious at how you managed to arrive at the polar opposite of the point I was making.
What part of his comment made you think he’s a shill for big business and pushing for deregulation?