Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Allergy Warnings On Food: Useful And Silly

I fully understand why there is a need to have allergy warning information on food. For example, plain chocolate M&Ms can potentially have small amounts of peanut in them because they are from the same plant as peanut M&Ms. For people with the severe allergy to peanuts, this can be a life saver.

However, sometimes the warnings turn out to be just plain silly. For example, I purchased a package of "Chipotle Oven Roasted Peanuts" and the label, as required by law, warns: "Allergy Information: This product is processed on equipment that also processes other tree nuts or peanuts. May contain tree nuts or peanuts." I certainly hope the peanuts are processed on equipment that processes peanuts. And I certainly hope it contains peanuts.

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