Virgil Showlion
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[b]leones potest resistere[/b]
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 18, 2015 19:35:24 GMT -5
Huh. That explains a lot actually. I see the more accurate analogy as you're driving down the road with your window down and when you pass a pedestrian you ask them if the light ahead is green or red. If they say red you stop, if they say green you don't. If they're ever wrong, or give you an off the cuff answer without actually looking, you're going to run a red light, possibly t-bone another vehicle, and might die. So, who's at fault? You for trusting random strangers to do something you should probably do yourself given the stakes. Or the random stranger who blurts out green when you ask without actually looking down the street to see what color the light is? You trust a random stranger not to undercook your food. You trust a random stranger not to cut lettuce on a cutting board that just held raw chicken. I don't see that checking ingredients or not putting cheese on my food to be any more difficult tasks than what servers and chefs do everyday. He also doesn't go into anaphylactic shock and die if the lettuce in his salad brushes against a cutting board contaminated by raw chicken. He maybe gets food poisoning. A lot of people do, in spite of food preparers' best efforts to keep everything clean.
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Angel!
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Post by Angel! on Mar 18, 2015 19:37:37 GMT -5
[I don't want to live in an idiocracy where the business establishment I happen to patronize is legally responsible for my life-or-death decisions, especially when they don't realize that they're making those life-or-death decisions for me. You can call it "accountability", "making the world a safer place", or whatever you want. If Joe Customer is going to blindly accept my best-effort assessment of whether the pancake batter has enough allergen in it to kill his kid, I'm charging him $100.00 per question for my services, because apparently I'm now implicitly qualified to make that assessment on his behalf. I may as well get paid commensurately to the liability I'm taking on. I didn't realize you found looking at a simple ingredient list or asking a chef a question so difficult. Or that uttering the simple words 'I don't know' is just impossible. People don't have to like it, but given that ~10% of kids born today have allergies I think we can expect other states to follow suit in food allergy laws when it comes to restaurants. Food labeling laws have changed drastically due to allergies. I'm sure 20 years ago manufacturers scoffed at the idea of actually listing EVERY ingredient they put in their foods. But now they not only have to, they have to make sure allergens are marked in plain terms. I think restaurants will be following this trend. Many already do. Virtually every fast food chain has their ingredient/allergen listing online. You have restaurants like hu hot or pf changs that will happily tell you every item on the menu you can eat and will cook it separately for you. For kicks you should do a search on personal injury food allergy lawsuit. You will find tons of lawyers offering to sue some restaurant for you. Restaurants are either going to step up policy and training or suffer the consequences of lawsuits. It may drive some who are unwilling to do anything out of business, but others will take their place.
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Angel!
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Post by Angel! on Mar 18, 2015 19:39:50 GMT -5
You trust a random stranger not to undercook your food. You trust a random stranger not to cut lettuce on a cutting board that just held raw chicken. I don't see that checking ingredients or not putting cheese on my food to be any more difficult tasks than what servers and chefs do everyday. He also doesn't go into anaphylactic shock and die if the lettuce in his salad brushes against a cutting board contaminated by raw chicken. He maybe gets food poisoning. A lot of people do, in spite of food preparers' best efforts to keep everything clean. You can die from e coli. Remember the Jack in the box fiasco...4 people died and a lot more had permanent injuries.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2015 19:46:46 GMT -5
Huh. That explains a lot actually. I see the more accurate analogy as you're driving down the road with your window down and when you pass a pedestrian you ask them if the light ahead is green or red. If they say red you stop, if they say green you don't. If they're ever wrong, or give you an off the cuff answer without actually looking, you're going to run a red light, possibly t-bone another vehicle, and might die. So, who's at fault? You for trusting random strangers to do something you should probably do yourself given the stakes. Or the random stranger who blurts out green when you ask without actually looking down the street to see what color the light is? You trust a random stranger not to undercook your food. You trust a random stranger not to cut lettuce on a cutting board that just held raw chicken. I don't see that checking ingredients or not putting cheese on my food to be any more difficult tasks than what servers and chefs do everyday. Milk listed as an ingredient is easy. Knowing every word for milk based products, not so much. Same for wheat. Did YOU know Worchester has anchovies in it? ... I won't even begin to list the different things that corn hides under.
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Angel!
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Post by Angel! on Mar 18, 2015 19:51:26 GMT -5
You trust a random stranger not to undercook your food. You trust a random stranger not to cut lettuce on a cutting board that just held raw chicken. I don't see that checking ingredients or not putting cheese on my food to be any more difficult tasks than what servers and chefs do everyday. Milk listed as an ingredient is easy. Knowing every word for milk based products, not so much. Same for wheat. Did YOU know Worchester has anchovies in it? ... I won't even begin to list the different things that corn hides under. 15 years ago you would have been right. You don't have to know every word anymore though. Labeling laws state that allergens have to be in plain English. That means the ingredient listing whey will either be followed by '(milk)' or under the ingredients you will see 'contains milk'. Many manufacturers even print allergens bold so they are easy to spot.
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Angel!
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Post by Angel! on Mar 18, 2015 19:52:20 GMT -5
Exactly, but I think what you're going to find is that the vast majority of them are going to decide the liability isn't worth it and put up signs that basically say "we can't guarantee allergen free food, eat at your own risk, or hit the bricks." Which is fine. I have no problem with this solution.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2015 19:53:39 GMT -5
For milk maybe. Not for everything. Are you suggesting that your allergy is more important than someone else's allergy?
And isn't labeling only over like 1%? And does that include 'made on the same machinery as'? And how about when things like 'spices' are listed, but don't actually say what is in the 'spices'....
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Virgil Showlion
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Joined: Dec 20, 2010 15:19:33 GMT -5
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Mar 18, 2015 19:59:33 GMT -5
[I don't want to live in an idiocracy where the business establishment I happen to patronize is legally responsible for my life-or-death decisions, especially when they don't realize that they're making those life-or-death decisions for me. You can call it "accountability", "making the world a safer place", or whatever you want. If Joe Customer is going to blindly accept my best-effort assessment of whether the pancake batter has enough allergen in it to kill his kid, I'm charging him $100.00 per question for my services, because apparently I'm now implicitly qualified to make that assessment on his behalf. I may as well get paid commensurately to the liability I'm taking on. I didn't realize you found looking at a simple ingredient list or asking a chef a question so difficult. Or that uttering the simple words 'I don't know' is just impossible. People don't have to like it, but given that ~10% of kids born today have allergies I think we can expect other states to follow suit in food allergy laws when it comes to restaurants. Food labeling laws have changed drastically due to allergies. I'm sure 20 years ago manufacturers scoffed at the idea of actually listing EVERY ingredient they put in their foods. But now they not only have to, they have to make sure allergens are marked in plain terms. I think restaurants will be following this trend. Many already do. Virtually every fast food chain has their ingredient/allergen listing online. You have restaurants like hu hot or pf changs that will happily tell you every item on the menu you can eat and will cook it separately for you. For kicks you should do a search on personal injury food allergy lawsuit. You will find tons of lawyers offering to sue some restaurant for you. Restaurants are either going to step up policy and training or suffer the consequences of lawsuits. It may drive some who are unwilling to do anything out of business, but others will take their place. This is the government proactively making policy. It's not "accountability" induced by lawsuits. I have no problem with governments amending regulations and requiring food establishments to know what allergens are present in their kitchens. I can also see the reasoning behind requiring such establishments from refusing service to customers with severe allergies if the possibility of contamination exists. The proper way to go about this is to give businesses several years worth of notice, provide them time and formal instruction on how to put "protocols" (a.k.a. "I'm sorry, we're not legally able to serve people with dairy allergies") in place. If they violate the new regulations, then the lawsuits can start to fly. I suspect that people with severe allergies will balk at the notion of being summarily refused service, hence we'll find the consensus to be that they're willing to take on the responsibility of vetting their own foods, accepting that they have no legal recourse if cross-contamination occurs. Moreover, it will be widely known that only a restaurant's "allergen registry"--which is a written record of any possible trace allergens in the store--would suffice as a basis for legal action against them. In other words, "the chef thinks" isn't enough. Even if the chef swears on his mother's grave that no egg will get into the salad, if "egg" is listed in the registry, the business will be void of liability if a customer dies due to accidental ingestion of egg. As people have pointed out, some businesses would go through the hoops of making themselves allergy free to accommodate customers with allergies. Other businesses will keep potential allergens in the kitchen and either of the two above scenarios will apply.
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Angel!
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Post by Angel! on Mar 18, 2015 20:01:40 GMT -5
For milk maybe. Not for everything. Are you suggesting that your allergy is more important than someone else's allergy?
And isn't labeling only over like 1%? And does that include 'made on the same machinery as'? And how about when things like 'spices' are listed, but don't actually say what is in the 'spices'.... www.fda.gov/food/guidanceregulation/guidancedocumentsregulatoryinformation/allergens/ucm106890.htmIt isn't just milk. It covers the 8 major allergens that cover 90 % of allergies and virtually all the anaphylaxis allergies. The rule used to be under 2% didn't have to be listed. Now everything has to be listed. unless they changed it since I last researched shared equipment doesn't have to be stated. Most seem to state it now though. And if the spices include one of the 8 allergens it has to be stated.
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Malarky
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Post by Malarky on Mar 18, 2015 20:03:16 GMT -5
Here's a problem that I have been researching lately. Some jimmies/sprinkles have "confectioner's glaze" listed as an ingredient.
What exactly does that mean? The kind made from 10X sugar and water? The recipe that is 10X sugar, water and milk? Or is the hard candy coating made from Lac beetles?
Probably not the one that contains milk, because the box lists soy as an allergen. But is it beetle shit? Can vegans eat it?
It isn't so easy to just read the ingredients.
"I do not think that means what you think that means."
We always tell people that if they have a severe allergy, they shouldn't eat here.
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