An interesting article about unintended consequences. A recent US law requires foods certify as being sesame-free or not, intending to make it easier for those who are allergic to find sesame-free...
An interesting article about unintended consequences. A recent US law requires foods certify as being sesame-free or not, intending to make it easier for those who are allergic to find sesame-free foods.
But, it turns out it's easier to add sesame to your food than it is to certify that your food is sesame-free. Oops.
to put some nuance to this, for processing facilities that are already using sesame in some of their products, it's cheaper and easier to add sesame to all the other products than it is to do all...
But, it turns out it's easier to add sesame to your food than it is to certify that your food is sesame-free.
to put some nuance to this, for processing facilities that are already using sesame in some of their products, it's cheaper and easier to add sesame to all the other products than it is to do all the rigorous equipment cleaning (and testing and record keeping) between production runs of sesame and non-sesame products. allergen-control programs are very involved and elaborate, so this response (unfortunate as it is) is not surprising to me at all, especially since sesame powder is cheap and doesn't impact flavor much.
/food scientist, with experience in allergen policies.
These types of food allergy stories always bring up a mix of emotions. On one hand, people should know what is being put into their bodies. On the other hand, if you are claiming a deadly allergen...
These types of food allergy stories always bring up a mix of emotions.
On one hand, people should know what is being put into their bodies. On the other hand, if you are claiming a deadly allergen I expect you to be able to answer what should or shouldn't have that allergen in it (outside of cross contanimation). If someone has a truly deadly allergy I don't think it is morally OK to put that kind of pressure on a restaurant staff while trying to take no personal responsibility. At what point is the onus on the individual to avoid possible complications or death?
When I was 18 or so a woman came into our restaurant that served pizzas, burgers, subs and wings claiming that she would outright keel over and die if she had any gluten. She swore it wasn't hyperbole. She. Would. Die.
At the time "gluten-free" was just in the embryonic stages of being a fad diet (I think the Atkins diet was just getting super popular around this time too). The majority of people thought gluten=bread at the time if they had even heard it about at all.
We always went out of our way to work with people with food allergies, dietary restrictions or other issues. We'd welcome people bringing in their own ingredients (with in reason) or things like salad dressings related to their dietary needs/wants. We'd show them ingredient labels and always had at least 1 unwrapped brand new cutting board/knife stashed away to avoid cross contamination. If they were regulars we'd work with them to steer them towards times that were easier for us to accomodate their needs (doing a full kitchen swap on a Friday night rush time wasn't the best time but maybe closer to 4pm that Friday was better, etc).
I went out to talk to her and started asking her what definately had gluten, what might have gluten and what didn't have gluten at all. (you know, what WILL kill you, what MIGHT kill you and what SHOULDN'T kill you) For example, our wings weren't breaded so I was pretty sure they didn't have gluten but did any of our sauces? Could it leach out of beer battered mushrooms into the fryer oil? (We had a separate fryer for just wings so I was relatively confident that nothing breaded had been cooked in it since I had changed the oil that morning).
I tried asking if anything in the green salads or antipasto salads might have gluten in them (I wasn't sure if it was used as a binding agent in the salami, for example). I offered to show her all ingredient labels as well as our kitchen and follow any of her suggestions to avoid cross cantamination that I maybe hadn't thought of. To my utter surprise and dismay she couldn't or wouldn't answer the questions. After a lengthy back and forth I said that I did not want to be responsible *for her life at my age and she should go somewhere else to eat. She didn't like that answer but enough people had witnessed our genuine attempts to please her that I didn't care. She was the first person I ever tossed out.
The whole situation still perplexes me to this day. Why walk into a place with mainly bread items (pizzas, burgers, subs) and claim you'll die if you have ANY gluten? On one hand I want to handwave it away as her being a kook but on the other, I've met enough people to know she may very well have been that self-centered and/or ignorant. At the very least she certainly seemed to believe she would die.
Having been in the service industry for most my life, I have about a thousand stories exactly like this (especially from the early 2010s when "gluten sensitivity" was becoming all the rage.) The...
Having been in the service industry for most my life, I have about a thousand stories exactly like this (especially from the early 2010s when "gluten sensitivity" was becoming all the rage.) The restaurants I've worked in have all been incredibly accommodating, like yours, and the eventual guideline we came up with was that if the customer could engage with their choices and give feedback we could serve them, otherwise we would decline. If you have a deadly garlic allergy and are dining at an Italian restaurant and won't engage with the server telling you there is likely garlic in everything, the restaurant can't assume that liability.
Which can bring me to the article: I really support better labeling practices and it shouldn't be that hard to know, as a company, if a certain ingredient is in your product. Certainly they should know if sesame is in their "spices." I am additionally in favor of "best effort" labelling, where a company can verify it doesn't add sesame to a product but that the product could be cross contaminated, similar to how products are labeled for nuts. However, if, while having the entirety of the Internet in your pocket and having a sesame allergy, you are tripped up by "tahini" being an ingredient (an example from the article), you might need to evaluate your engagement with your own health.
The real crux of the issue is that there was only two categories: you must prove that your food has sesame, or prove that it does not have sesame. Because the former is very difficult, it was...
The real crux of the issue is that there was only two categories: you must prove that your food has sesame, or prove that it does not have sesame. Because the former is very difficult, it was easier to add some sesame, and prove that it does have sesame. If there was a third category - neither provably has sesame nor doesn't have sesame - then it would at least mirror the prior status quo.
I can understand why they made that decision - if they didn't, then most food would be in the third category, and nothing would really change for people with sesame allergies. But on the other hand, sesame allergy is rare enough that it's just not worth catering for.
It's a tough situation. One of my friends has sesame allergy, and they would prefer the law to not exist, as it means that they basically can't eat bread in most of the US now. Basically all US fast food is off the table. Which is not amazing.
I experienced navigating a food allergy for the first time with my daughter. She's allergic to sesame, eggs, peanut, dairy, and certain tree nuts (thankfully not almond), but her allergy is not...
I experienced navigating a food allergy for the first time with my daughter. She's allergic to sesame, eggs, peanut, dairy, and certain tree nuts (thankfully not almond), but her allergy is not anaphylactic. Instead it causes a rash that's worst on her hands, making them very crack-y and dry if she eats it too much. As soon as we started managing her diet in addition to a strong topical cream, it cleared up, and we allow her to have small amounts of food with allergen about once a week so that she doesn't feel totally excluded by it. Like a sliver of her favorite croissant when we go to the bakery on weekends or a small piece of cake at a friend's birthday party (both baked with egg).
I really feel for folks who have an anaphylactic reaction to their allergens. It's scary and a huge hassle (and cost) to manage. My son doesn't have any food allergies, but his entire grade at school is no peanut and no nut because there's a higher % of allergic kids this year. Things like sunflower seed butters, pumpkin seed butters, jams/jellies, and cream cheese have been our savior.
I actually didn't realize this law had gone into effect even though I've been checking ingredients on the back of packaging so much these last few years. I'll have to look out especially for commercially baked products to see if they are beginning to include sesame where we otherwise wouldn't expect them. We try to get our baked goods local since we have an amazing spot that does great vegan and sesame-free products, but it's not always possible.
With the big 8 allergens, you can be reasonably sure that a food is safe if the allergen isn't on the label. Of course, it's still necessary to carry an EpiPen for restaurants and safety.
With the big 8 allergens, you can be reasonably sure that a food is safe if the allergen isn't on the label. Of course, it's still necessary to carry an EpiPen for restaurants and safety.
Yes, but only with the big 8 allergens. If it is not one of those, it is frankly a free for all. I have Celiac disease, and figuring out what foods may be cross contaminated is a crap shoot. Just...
Yes, but only with the big 8 allergens. If it is not one of those, it is frankly a free for all. I have Celiac disease, and figuring out what foods may be cross contaminated is a crap shoot. Just like used to be the case for sesame allergy, gluten containing grains may hide in food labels under "natural flavoring" or "spices". And food processed on the same equipment as gluten containing grains does not have to be labelled. These things all make me sick. While fortunately anaphylaxis is not an issue for me, I will suffer from a full week or longer of mood changes, inability to concentrate, muscle weakness, extreme pain, among other issues just from eating something processed on the same equipment that runs wheat.
There is a bill proposed to increase the number of items that are required to be labelled, and would include gluten just like sesame. I promise you that as someone who suffers a lesser reaction than sesame allergy suffers, it is worse to read a food label and not know for sure if you risk major health symptoms when you eat the food. If it is not a major allergen and you have significant symptoms from a food, then you need to avoid everything that lists spices or natural flavoring on the package. The person in this article was taking major risks already. Her child is much safer now, and more options will fill the market for her as companies are able to make plans that include this law.
I also have Celiac and I can confirm this is true. It's everywhere, and nearly impossible to 100% avoid it unless you eat only certified gluten free foods (which tend to be more expensive and...
I also have Celiac and I can confirm this is true. It's everywhere, and nearly impossible to 100% avoid it unless you eat only certified gluten free foods (which tend to be more expensive and harder to find) and food you cook yourself from simple ingredients.
I think the reason gluten isn't taken as seriously as the major allergens is because Celiac reactions aren't as immediately life threatening as an allergy that causes anaphylaxis. But a Celiac exposure to gluten is still very serious: it causes severe damage to the villi in the small intestine, which in some cases is never fully recovered from. This leads to symptoms like malnourishment (due to the villi being unable to absorb nutrients) and its associated ripple effects, as well as pain and gastrointestinal distress that can last weeks. There are a variety of other non-digestive symptoms across the body we don't fully understand yet, and it affects different Celiac sufferers in different ways (which indicates to me that more research is needed, and there may be multiple types of Celiac that could be treated in different ways). An exposure also can increase the future risk of cancer (although this is rare).
But when we are exposed we may not know until the next day, and since we don't need to immediately rush to a hospital, most people don't take it seriously (most restaurants are a crapshoot, even if they claim their food is gluten free). This is why we need stricter labelling regulations. Nobody is going to protect us unless they are legally required to.
That's true. I think it's both, but you're probably right that the fad dieters and armchair doctors are the larger reason. That double-edged sword of product availability is also a good point, but...
That's true. I think it's both, but you're probably right that the fad dieters and armchair doctors are the larger reason.
That double-edged sword of product availability is also a good point, but even in the industry of those products I have limited trust. Some stuff marked "gluten free" says in the fine print that it's not safe for Celiacs. Domino's has a gluten free crust for crying out loud. Their fine print is something along the lines of "this is actually not gluten free at all and contamination is pretty much guaranteed". Ridiculous
In Europe marking something as "gluten free" and it not actually being gluten free would be a case for a huge lawsuit + visit from the health officials.
In Europe marking something as "gluten free" and it not actually being gluten free would be a case for a huge lawsuit + visit from the health officials.
An interesting article about unintended consequences. A recent US law requires foods certify as being sesame-free or not, intending to make it easier for those who are allergic to find sesame-free foods.
But, it turns out it's easier to add sesame to your food than it is to certify that your food is sesame-free. Oops.
to put some nuance to this, for processing facilities that are already using sesame in some of their products, it's cheaper and easier to add sesame to all the other products than it is to do all the rigorous equipment cleaning (and testing and record keeping) between production runs of sesame and non-sesame products. allergen-control programs are very involved and elaborate, so this response (unfortunate as it is) is not surprising to me at all, especially since sesame powder is cheap and doesn't impact flavor much.
/food scientist, with experience in allergen policies.
These types of food allergy stories always bring up a mix of emotions.
On one hand, people should know what is being put into their bodies. On the other hand, if you are claiming a deadly allergen I expect you to be able to answer what should or shouldn't have that allergen in it (outside of cross contanimation). If someone has a truly deadly allergy I don't think it is morally OK to put that kind of pressure on a restaurant staff while trying to take no personal responsibility. At what point is the onus on the individual to avoid possible complications or death?
When I was 18 or so a woman came into our restaurant that served pizzas, burgers, subs and wings claiming that she would outright keel over and die if she had any gluten. She swore it wasn't hyperbole. She. Would. Die.
At the time "gluten-free" was just in the embryonic stages of being a fad diet (I think the Atkins diet was just getting super popular around this time too). The majority of people thought gluten=bread at the time if they had even heard it about at all.
We always went out of our way to work with people with food allergies, dietary restrictions or other issues. We'd welcome people bringing in their own ingredients (with in reason) or things like salad dressings related to their dietary needs/wants. We'd show them ingredient labels and always had at least 1 unwrapped brand new cutting board/knife stashed away to avoid cross contamination. If they were regulars we'd work with them to steer them towards times that were easier for us to accomodate their needs (doing a full kitchen swap on a Friday night rush time wasn't the best time but maybe closer to 4pm that Friday was better, etc).
I went out to talk to her and started asking her what definately had gluten, what might have gluten and what didn't have gluten at all. (you know, what WILL kill you, what MIGHT kill you and what SHOULDN'T kill you) For example, our wings weren't breaded so I was pretty sure they didn't have gluten but did any of our sauces? Could it leach out of beer battered mushrooms into the fryer oil? (We had a separate fryer for just wings so I was relatively confident that nothing breaded had been cooked in it since I had changed the oil that morning).
I tried asking if anything in the green salads or antipasto salads might have gluten in them (I wasn't sure if it was used as a binding agent in the salami, for example). I offered to show her all ingredient labels as well as our kitchen and follow any of her suggestions to avoid cross cantamination that I maybe hadn't thought of. To my utter surprise and dismay she couldn't or wouldn't answer the questions. After a lengthy back and forth I said that I did not want to be responsible *for her life at my age and she should go somewhere else to eat. She didn't like that answer but enough people had witnessed our genuine attempts to please her that I didn't care. She was the first person I ever tossed out.
The whole situation still perplexes me to this day. Why walk into a place with mainly bread items (pizzas, burgers, subs) and claim you'll die if you have ANY gluten? On one hand I want to handwave it away as her being a kook but on the other, I've met enough people to know she may very well have been that self-centered and/or ignorant. At the very least she certainly seemed to believe she would die.
Having been in the service industry for most my life, I have about a thousand stories exactly like this (especially from the early 2010s when "gluten sensitivity" was becoming all the rage.) The restaurants I've worked in have all been incredibly accommodating, like yours, and the eventual guideline we came up with was that if the customer could engage with their choices and give feedback we could serve them, otherwise we would decline. If you have a deadly garlic allergy and are dining at an Italian restaurant and won't engage with the server telling you there is likely garlic in everything, the restaurant can't assume that liability.
Which can bring me to the article: I really support better labeling practices and it shouldn't be that hard to know, as a company, if a certain ingredient is in your product. Certainly they should know if sesame is in their "spices." I am additionally in favor of "best effort" labelling, where a company can verify it doesn't add sesame to a product but that the product could be cross contaminated, similar to how products are labeled for nuts. However, if, while having the entirety of the Internet in your pocket and having a sesame allergy, you are tripped up by "tahini" being an ingredient (an example from the article), you might need to evaluate your engagement with your own health.
The real crux of the issue is that there was only two categories: you must prove that your food has sesame, or prove that it does not have sesame. Because the former is very difficult, it was easier to add some sesame, and prove that it does have sesame. If there was a third category - neither provably has sesame nor doesn't have sesame - then it would at least mirror the prior status quo.
I can understand why they made that decision - if they didn't, then most food would be in the third category, and nothing would really change for people with sesame allergies. But on the other hand, sesame allergy is rare enough that it's just not worth catering for.
It's a tough situation. One of my friends has sesame allergy, and they would prefer the law to not exist, as it means that they basically can't eat bread in most of the US now. Basically all US fast food is off the table. Which is not amazing.
I experienced navigating a food allergy for the first time with my daughter. She's allergic to sesame, eggs, peanut, dairy, and certain tree nuts (thankfully not almond), but her allergy is not anaphylactic. Instead it causes a rash that's worst on her hands, making them very crack-y and dry if she eats it too much. As soon as we started managing her diet in addition to a strong topical cream, it cleared up, and we allow her to have small amounts of food with allergen about once a week so that she doesn't feel totally excluded by it. Like a sliver of her favorite croissant when we go to the bakery on weekends or a small piece of cake at a friend's birthday party (both baked with egg).
I really feel for folks who have an anaphylactic reaction to their allergens. It's scary and a huge hassle (and cost) to manage. My son doesn't have any food allergies, but his entire grade at school is no peanut and no nut because there's a higher % of allergic kids this year. Things like sunflower seed butters, pumpkin seed butters, jams/jellies, and cream cheese have been our savior.
I actually didn't realize this law had gone into effect even though I've been checking ingredients on the back of packaging so much these last few years. I'll have to look out especially for commercially baked products to see if they are beginning to include sesame where we otherwise wouldn't expect them. We try to get our baked goods local since we have an amazing spot that does great vegan and sesame-free products, but it's not always possible.
With the big 8 allergens, you can be reasonably sure that a food is safe if the allergen isn't on the label. Of course, it's still necessary to carry an EpiPen for restaurants and safety.
Yes, but only with the big 8 allergens. If it is not one of those, it is frankly a free for all. I have Celiac disease, and figuring out what foods may be cross contaminated is a crap shoot. Just like used to be the case for sesame allergy, gluten containing grains may hide in food labels under "natural flavoring" or "spices". And food processed on the same equipment as gluten containing grains does not have to be labelled. These things all make me sick. While fortunately anaphylaxis is not an issue for me, I will suffer from a full week or longer of mood changes, inability to concentrate, muscle weakness, extreme pain, among other issues just from eating something processed on the same equipment that runs wheat.
There is a bill proposed to increase the number of items that are required to be labelled, and would include gluten just like sesame. I promise you that as someone who suffers a lesser reaction than sesame allergy suffers, it is worse to read a food label and not know for sure if you risk major health symptoms when you eat the food. If it is not a major allergen and you have significant symptoms from a food, then you need to avoid everything that lists spices or natural flavoring on the package. The person in this article was taking major risks already. Her child is much safer now, and more options will fill the market for her as companies are able to make plans that include this law.
I also have Celiac and I can confirm this is true. It's everywhere, and nearly impossible to 100% avoid it unless you eat only certified gluten free foods (which tend to be more expensive and harder to find) and food you cook yourself from simple ingredients.
I think the reason gluten isn't taken as seriously as the major allergens is because Celiac reactions aren't as immediately life threatening as an allergy that causes anaphylaxis. But a Celiac exposure to gluten is still very serious: it causes severe damage to the villi in the small intestine, which in some cases is never fully recovered from. This leads to symptoms like malnourishment (due to the villi being unable to absorb nutrients) and its associated ripple effects, as well as pain and gastrointestinal distress that can last weeks. There are a variety of other non-digestive symptoms across the body we don't fully understand yet, and it affects different Celiac sufferers in different ways (which indicates to me that more research is needed, and there may be multiple types of Celiac that could be treated in different ways). An exposure also can increase the future risk of cancer (although this is rare).
But when we are exposed we may not know until the next day, and since we don't need to immediately rush to a hospital, most people don't take it seriously (most restaurants are a crapshoot, even if they claim their food is gluten free). This is why we need stricter labelling regulations. Nobody is going to protect us unless they are legally required to.
That's true. I think it's both, but you're probably right that the fad dieters and armchair doctors are the larger reason.
That double-edged sword of product availability is also a good point, but even in the industry of those products I have limited trust. Some stuff marked "gluten free" says in the fine print that it's not safe for Celiacs. Domino's has a gluten free crust for crying out loud. Their fine print is something along the lines of "this is actually not gluten free at all and contamination is pretty much guaranteed". Ridiculous
In Europe marking something as "gluten free" and it not actually being gluten free would be a case for a huge lawsuit + visit from the health officials.