House Moves to Strip Food Warning Labels

[Patrick S]

How is it that American cheese contains no benzene, but one of its principal ingredients, Cheddar cheese, does?  Does the heating of the cheese during pasteurization destroy the benzene?  (There is no such thing as unpasteurized American cheese.)  Edited to fix formatting errors and to add: And if that is the reason, why would most Cheddar sold in the United States--which is made from pasteurized milk--contain benzene?

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There are several possibilities, though without more information I can't tell you which if any is correct in this case.

One possibility is that cheddar cheese contains benzene at a level just about the detection threshold, so that when it is combined with (diluted by) other ingredients to make American cheese, the resulting product contains benzene at a level below the detection threshold.

Another possibility is simply that there is a wide variability in the benzene content of cheddar, depending on where it is manufactured, or depending on differences in production techniques. If thats the case, its possible that the FDA American cheese samples were from a manufacture that used a low benzene cheddar.

[MarketStEl]

To illustrate (I hope) how sticky an issue this all is I offer an extreme and very hypothetical case:

Suppose a marketer put the following label on their produce:

"While no research (or the FDA) has determined that there is any danger to humans from agriculturally safe soils all our produce is produced through the use of hydroponics--our vegetables never come in to contact with dirt of any kind."

or

"scientific studies have shown that agricultural soils can contain traces of radioactive elements..."

or

studies have shown that soil can contain bacteria...

or etc etc etc

What I am getting at--is someone can create the impression that there may be something wrong with anything in the desire to establish one's products as superior or safer.

Warning labels can be beneficial but they can also create more confusion and can be misused.

by the way--I hope I am not causing any more confusion with my post!

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I refer you to my statement in post 49, above:

Perhaps we should just slap a label reading

"Everything you eat contains known potential carcinogens in varying quantities"

over the door of every supermarket and farmer's market and be done with it.

[SuzySushi]

I know what I should and what I shouldn't eat.  And I don't eat the things that I shouldn't eat.  And since I can eat and do love peanuts - I resent all the preferential warning status given to peanuts - which frequently leads some entities - like airlines - to avoid serving even little tiny bags of peanuts.  Why should someone's peanut sensitivities be more important than my food sensitivities? 

....If I were going to pick one single warning in the world that I would allow on food labels - it is "this product contains too much salt to be healthy for anyone".  There are probably 1000 times more people in the US who suffer from hypertension than all the other food sensitivities out there.  And I suspect the ratio of people who die from hypertension and related diseases compared to those who die from peanuts is about 100,000 to 1.  Robyn

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Robyn,

While for the most part, I agree with you that warning labels are going overboard, I completely disagree about peanuts/tree nuts and other foods that can cause anaphylaxis (seafood, etc.). Even a trace of these foods can cause death in a matter of minutes to someone who is highly allergic.

My daughter's school is a "peanut free" zone because one of the children is deathly allergic. And I'm happy to comply with the voluntary "rules" by not sending her to school with PB&J sandwiches, granola bars, peanut candies, and the like. Why would I want to risk being responsible for the death of someone else's child, who could go into anaphylactic shock if he sits down at a table where someone sitting there before him had peanuts??? Same with the airlines. I like peanuts, but I don't mind it the airlines no longer serve them because I know that someone who is highly allergic could go into medical emergency or even die if s/he breathed the peanut dust.

Yes, there are more people who die from hypertension. But it's not from immediate, one-time exposure to salt.

[robyn]

I know what I should and what I shouldn't eat.  And I don't eat the things that I shouldn't eat.  And since I can eat and do love peanuts - I resent all the preferential warning status given to peanuts - which frequently leads some entities - like airlines - to avoid serving even little tiny bags of peanuts.  Why should someone's peanut sensitivities be more important than my food sensitivities? 

....If I were going to pick one single warning in the world that I would allow on food labels - it is "this product contains too much salt to be healthy for anyone".  There are probably 1000 times more people in the US who suffer from hypertension than all the other food sensitivities out there.  And I suspect the ratio of people who die from hypertension and related diseases compared to those who die from peanuts is about 100,000 to 1.  Robyn

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Robyn,

While for the most part, I agree with you that warning labels are going overboard, I completely disagree about peanuts/tree nuts and other foods that can cause anaphylaxis (seafood, etc.). Even a trace of these foods can cause death in a matter of minutes to someone who is highly allergic.

My daughter's school is a "peanut free" zone because one of the children is deathly allergic. And I'm happy to comply with the voluntary "rules" by not sending her to school with PB&J sandwiches, granola bars, peanut candies, and the like. Why would I want to risk being responsible for the death of someone else's child, who could go into anaphylactic shock if he sits down at a table where someone sitting there before him had peanuts??? Same with the airlines. I like peanuts, but I don't mind it the airlines no longer serve them because I know that someone who is highly allergic could go into medical emergency or even die if s/he breathed the peanut dust.

Yes, there are more people who die from hypertension. But it's not from immediate, one-time exposure to salt.

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Not to put too fine a point on it - but I think a whole peanut-free school is dumb. There are people who suffer from similar problems when stung by certain insects. Does that mean that no school should have a butterfly garden (as an avid gardener - I know that those gardens attract lots of bees and other stinging insects too)? I'm sure there are similar examples - but this was the first one that came to mind (I actually have someone who works in my yard who has to carry epinephrin syringes in case he gets bitten by certain bugs). Robyn

[ghostrider]

...someone who is highly allergic could go into medical emergency or even die if s/he breathed the peanut dust.

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Is that a medical reality? I know that ingesting even trace amounts of peanut can be dangerous. But peanut dust? Has there ever been a documented case of someone becoming ill through proximity to - not ingestion of - airline peanuts?

[Patrick S]

I don't know about full-blown anaphylaxis from peanut dust, or about the specific case described above, but it is true that in a small number of people who are extremely sensitive, there can be a measurable reaction to doses much less than 1mg. Wensing et al (2002) conducted a placebo-controlled, double-blind food challange of 26 people with history of peanut allergy, and found that symptoms could be provoked with as little as 100 micrograms (which is just 1/10th of a milligram). This is the lowest threshold dose -- the lowest dose that produced measurable symptoms. In their study, the threshold dose ranged from 100 micrograms to 1gram, and 50% of the subjects had a threshold of 3mg or less.

Wensing et al, 2002. The distribution of individual threshold doses eliciting allergic reactions in a population with peanut allergy. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 110(6):915-20.