May contain nuts.

Hagar · 22-10-2004 09:22AM #1

Does anyone else find the phrase "may contain nuts" a bit worrying?

I realise some people have nut allergies so severe that the may go into anaphalectic (sp) shock and die if the eat even the smallest amount of nuts and that they must be warned if a product might contain nuts. I also understand that this is food manufacturers trying to cover themselves against law suits from nut allergy sufferers.

My point is that if a product that doesn't list nuts as an ingredient then why should we be warned that it may contain nuts? Are they going to put this warning on everything we eat?

Do the food manufacturers not have full control over what goes into the foodstuffs they are producing?
Is there somebody in the food ingredients chain not totally accountable for what they produce?

The standard manufacturer's response that I have come across is "there may be cross contamination from other areas in the factory where there are nuts in use". Well that explanation doesn't hold much water with me, after all there are toilets in other areas but they don't label the products "may contain píss or shít".

Are the hygiene standards in the food industry so lax that nobody knows if any traces of nuts from another product previously produced in the same are have been properly cleaned up?

What do you think? Does anybody else worry about the implications?

Sarky · 22-10-2004 09:24AM

Can you say, with absolute certainty, that something contains absolutely no trace whatsoever of any type of nut?

pickarooney · 22-10-2004 09:28AM

An awful lot of producst do contain píss and shít, but people won't die from ingesting these.

Blub2k4 · 22-10-2004 09:29AM

I think that you'll find Hagar that the nuts may be referring to the fact that nut oils may be included in whatever blend of vegetable oils etc they happen to source at the time, not all companies always source in the same place, market sometimes decides.
I'm not 100% on this, the other possiblity is that the company also produces products with nuts and is covering themself against small cross contaminations or the like.

KdjaCL · 22-10-2004 10:03AM

I more worried about that on packets of peanuts, i mean peanuts "which may containt traces of nuts" i should fukkin hope so.

kdjac

Hobart · 22-10-2004 10:07AM

Sarky wrote:

Can you say, with absolute certainty, that something contains absolutely no trace whatsoever of any type of nut?

Yes.

steveland? · 22-10-2004 10:43AM

pickarooney wrote:

An awful lot of producst do contain píss and shít, but people won't die from ingesting these.

:eek:

Sleipnir · 22-10-2004 10:51AM

Ah I think the best is the one on milk cartons;

"once opened, store upright"

Oh, so *that's* what I was doing wrong.......

Nuttzz · 22-10-2004 10:56AM

I dont think that its that they are lax in the production, it more a case of CYA (cover your a$$)

Personally I like nuts

Blub2k4 · 22-10-2004 10:59AM

This link reckons it is overuse to cover against the possiblity of cross-contamination but that firms like M&S dont overuse it http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/x-ray/allarticles/stories/2_6_maynotcontainnuts.shtml

May contain nuts.

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