Peanut butter contains peanuts!Yes, I am serious. A bridge buddy tonight told me that his favorite peanut butter, Wegmans, has a warning that it contains peanuts!
Check it out yourself if you do not believe me.
Warnings:
Allergens: Contains peanuts. Made in a plant that processes tree nuts.
We live in degenerate times, my friends. Our ancestors got into ships that would hardly do for a weekend sail on the lake, crossed stormy oceans, fought mountain cats and drought, sailed their prairie schooners into the wilderness, all without as much as a single "Warning: Contains wild animal ingredients" label slapped on the prairie. Ours is perhaps a more complicated time, and farther from the food chain, we may need more guidance. Indeed, as a vegan, I'm very glad of the labels informing me when something contains milk. But I hardly need to be told that all of the t-bones decaying wetly in the refrigerator case have meat in them.
If it is true that Americans have come to a state when they need to be informed that their peanut butter contains, yes, peanuts, then it is time to give the land back to the Indians. Forget the injustice of our initial seizure. A people who cannot determine, merely by glancing at the label, that something called "Peanut Butter" is likely to have quite a few groundnuts in it--that people does not deserve to be in charge of the sunglass concession at the mall, much less a once-great nation.
Most swimming pools I visit warn me that I could drown in water.
I doubt it's so much idiotic as protection against frivolous lawsuits, for the same reason clothing irons come with warning labels telling you not to use them while wearing clothes in the bathtub.
Remember: not to protect the fantastically dumb. To protect the children of the fantastically dumb.
Lots of over-educated people, with lots of money, with lots of free time, who are desperate to do anything 'good'. We are awash in 'luxury'. Nothing a little asteroid wouldn't fix.
I don't see why it should be inherently obvious from the name alone; after all, peanut butter doesn't contain butter.
More importantly, I don't think a consistent labeling system that allows a person to quickly determine whether a given food item contains ingredients that could potentially kill them is a bad thing.
I think it's a label that has to go on anything containing peanuts or processed in a plant with peanut dust, because a lot of people are severely allergic. So if the FDA passes such a law, it has to go on everything. There's not a provision that says "except peanuts." Good response Bergamot.
Ehhh, actually the warning is about nuts -- though I'll agree it's not obvious. Many people with nut allergies are nut allergic to peanuts; peanuts are a legume, related to peas, beans, clover, etc. But allergic folks who eat peanut butter that processes walnuts or cashews might well have a fatal allergic reaction; hence the warning.
^^I mean, there's not a provision that says it has to go on everything "except peanut butter"
If you were hand-designing a peanut butter jar, and you put this warning on it, it might look sort of silly. Well, not the "tree nuts" part - that's important. But otherwise it might look silly, because you'd be going out of your way to warn people that there are peanuts in peanut butter.
But this is a case of someone creating a database of product information, which includes full allergy warning information for all products, and then someone else creating a web page that automatically displays that warning information for all products. These are perfectly reasonable, and in fact wise decisions. Someone would have had to have gone significantly out of their way NOT to display peanut allergy warning information on peanut butter specifically.
It's easy to get righteously indignant about labels and warnings, but with more thought I think the case for having them is strong. Having a standardized allergy information label has huge advantages with almost no cost.
People COULD use their brains to determine which foods are safe for them based on the food name. But why waste mental energy on this task? Putting the warning in a standardized way saves mental energy and prevents errors.
My gripe with warning labels is when products have so many that you don't read any of them. That is worse than having one or two important ones.
But this is a case of someone creating a database of product information, which includes full allergy warning information for all products, and then someone else creating a web page that automatically displays that warning information for all products.
That's what I thought, too, but their condensed milk doesn't warn you that it contains milk, and their eggs don't warn you that they contain eggs. Some of their 100% whole wheat bread warns you that it contains wheat; others do not. So they have a spotty system at best.
Rob-
I think that because peanut allergies are common, and really harmful to those susceptible, the regulations on labeling peanuts are more stringent than, say, milk (lactose intolerants will get over the diarrhea).
I think that there is a general presumption that life should be safe. This is a condition we have come to based on our affluence - we're not exposed to the saber-toothed tigers much any more, and things like "famine" and "plague" are distant to Americans. And so we've come to believe that anything bad must have an actionable cause.
You just need to start getting concerned when jars of peanut butter contain the discloser that they may contain peanuts.
The little bag of salted peanuts I got on the plane last week had the same warning:
Ingredients: Salted roast peanuts; salt.
Caution: Produced in a facility that processes peanuts.
Stupid? Seemingly. But I suspect there is a regulation somewhere that requires the notice, even if the product itself is, um, peanuts.
And to be fair, a couple of years ago, on the same airline, my family was exiting the plane last when one of the flight attendants handed us an enormous package of individual, salt peanut packets. She explained that they had been warned that the next leg of the flight had a passenger with peanut allergies, and company rules required removal -- not just stowage, but complete, physical removal -- of all peanut products for that flight.
I was informed by a television commercial last night that the side effects of a particular sleep aid include drowsiness. Y'think?
Hell, yeah. Let's not even put the word "peanut" on the label! Then all the people with peanut allergies will die young and won't reproduce. In a couple of generations - problem solved!
On a bag of raw almonds this weekend I was warned they contained almonds and were packaged in a factory that processed nuts.
I would say your reaction is the one deserving of "wish I weren't of the same species as this person".
As stated elsewhere in comments, many warning labels are automatically created, and automatically applied, not only to prevent lawsuits, but also to help prevent people from having allergic reactions.
All you have to do, is ignore the label. Of all that's wrong in the world, a label is enough to make you decry the state of the human race?
Sad. Truly sad.
I think Megan's blog needs a label that says: Warning: May Contain Overwrought Kvetching. Especially lately - she's starting to sound like Mickey Kaus.
Afraid you are off base here. There is a federal regulation regarding labeling of allergens. Sure it produces a duh moment like this one -- but it makes it really easy for folks with allergies (and their parents!) to figure out if they can ingest certain food, without having to remember if soy lecithin is ok or not.
Obviously this is an inredibly silly result of the labeling system, but as noted above, the system helps provide information, is not a burden on anyone but the manufacturers and would be much more confusing if the labelling requirements said "you must label any allergens except the 'duh' ones."
Plus, as noted, peanut butter contains no butter so maybe it's not as obvious as
So many comments, but none so far from a Californian, it seems.
Otherwise, we'd all have been informed that new cars must be labeled with the CA Proposition 65 warning: "This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to be carcinogenic." As do parking garages. As do dry cleaners. As do so many things and places in CA that I've found that practically nobody even sees those warning signs anymore. Literally. I get blank stares from people when I point out the warnings. (Yes, I know, I have no life...)
My father worked on airplane cockpit warning systems for years, and one of the biggest problems was overwarning. I agree with the commenters above about this specific issue with peanuts, but in general, it's easy to get a real *decrease* in safety if you have un-thought-out warnings and alarms in the system.
Why are so many people allergic to peanuts and other food now days? Humanity is going to go the way of the giant panda and become so fragile and maladapted that extinction is a real possibility. C'mon, take your kids to the farm, let them eat dirt and stop wiping down every serface in your house with anti-bacterial wipes.
on behalf of the human race, we accept your resignation.
Clara K., Bless your heart. For the real world's more like Horton Hears a Who then we like to imagine.
Our ancestors also lived to an average age of 35 and were more likely then not to die in the process of fighting mountain cats and drought. Then again, they didn't have peanuts.
Ben
"It seemed to me that any civilisation that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilisation in which I could live and stay sane."
-Wonko The Sane (_So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish_)
Of course, given the amount of peanut allergies out there, if somebody could come up with a peanut butter that didn't contain any peanuts, there'd be quite a market for it.
Megan McArdle: believing that "ketchup" is a vegetable since the 1980's.
Look, it's kinda Seinfeld-like funny what you're saying, I get it. But the larger point of sane "Pure Food" laws and "Food Facts" laws are to inform people of what is ACTUALLY in a product, not just what some right-wing Megan McArdle propagandist wannabes SAY on a label is in a product (or a bag or a box).
Why do right-wingers hate stupid food fact laws? Because without stupid food fact laws and without the dreaded FDA it would be easier to sell poisoned food to children for profit. That's not hyperbole, people still die from poisoned food, it's just less likely in America than it used to be precisely because of the type of law Megan is mocking.
The larger point of Megan's mockery is to enable exactly that: an unregulated system of food sales so that it doesn't interfere with the right-wings obsession with profit over concern for the health of Americans.
Sigh, why do right-wingers hate Americans?
Megan, don't let the door hit you on your asterisk as you're leaving the country, the human race won't miss you and America will be better off without you.
And considering your contempt for Americans, do US a favor and renounce your citizenship, too, I'm sure there's some third world country without safe, sane food laws that would love to have you.
You could work in the advertising department of some "food" factory selling blended cockroaches as "peanut butter."
The added bonus: The Atlantic could hire someone that understands what "rennet free" means and not someone auditioning as a comedy writer for Seinfeld.
Food News writes: "Why do right-wingers hate stupid food fact laws? Because without stupid food fact laws and without the dreaded FDA it would be easier to sell poisoned food to children for profit. That's not hyperbole, people still die from poisoned food, it's just less likely in America than it used to be precisely because of the type of law Megan is mocking."
Let the MARKET decide if people want to be poisoned, Food! If food producers keep on killing people sooner or later they'll run out of customers and the MARKET will have solved the problem. Same goes for Mad Cow Disease. If every meat eater ends up with holes in their brains the MARKET will have worked. And we'll have more Republicans. It's a win/win for the right!
Megan, the lawyers are waiting to pounce if some poor allergic person eats peanut butter and has a seizure. FoodNews completely ignores the fact that monster lawsuits rather than evil corporations are to blame. There is plenty of blame to be spread around, but lyin' cheatin' scumsuckers like John Edwards chasing ambulances are as much to blame as anyone.
I think Food News should head to France, where most of the cheeses and sausages have no ingredient labels worthy of the name. This creature seems to love lawyers more than it hates sensible people like yourself.
david mangan writes: "Megan, the lawyers are waiting to pounce if some poor allergic person eats peanut butter and has a seizure. FoodNews completely ignores the fact that monster lawsuits rather than evil corporations are to blame."
Pure wingnut bullshit, of course. Labeling policies are put into place (whether privately or by government) to cover a broad spectrum of products. If occasionally it seems to produce a label that's a little silly, like this one, so what?
Wingnuts are no more reluctant to file lawsuits when injured than anyone else is, by the way. Mr Frivolous Lawsuits Are Bad Robert Bork himself recently filed a $1 million lawsuit because he bumped his poor widdle paleocon head.
By the way, wingnuts don't have wings, and I'm fairly sure most of them don't have nuts, so sue me.
By the way, wingnuts don't have wings, and I'm fairly sure most of them don't have nuts, so sue me.
If you read the labels more closely, you'd know that we are often processed in facilities that also process nuts.
Rob Lyman: "If you read the labels more closely, you'd know that we are often processed in facilities that also process nuts."
Must be spanish peanuts - that would explain the thin skins.
You could work in the advertising department of some "food" factory selling blended cockroaches as "peanut butter."
Well, if you called it "roach butter", you'd end up with a lot of disappointed stoners.
I agree with Megan on this issue. It's not only food warnings with inane labels that are being posted on products.
Sunscreens that protect car windshields on hot days now come with a warning not to drive "while sunscreen is in place".
Cola vending machines are obligated to warn that the machines may fall on someone who shakes or tips the machine over. And then, of course, is the famous hot coffee warning fiasco that McDonald's had to contend with.
People have lost their reason. An alien visitor would find us to be a moronic race. It's depressing.
Bergamot,
Of course, peanut butter does not typically contain butter. However, any doubt can be cleared up by looking at the ingredients. The bizarreness of warning labels for peanut butter is that the name peanut butter should give people with severe peanut allergies enough pause to at least check the ingredients.
In a rational society, anyone with a severe allergy would check the ingredients before consuming anything. However, we do not live in a rational society. We apparently require food manufacturers to list their ingredients and then warn us that their product contains the ingredients listed in the ingredients.
I agree with Megan on this issue. It's not only food warnings with inane labels that are being posted on products.
Sunscreens that protect car windshields on hot days now come with a warning not to drive "while sunscreen is in place".
Cola vending machines are obligated to warn that the machines may fall on someone who shakes or tips the machine over. And then, of course, is the famous hot coffee warning fiasco that McDonald's had to contend with.
People have lost their reason. An alien visitor would find us to be a moronic race. It's depressing.
John in China waxes wingnut: "And then, of course, is the famous hot coffee warning fiasco that McDonald's had to contend with."
Poor, poor McDonald's. A megabillion dollar corporation ignored repeated incidents and eventually had to pay out a couple of hundred thousand dollars to a maimed old woman.
My heart bleeds.
BFD.
Language is strange. Sometimes words have different meanings, stand for different things. The realm of food names is particularly odd. Grape Nuts? Bangers? Hamburger?
Being explicit, to the point of redundancy, so as to avoid a potentially fatal allergic reaction is not idiotic. It's quite sensible and reasoned. Your lack of appreciation for the nuances of the nomenclature of comestibles is idiotic.
Perhaps just a pet peeve of mine, but:
Our ancestors got into ships that would hardly do for a weekend sail on the lake, crossed stormy oceans, fought mountain cats and drought, sailed their prairie schooners into the wilderness, all without as much as a single "Warning: Contains wild animal ingredients" label slapped on the prairie.
This kind of sentiment is somewhat silly when you ignore the context and realities.
Yes, people in the past did not have our warning label system and did have a great number of dangers that we do not face today..
And look, SOME of them survived. But only some.. the mortality rate back then was rather somewhat higher than now and at least part of the reason that the rate is so much lower now is due to increased knowledge dissemination about the risks that are faced..
anyway.. just a minor quibble methinks..
See, this is why people think libertarians are stupid; it's their inability to think anything through.
If you're concerned about the burden on food companies, just ask yourself which is a simpler regulation, easier to comply with:
1. Anything containing peanuts must be labeled as such.
2. Anything containing peanuts must be labeled as such, unless it's bloody obvious that it contains peanuts; in that case, don't bother.
Moreover, note that this label contains additional information "Made in a plant that processes tree nuts." For some people, say those who are allergic to walnuts but not peanuts, that's potentially life-saving information.
I'm allergic to peanuts, and I agree with Megan. Warning labels on peanut butter jars are redundant, and completely useless. If I see a product in the grocery aisle that has "peanut" as part of it's product name, you can rest assured that I will be high-tailing it out of the aisle. I won't risk anaphylactic shock to pick up the container, turn it around, and look for a warning label.
Now, when it comes to products that shouldn't contain peanuts, that little warning label just makes me angry that the food manufacturing plant doesn't care enough about my business to clean their machines between batches. Nestle, I'm looking at you. Rat bastards.
Soy milk has no milk in it.
Coconut milk has no milk in it.
Welsh rabbit has no rabbit in it.
Many flavored items (e.g. "banana flavored") contain only artificial flavors.
Mock apple pie contains either mocks nor apples.
Bolognese sauce contains no bologna.
Chihuahua cheese contains no canines.
And, of course, we all know that Girl Scout Cookies do not contain Girl Scouts. But I was surprised to find out that many people make mincemeat pie with MEAT, not just dried fruit and spices.
A small amount of space given over to a slightly humorous warning seems a small price to pay for clarity in labeling.
But everyone knows about the friend-of-a-friend whose kid knew someone in his third grade class who died because a classmate had eaten peanuts near him, so they think these things actually happen.
It's like child abductions. Strangers virtually never abduct children in the U.S., but there's a huge industry devoted to making people afraid of this "problem." (But despite the extreme rarity of this situation, it's still orders of magnitude more common than people dying from peanut allergies.)
Is that the criteria for giving the land "back to the Indians"? We don't deserve it anymore if we are no longer smart and self-reliant? Touchy subject! I assume you meant nothing of the sort, but it seems like a very sloppy turn of phrase.
I seen a bag of peanuts with the same warning
I don't see why it should be inherently obvious from the name alone; after all, peanut butter doesn't contain butter.
Contrawise, circus peanuts contain no peanuts at all. For all those folks above blabbing about how "peanut" in the name was the giveaway.
I was informed by a television commercial last night that the side effects of a particular sleep aid include drowsiness. Y'think?
If they mean drowsiness during the day after taking the pills, then that might be a good thing to know.
Also in the news: egg nog contains eggs
I think you can thank the American legal system and the public's penchant for frivolous lawsuits for such ridiculous warning labels.
I suspect the label in this case is the result of applying a general rule to everything that fits. Put the information on common allergens on the labels for everything, and you spend no time trying to decide whether cheese or peanut butter or granola require warning labels. I'll admit I don't see this as some kind of sign of the inevitable decline of Western civilization, just an example where a simple rule is easier to apply within your company than a complicated one.
Having the allergen information at the end of the label is really nice, BTW, as you'll notice when you're trying to check a lot of different prepared foods on a shopping run. Not all foods have the allergen information at the end, and it's a real pain to wade through a 40-item list of ingredients, trying to catch the one ingredient (with several different names) that is likely to make your kid really sick if he eats it. I wish all food containers had this.
I suspect the label in this case is the result of applying a general rule to everything that fits. Put the information on common allergens on the labels for everything, and you spend no time trying to decide whether cheese or peanut butter or granola require warning labels. I'll admit I don't see this as some kind of sign of the inevitable decline of Western civilization, just an example where a simple rule is easier to apply within your company than a complicated one.
Having the allergen information at the end of the label is really nice, BTW, as you'll notice when you're trying to check a lot of different prepared foods on a shopping run. Not all foods have the allergen information at the end, and it's a real pain to wade through a 40-item list of ingredients, trying to catch the one ingredient (with several different names) that is likely to make your kid really sick if he eats it. I wish all food containers had this.
Did you know George Washington Carver was part of an Illuminati plot to exterminate all the Reptilian humanoids with peanut allergies? They killed most of them in America, but through immigration and an effort to grow more reptilian humanoid lawyers, they were able to fend off the threat. And everyone knows the tragic backfire of the Illuminati backed Carter Presidency. To this day, however, the Illuminati are still trying to spread peanuts to every corner of the globe.
Maybe the warning is on there because Wegmans is just about the introduce a NEW peanut-free peanut butter, made from olive oil and pig intestines. It'll be the biggest thing since margarine. They started the labeling just before they introduced their revolutionary product.
No matter how fool proof you make a system, there will always be a better fool who will be able to do something stupid with it. All too many times that fool is you. Particularly when you demand the world to be made safe without your really being responsible for your own safety.
Being alive is risky. The harder you try to make it 100% safe, the more it costs and the less successful you are at remaining free, productive, happy, or safe.
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One of the downsides to civilization is that protecting the smart from the capriciousness of the universe also tends to protect the stupid from the capriciousness of their own stupidity.
We now have many repeated generations of people whose ancestors would have been eaten by tigers and removed from the gene pool for their sheer, unmitigated stupidity.
C.M. Kornbluth wrong about this unfortunate trend waaaay back in the 1950s in The Marching Morons.
So now we see one of the chief problems challenging modern civilization:
Too Much Tiger Food
Not Enough Tigers
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================================================
One of the downsides to civilization is that protecting the smart from the capriciousness of the universe also tends to protect the stupid from the capriciousness of their own stupidity.
We now have many repeated generations of people whose ancestors would have been eaten by tigers and removed from the gene pool for their sheer, unmitigated stupidity.
C.M. Kornbluth wrong about this unfortunate trend waaaay back in the 1950s in The Marching Morons.
So now we see one of the chief problems challenging modern civilization:
Too Much Tiger Food
Not Enough Tigers
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