I have a new hero.
Salesperson? Is that a joke? That job doesn’t exist in a grocery store. She probably talked to a stocker.
No. Just the first word that sprang to mind for “person who worked at the store and assumed the authority to state what allergens a specific product did or did not contain.” It could have been a stocker, or a person at a cheese counter, or a check-out clerk. The point is that a representative of the store gave out false, possibly life-threatening information. As I said, it’s down to the person with the allergies to double-check (if able). But that does not make it okay to say something does not contain milk/nuts/beef if, in fact, it does.
I know there’s a culture that thinks people with allergies are “special snowflakes”. This is not helped by the fact that many people say they have allergies, when in fact they don’t. Living with severe allergies is NOT fun or special. It is horrendous. Here’s a video of a man with mild nut allergies after mistakenly eating something with nuts:
That doesn’t exactly look like a party, but it’s much worse when the reaction happens within fifteen minutes and results in a child having great difficulty breathing (anaphylaxis).
I’m definitely on board with this rant. My son has an extreme milk allergy, if he gets even a little milk protein in him his mouth swells up, he gets hives all over his body and starts vomiting all over the place. Happily I haven’t had to use an epipen in anger yet, but the day will probably come. Anyway, it seriously cheeses me off how many things advertised as “dairy free”, like yogurts, cheese-substitutes and such are actually loaded with milk protein. I’ve gotten to be a real ingredient hawk and am no longer fooled by them, but shit! Who is the target consumer who wants something “dairy free” but not really? What the fuck? Why take out the milk but leave all the milk protein? Who is that pleasing? It seriously makes no sense that I can figure out.
My most recent discovery: Ground beef often is mixed with whey protein, and due to some goddamn meat industry loophole, they don’t have to list ingredients on ground beef, so it’s a crap shoot. Luckily I found an expensive, fancy-schmancy organic ground beef that only contains beef, but christ! Just dangit.
Give me a break. If you’re dumb enough to assume that a stock boy knows the contents of all 15,000 grocery store items without fail, then you have no business shopping for someone with an allergy.
If you have a Real Butcher available, they should be able to ground it on the spot.
There is no regulation for the term “Dairy-Free” so it might as well say “Yummy!” because it is what ever the manufacturer thinks they can get away with.
The term “Non-Dairy” is almost explicitly used for casein containing products (originally non-dairy creamers?), so if you see it, you probably have a greater than 50% chance that there are milk derivatives in the product and they will be listed on the label.
I have no allergies, but if someone brought me non-dairy cheese or diary free cheese, the first thing I would do is read the label, just because of the “how-dey-do-dat?” factor. I find it hard to believe that someone with extreme allergies would take anyone’s word for the ingredients of any product. But maybe that is just me.
Now I’m picturing **BigT **sitting angrily on a toilet, party hat perched askew on his bowl-cut-framed head, sounds of spluttering diarrhea echoing off the walls around him.
Thanks for that.
Oh no, thank you for that!
Can you provide a link to reporting on this? I’m having trouble understanding why the beef industry would add whey protein to ground beef. I don’t think whey protein is a particularly cheap ingredient and I can’t imagine it as a useful bulking agent. It seems like Pink Slime is the goto filler right now.
Pounding furiously on his keyboard…
Someone who raised an allergic kid should know that casein is a dairy protein. You should slap some sense into that bitch for trying to **poison **you.
Second this. At best, the store clerk was repeating what was said on the front of the package. (Now, if the package claimed to be appropriate for those with milk allergies, then you might have a valid complaint against the manufacturer, which has the responsibility for verifying its claims.) But as you’re the one with the allergy, it’s up to you and yours to carefully check ingredients labels.
While I agree with your rage against stupidass food labeling (I work in a grocery store, care what I put in my mouth, and am anal about ad copy) - I usually eat gluten free, and have eaten both dairy and gluten free in the past. It’s very easy and tasty as long as you cook. If you don’t know how yet, learn.
http://www.innovatewithdairy.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/G4ApplicMonogMeats.pdf
Not really sure how wide-spread this is. We’ve only hit it once, but that was enough.
I found this: http://lwicker.myweb.uga.edu/leanbeef.htm
It’s used in low fat ground beef as a binder and is cheaper than other options.
Call me a nitpicker all you like. I’m going to call you incorrect. According to the OP, that’s not what happened. Here’s another one for you:
Stock boy =/= pharmacist.
Or maybe the cunts at the store know the OP can’t stop shopping there and just want to fuck him over.
Come now, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. It’s not like BigT’s own mother would try to poison him in a desperate effort to get rid of him, in a way that would like an accident!
I’d chip in $$ (or €€, or ££) to transport you to BigT’s location specifically to get some appropriate pics for this chat.
The OP is sketchy on the details, saying only “the guy in the store.” It sounds like somebody looked at the label and didn’t pick up on the fact that casein is a milk-derivative, which is certainly understandable - I’m sure there are many people who don’t know that. What’s NOT okay is to take it upon yourself to proclaim something free of an allergen, when you don’t even know what the ingredients are. A simple “sorry - I don’t know” would be fine.