I’m on the side of warnings. Maybe we’ve overcorrected their lack, but for the most part I don’t believe they are dismissed by overuse.
I wrote the first book on lactose intolerance. When I got diagnosed in 1978 I had never heard the term and apparently no one other than a few doctors had. There was no consumer information available. And this was before modern food labeling with full ingredients had come into existence, let along warnings about potential ingredients. Those with allergies had a similar lack of information.
I did intense research, a difficult long process in the pre-internet years. I eventually wrote a second, even more inclusive and in-depth, book, started one of the first websites on the subject, and later a daily blog that focused on products and the latest research. I’m extremely proud that I was invited to the National Institutes of Health State of the Science Conference on Lactose Intolerance, the only civilian - non-doctor or product manufacturer - there. So it’s an intensely personal subject for me.
The interplay of deciding how to provide consumer information and the way consumers process information has been an issue since the beginning, in the same way that news of all kinds and how best to create an informed public has been hotly debated. I’m of the opinion that the increases in detailed information mandated has on the whole been an life-changing success.
The nutrition facts is required in food products. It is in a white box and has cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate and proteins in grams. The Ingredients is next to it or under it. It has what it is made of: egg, peanuts,et. Example: Dextrose, Maltodextrin, and Less Than 2% of Malic Acid, Calcium Stearate, Corn Syrup, Natural Flavors, Carnauba Wax, Color Added, Yellow 5 Lake, Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Blue 2 Lake, Carmine Color, Blue 1 Lake, Blue 1 (Runts Candy)
“Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.”
“It seemed to me,” said Wonko the Sane, “that any civilization 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 civilization in which I could live and stay sane.”
I don’t mind the obviousness, but I do mind the “may contain” part. If I just bought a pack of peanuts, I want the label to say “Definitely contains peanuts. May contain walnuts, pecans, sunflower oil”.
I understand you’re allergic to nuts. Yes, Walnut brownie mix does have nuts. Peanut butter is in fact, made of nuts. Peanut oil is derived from nuts. It’s not for you.
The odd things that may contain nuts is on you to research.
I’m not at all opposed to product labeling. It has an important purpose. Do your homework, too, folks. It’s your life. Assuming you don’t wanna be sick or die, it behooves you.
If ingredient labels were not required, where would I do research on ingredients. Companies would have no reason to make their recipes available on their websites. In fact they’d actively resist doing so.
By far the best place to do “research” on ingredients is right there on the package. that pretty well eliminates somebody getting confused between (made up example) “Pillsbury Luxo Brownies” that don’t have nuts versus “Pillsbury Deluxe Brownies” that do have nuts. You might be sure of one when you’re fiddling with the internet at home. But if you never knew Deluxe brownies existed you might well grab a package at the store thinking that was the new name for the Luxo brownies you’d researched.
Picking mistakes happen all the time at the store. I’ve sure gotten home with creamy PB when I always buy crunchy, etc. The closer we put the info to the point of use, the fewer mistakes will occur.
As long as business is permitted to substitute “doing the cheapest thing that complies with most of the letter of the law” for “Complying as fully as is possible with both the letter, spirit, and intent of the law” the perverse incentive is built right in right there. No matter how you word the details.
It’s the starting from “cheating and loopholing is good, rather than unacceptably unethical” that is the bad incentive to be rooted out.
If CEOs and COOs were routinely forced by the shareholders to resign in disgrace when their company is cited for “attempting to circumvent the intent of a regulation”, well, we wouldn’t be having these problems.
So I really don’t see the problem, its incredibly important, potentially life saving information. What is the problem with erring on the side of caution? (Or rather making the regulations simple and universal?) What would be gained by adding an extra caveat to the regulations that says “unless it’s obvious”. It would just make everything more complicated and more expensive to enforce.
What is far more infuriating and do make make question society and where it’s going are warnings that serve absolutely no purpose to the reader at all, and are only there to make lawyers feel better.
The most egregious are the warnings in medicine adverts that say “Do not take Lethalia if you are allergic to Lethalia”
Then there is classic California Prop 65 sign that says “this are contains chemicals known by the state of California to cause cancer” but DOESN’T TELL YOU WHAT THEY ARE! Seriously what are we taking about here? Roast coffee grounds? Plutonium?
Okay. And where is the incentive to make that happen?
I’m all in favor of cranking up punishment of white-collar crimes. Not that China is a model to emulate in general, but I’m perfectly comfortable with their execution of the people responsible for the melamine infant formula scandal (ignoring the problems with them getting a fair trial and all that).
But as long as lawmakers fail to understand incentives, they’ll continue to be confused as to why their laws have perverse outcomes. It is useless to wish that things were otherwise, or that because the law had good intentions, it should have been followed.
If you want someone to behave the way you like in the long term, you have to change the incentive structure. And that goes 1000x for a business.
I’ve definitely seen labels that say “contains ___”. The tuna packets I like to get all say “Contains Tuna” on them, along with any other ingredients they definitely contain.
It’s a bit obvious, but I like the consistency. It tells me that tuna (fish) is the only one of the main allergens that is in the food. If there is no “contains” line, then I have to read through all the ingredients. (Though, to be fair, I do often read through them all anyways just in case.)
Funny - just a couple of days ago I had a discussion w/ my wife - who teaches business law - about the ridiculousness of the statement “serving suggestion” on labels such as that. From her perspective, it is entirely reasonable in light of warranty law.
(No - you DO NOT want any part of the witty repartee that passes for conversation in our home!)
You gotta know, you as in all of us, that anything manufactured as in Pillsbury, Duncan Hines, thousands upon thousands of products are in factories where peanut or a peanut product has been. All of them.
Now millions are allergic to peanuts. Some coinkydink.
Make it a general federal crime to attempt to circumvent the intent of a regulation. Put significant career-ending penalties on doing so. Make it apply to the senior leadership as well as the operational leadership of businesses. And most importantly, cause the federal prosecution service to consider finding and stopping this stuff to be a major priority for them. Fund the investigative arms of each regulation-writing agency such that they have the manpower to locate most violations.
As you say. Change the incentives and the behavior will change. Leave the current incentives and the behavior will remain as it is: focused on circumvention, not compliance with the intent.
Fine, you can keep your pointless label requirements aimed at buffoons. I doubt very many people were keeling over dead 50 years ago before we had these warnings. And yes, my favorite examples are the idiotic TV commercials for prescription medicine that state you should not take a particular drug if you are allergic to it. You know that someone who was allergic and didn’t realize that it might be a problem got very sick, or perhaps died, and was fortunate enough to have a family who could afford to sue the pharmaceutical company and make a lot of money from it. The fact that we have to remind people that consuming something you are allergic to might not be a good idea demonstrates the complete dumbing down of America. Nobody is now smart enough to realize that peanut butter contains peanuts, and that a can of tuna contains tuna. Our lives are filled with pointless warnings that few people pay attention to. It’s a complete waste of time IMO.
Because nobody is regulating the regulators who keep coming up with meaningless warnings, and it’s not going to get better until we start taking responsibility for our own lives and not depend on the Government to “protect us” from ourselves.