Dairy/Dairy Alternatives

Hi All,

Do you think that food that has these statements on the label is safe for us: "produced on shared equipment with milk/eggs” or “manufactured in a facility that also processes milk/eggs?"

Not sure if I should exclude these or if thery are OK if milk and eggs are not among the ingredients.

Looking forward to our views.

I would consider what sort of product are you trying to eat?
A wet product I would avoid but a dry I might look at but I buy very very little already processed this is not something I have to consider.

Hello

I think that you'll find many manufacturers who merely package food without really changing it are starting to adopt such warnings to avoid being sued if someone has a reaction to a few atoms of milk powder or whatever might be in the room at the time that they 'process' or package raw ingredients. Cocoa powder is one such example - fine for us in small amounts occasionally - but that has a warning about milk - I checked with Cadburys and they confirmed that it's because they use shared facilities, not because cocoa powder includes milk. Someone obviously completed a risk assessment form and created a mitigation for an unlikely problem!

Unless you have been diagnosed as allergic to an ingredient and told to avoid it at all times in case of, say, anaphylactic shock, then I would concentrate on the ingredients listed rather than what they might share a conveyor belt with. You soon get used to what you see on the label and what's OK for our OMS diet or not.

Take care, Sue

Veg and Sue, thanks for your replies. This is very helpful. Although I try not to buy processed food and cook a lot, there is just no way around it sometimes. Reading labels sure brings surprises and milk and eggs just seem to be everywhere. I guess I won't stress about the shared equipment since I haven't noticed any adverse effects.

Thanks again.

I have a son with anaphylaxis, the 'may contain' is merely as a precaution to cover companies if someone has an allergic reaction. It is hard to find processed food that doesn't contain traces of something. We are actually lucky in Australia that food labelling includes these warnings as it makes choosing foods a little easier.