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America has decided that able-bodied consumers should subsidize people with disabilities; companies are generally expected to make their products accessible even if there's not enough market demand for that to be profitable.

Food allergies are a disability. Some people with food allergies cannot consume sesame.

If you're a baker selling bread where sesame is not an ingredient, slapping "this product may contain sesame on your entire product line" or deliberately introducing sesame seeds into your recipe means a large part of the grocery store is inaccessible to people with a sesame seed allergy.

I don't think that's equitable. Imagine if every company that didn't want to cater to people in wheelchairs only rented office space in historical buildings that couldn't have wheelchair ramps installed.

2 comments

What world do you foresee?

A world where sesame is banned from food industry?

If no (which I assume), then what is the proposal?

“No contaminants” does not seem realistic even in a cleanroom.

> “No contaminants” does not seem realistic even in a cleanroom.

If the contaminants don't enter the room or touch the equipment, it's quite realistic. It's weird how many people buy into the silly "why are we forcing industry to do this impossible thing?" train of thought even though the thing is clearly not impossible (and it's been shown to be a self-serving lie on the part of some industry players).

We're talking about sesame, not The Andromeda Strain.

So each factory is purpose built to its ingredients OR you pray you don't get thrown in jail because a crumb of sesame was missed in the deep clean and some dysgenic child had an asthma attack?

What's weird is you pretending your model of the world is tied to reality when all it is tied to is ideology. Make bullying legal again.

> So each factory is purpose built to its ingredients

I'd reject the idea that it's impossible to prevent bits of stuff from moving from one part of a factory to another, such that the only solution is to build a whole new factory.

> you pray you don't get thrown in jail because a crumb of sesame was missed

Does it seem to you like America overzealously applies criminal law in the interest of food safety? Do you have any examples of that you'd like to share? Something else seems more accurate: when a problem is discovered and it's widespread enough to represent a danger, companies - usually voluntarily - issue a recall with a description of the risk.

> What's weird is you pretending your model of the world is tied to reality when all it is tied to is ideology.

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

Right now, a world where the food industry doesn't deliberately put sesame in food so they can dodge compliance with this legislation. Especially without notice to consumers.

To use the wheelchair ramp analogy, we don't allow businesses to decide to rip out existing wheelchair ramp installations because they're too costly to maintain.

Perhaps we need more prominent labelling on packaging or in stores when a company adds an allergen to a product that did not previously contain it. This would reduce the potential for surprises. Or right now, to address this problem that many people aren't aware of, much more prominent labelling of sesame to sunset in a few years.

Other methods I've heard proposed by industry is establishing a threshold for sesame to be listed as an ingredient.

https://www.fooddive.com/news/sesame-allergen-american-baker...

Most people with a sesame allergy won't have a negative reaction to traces of sesame. Drawing a distinction between a product that has traces of sesame and one that has sesame as an ingredient would allow for easier compliance.

Great point. We should remove all the ramps too, to ensure we remain ideologically pure while having cheap, possibly allergenic bread.