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COMMENTS HAVE BEEN DISABLED

Because of spam, I personally moderate all comments left on my blog. However, because of health issues, I will not be able to do so in the future.

If you have a personal question about LI or any related topic you can send me an email at stevecarper@cs.com. I will try to respond.

Otherwise, this blog is now a legacy site, meaning that I am not updating it any longer. The basic information about LI is still sound. However, product information and weblinks may be out of date.

In addition, my old website, Planet Lactose, has been taken down because of the age of the information. Unfortunately, that means links to the site on this blog will no longer work.

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Sunday, January 11, 2009

The World Has Gone Mad

I try. I try and try and try to educate people. But do you listen? No. Nobody listens. Some days I just want to cry.

What am I talking about?

This.

It is called Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and is the country's best known milk chocolate.

But the bar’s makers have still felt it necessary to warn customers that it contains milk.

The latest wrapper features a logo showing a glass and a half of milk being poured into a chocolate chunk and puts milk first in a list of ingredients.

It also explains that there is 'the equivalent of three quarters of a pint of milk in every half pound of milk chocolate'.

But Cadbury is also printing warnings in capital letters in yellow boxes saying 'Contains:Milk' to alert those who are allergic to milk.

It is printing warnings on bars of Dairy Milk Whole Nut, saying: 'Contains: Nuts, milk.

Wrappers on chunks of Dairy Milk Whole Nut found in boxes of Cadbury Heroes repeat the warning 'Contains: Nuts' four times.

A company spokesman said: 'We are meeting legal requirements. We want people
to know that allergens are listed clearly.'

Moira Austin, of the Anaphylaxis Campaign, a support group for allergy sufferers, said she could understand why people would think that the 'world had gone mad'.

You don't have to tell me how careful some people need to be about protein allergies. But this goes well beyond careful. This overkill needs to be done because too many people are stupid. They need protection from themselves. How many warnings are sufficient to warn people that milk chocolate contains milk and that nuts contain nuts? Isn't four three more than is necessary?

We as consumers have the right to know what is in our foods. Companies need to properly include and label all ingredients. Companies that mistakenly include allergens in food need to recall them at once. Companies that deliberately defraud the public about the contents of their foods should be put out of business.

What's next, though? Will people get RFID chips inserted in their lips that will ping if an offending food gets too close? Will the government have to require that to save them from themselves? It's coming to that. I guarantee it.

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