If only you could rely on common sense! But companies have been allowed to run roughshod for so long and sell things that are deceptively labeled for so long that the law finally had to step in with bureaucracy. You can't apply common sense when companies are allowed to label things as X when they aren't X.
Does something labeled "butter" contain milk? Does something labeled "milk" contain milk? This thread shows the answers to these questions are not straightforward and cannot be determined with common sense.
We -have- to have strict labeling rules around allergens and destroy products that don't comply because if we didn't, it would just be the wild west like it is with products that are not allergens.
For example of why it's not always so easy - Vanilla ice cream is being sold in the UK with 0 vanilla, 0 milk and 0 cream. No minimum milkfat requirements - they can use any fat they want.
Products are confusing, we shouldn't expect people to know how today's industrial food process works.
> We -have- to have strict labeling rules around allergens and destroy products that don't comply
No, this is absurd. We don’t have to destroy products that can otherwise be put to good use. The minuscule number of people who are simultaneously deathly allergic to milk and unaware that cream is milk would be just as well served by a recall that said to destroy the product if you have a milk allergy.
This is a black eye on the FDA, and at a time we can least afford the agency to have one. They should have worked out another solution with Costco.
When, specifically and exactly, should it be “common sense” and when should it have to be labeled? What, specifically, makes your new “label it sometimes but only when you personally think it needs a label” process less “bureaucratic”?
I don’t get this nonsense where a bunch of people can neither empathize nor understand that people other than themselves exist and should be able to rely on relatively simple packaging, and that the instant you create inane and bizarre carve-outs, you create risk for absolutely no benefit whatsoever.
I would agree with you more if it was not a product where Milk was the only ingredient.
This kind of bureaucratic action lacks common sense and protects no one. That's the kind of bureaucracy we don't need.