It always seemed like silly marketing until your kid gets Alfa-gal or you start cooking for people with allergies. The amount of stuff that has additives made from mammals, wheat, shellfish, egg, etc is really surprising. Processed in a factory/machine that also produces nuts, etc can be enough to kill some people. If they can and will say X free instead of saying everything “may contain X” that is a wonderful thing.
Yes of course, all of these responses are great points and I fully agree. I was being cynical and making commentary about how those labels started showing up when gluten free started being a trend, when people were treating it more like a fad diet with “cheat days” rather than a serious medical situation. But it is wild how uninformative food labels are. I’ve been vegetarian for 23 years and I’m well aware of how often animal products turn up somewhere unexpected.
![Protein Everything [OC]](https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/ecd7997b-2eb0-417e-9363-9f54f202c96d.png){kind=link}
It always seemed like silly marketing until your kid gets Alfa-gal or you start cooking for people with allergies. The amount of stuff that has additives made from mammals, wheat, shellfish, egg, etc is really surprising. Processed in a factory/machine that also produces nuts, etc can be enough to kill some people. If they can and will say X free instead of saying everything “may contain X” that is a wonderful thing.
Yes of course, all of these responses are great points and I fully agree. I was being cynical and making commentary about how those labels started showing up when gluten free started being a trend, when people were treating it more like a fad diet with “cheat days” rather than a serious medical situation. But it is wild how uninformative food labels are. I’ve been vegetarian for 23 years and I’m well aware of how often animal products turn up somewhere unexpected.