Sesame Scheme: Unintended Consequences of Allergen Food Labeling
choicesmagazine.org
choicesmagazine.org
Shortly after the hospital incident and after much time spent scrutinizing every ingredient label the law changed. We were excited about this at first. It became much easier to identify things we couldn't have in the house.
The unfortunate side effects of the law were most visible in the bread aisle, where nearly every item now contains sesame. This included all of the store brands and most of the brand-name products. Initially, we were limited to only one brand of bread (shout out to Kings Hawaiian). We also found a few artisan / local boutique options we could trust, but that's a pretty expensive way to make a PB&J.
Our situation has improved a bit. Recently a second, slightly less expensive, name brand sandwich bread went sesame-free. We're still stuck with oddly expensive artisanal hotdog buns. Why are the fancy ones all top cut instead of side cut? It's just weird that way.
Anyway, I expect that eventually more brands will go sesame-free as recipes change and factories go through whatever update process where it makes sense to separate allergens.
We're still happy about the regulation change and how easy it is now to identify dangerous items. Seeing global brands add sesame to a product to avoid whatever cost necessary to change their process was...not endearing. Hopefully their share price went up a few cents I guess.
How very dare you. They're the superior cut and it's appalling side cut even exists. To answer your question though it's because that cut originates from New England and is used for "higher end" foods like lobster rolls. So they're perceived as fancier.
But they're just objectively better. Side cut buns are uneven which makes sense for a sandwich where you a thicker top bun but is utterly ridiculous for a top facing slice. Can you imagine a taco where one half of the tortilla was like three times as thick? Like look at this https://imgur.com/tF9uBp7 — absurd. That little flappy thing just falls apart. Also the flat part of the roll is at the bottom so when you top cut your hot dog can stand upright on the plate and not fall over. Typically the sides of top cut rolls are also flat which makes grilling/toasting the roll much easier. You get a delicious crispy buttery on the outside fluffy on the inside roll.
Just grab a bun from the bag, drop in a dog, hand it off to someone to dress it however they want at the line of condiments.
There's practically zero chance I'm buying non-precut hotdog buns when there's a cut variety already on the shelf.
Clearly we need a special cooking tool that is like a toaster heating element that can be buttered and inserted into a top-cut bun to get the best of both worlds.
You make a good argument. I see the functional point of a top cut. Helps prevent condiment excursions. Less likely to break in half. BUT, it's just so much bread. And the hotdog does want to pop out.
I'm unaware of any baseball park or hotdog stand where top-cut buns are sold. This is clearly an established best practice. Hotdog consumers have made an aesthetic choice here.
Then again, in Australia, the standard container for a "sausage sizzle" (grilled sausage) is a slice of plain white bread.
Baseball Park: Fenway[1]
Hotdog Stand: Not uncommon in Rhode Island (and probably other parts of New England). I've seen Saugys[2] sold from food trucks in side-cut buns but it's the exception rather than the rule.
Yeah. Because it would suck if your hand-picked lobster fell out of your bun onto the ground (It also allows you to pour melted butter over the top, something you can't do on a sidecut bun).
If you like hot dogs I would hope you feel the same way about your hot dog.
The side cut gives you easy gripping surfaces. The undisturbed tops and bottoms of hot dog buns are easy to grip. The sides are inherently less structurally sound because they're "inside" portions and spongy, and when you grip them you're likely to grip the bun very well but apply pressure to the hot dog itself from direct points at your fingers rather than the bun distributing the pressure evenly through the structure.
Gripping a top-cut hot dog bun is like squeezing a baseball half in a mitt - The ball just pops right out the front, and so does the dog. It launches straight upwards and then falls where it may.
Oh, I think I get it: the “top” refers to the rising side of the bread and not the narrow end. Because the end is the “top” when I’m putting it in my mouth.
Signed,
A guy who doesn’t bake bread
FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40797790 - July 2024 (580 comments)
I have to wonder if they really started adding sesame, or just began accurate labeling?
https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/fare-responds-companie...
Edit: I mean, it's also in the linked article! Just keep reading!
Second, we document that, following the enactment of the federal law,
some food manufacturers engaged in risk mitigation by adding small
amounts of sesame to products that previously did not contain the
ingredient. Doing so allowed firms to use the safe harbor provided by
the allergen labeling rule rather than the ambiguous and non-protective
“may contain” precautionary labeling. This was most observed in the breads
and buns category, products for which the prevention of cross-contamination
may have been more challenging and the likelihood of a recall or litigation
higher.Definitely feels like overreach to me, and slapping the overreaching hand is not a bad thing. That overreach is not valid reason for shuttering the overreaching agency though.