calling all label-reading pros

sounds like a great exercise!

Most "misread" labels in my experience:

Ritz Bitz cheese crackers

Safeway brand hamburger buns (forgot exactly what these are called, but its their generic brand and contain peanut oil)

jelly beans with peanut flour (Brachs?)

plain M & M's

You might try to find two 'look-alikes' one of which has an allergen on the label and the other of which does not.

Keebler labels for shared lines, so advisory labels on individual products can come and go based on production schedules. Grasshopper cookies, in particular-- some lots have warnings, and some don't.

Bush's baked beans used to have a variety with peanut oil.

Nilla wafers contain egg-- the Keebler product equivent does NOT.

I'll keep thinking and see if I can't come up with a few more.

Shampoos, conditioners, and lotions/cremes are good places to find wheat, soy and milk ingredients, too.

Play-doughs are often wheat-based.

Can part of your education include that FALCPA covers only the labels for products under the auspices of the FDA? There are still too many people that live under the assumption that meat products disclose the top allergens. Some companies label their meat products voluntarily but not consistently.

Lactic Acid Starter Culture is often found in pepperoni - sometimes it's derived from milk sometimes it's not.

Benadryl Fastmelts is a product I didn't expect to find two of the top allergens. Soy is clearly labeled but it also contains Lactitol monohydrate for which I called and verified is a milk derivative.

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Jana

[url="http://www.seattlefoodallergy.org"]www.seattlefoodallergy.org[/url]

Thank you for all your good suggestions. Someone suggested Play-doh which I think is a great idea, but I'm looking at my son's play-doh and it doesn't have any ingredients label. Have they changed their labeling recently? I would really like to include it if I can find one that has a label.

Laifong

I know that few things like that [i]are[/i] labeled. My point exactly. Might be a real eye-opener to have people 'find' the four items which contain WHEAT, for example.... (including the un-labeled Play-Do). A good lesson that not everything is labeled like FDA regulated foods are.

Some crayons (Prang, I think???) are soya based, as well-- again, unlabeled.

The information [i]is[/i] available on the company websites... [i]most[/i] of the time, that is.

I think it might be a good idea to have your regular lable-reading box of products, and then a few wild cards like cosmetics or art products in a second box, and ask people to try to identify/guess which allergens belong with which product. Point being that this is much harder than it looks to the uninitiated, but that those who live with a particular allergy can do it pretty readily once they have some experience to draw from.

I recently bought baby toothpaste that comes with the finger tip toothbrush. I can't remember the brand, I think the packaging was blue. Anyways, it contained eggs!