Enlisting the Media to Take On Nabisco

I'd love to see the US news media take on Nabisco. However, peanuts are a major cash crop in the US. We may be up against major money, and money talks. What we need is a major celebrity or talk show persona to help us out.
Amy

YES! This is exactly what I was thinking, Amy (both Amys, LOL)! I contacted Chris about this idea, but I got the impression that he *first* wants to verify beyond a doubt that OREOS will NOT be safe for American kids before anyone contacts the media.
And THAT is what Nabisco needs to be asked - not "Will you label correctly?" but "Can our PA children continue to eat OREOS safely? (Because if they cannot, look the heck out)". You know, "Do NOT take away *our* safe OREOS".
Contact Chris PeanutAllergy.Com for more info on contacting media. Of course, anyone can certainly contact the media (national) on his or her own behalf, but to invoke the juggernaut of PeanutAllergy.Com, we kinda hafta go through Chris. [img]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/smile.gif[/img]
Carolyn
[This message has been edited by Cayley's Mom (edited April 27, 2002).]

Quote:Originally posted by Triciasmom:
[b]I'd love to see the US news media take on Nabisco. However, peanuts are a major cash crop in the US. We may be up against major money, and money talks. What we need is a major celebrity or talk show persona to help us out.[/b]Joseph "Peanut Hatah" Johnson might be able to help. He was a famous basketball player in the 1980s, but he was benched after eating a speck of peanut dust. It's a long story, but basically a minute piece of peanut dust managed to make its way to the court. It moved to the ball when Johnson was dribbling, and was then absorbed into his open pores. He's been on a crusade for proper labeling ever since.
PL22

o

So you just can't buy products that don't contain peanuts?
Nabisco has to stop making them alltogether?
Because I rather enjoy peanuts. It hurts to see you folks could be that myopically selfish. I guess your interests are more important than all others.

Token,if this was simply a matter of buying "products that don't contain peanuts," we probably wouldn't need this website. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Most manufacturers, including Nabisco, use shared equipment to make their products. This practice often results in "cross contamination," e.g. trace amounts of an allergen, such as peanuts, are unintentionally added to the product. Many manufacturers do not label to reflect the presence of these allergens and, as a result, each year thousands of people with food allergies wind up buying and eating products that make them sick. I certainly don't expect Nabisco to stop making peanut Oreos. If the company is using the same equipment to make other products, however, their labels should reflect that these other products may contain peanuts. That way, as you suggest, those of us with peanut allergies can just not buy them.
While you certainly have a right to your opinions regarding the topics on these discussion boards, the next time you feel the need to post a message, I would encourage you to first do some research and to think about what your life would be like if your child had a life threatening condition. Your recent posts indicate that you have a lot to learn, not only about food allergies, but about tolerance and compassion for others.
[This message has been edited by Colleen's Mom (edited June 27, 2002).]

So if I understand this correctly, then, you're not asking them to use different equipment for everything (which would be hideously expensive for them, and unreasonable to cater to such a small market) but just that they post a "Hey, we might not have washed the vat all the way. There might be some nutty goo left on the blades."
Correct? Because that seems reasonable. I'd vote for that. I think maybe my initial negative reaction may have been from stumbling on some of the more radical anti-nut folks first.

That's right, Token. We aren't asking for companies to stop using peanuts or build new plants to make peanut-free goods. But we would appreciate a heads-up on the label so that we know that the product may be cross-contaminated. With the oreos campaign, we weren't (or at least I wasn't) aiming to keep the company from making pb oreos. We wanted to know if plain oreos would still be safe or if there was going to be a lot of line-sharing.
Amy

That's all good and well. No joking, it really is.
But let me tell you how I would handle it if I were Nabisco or any other large (ie, non-specialty) food product company. I would label every product I made as "may contain peanuts" or equivalent. Why? Because I (Nutster), as a member of PeanutAllergy.com, know just how incredibly sensitive some children with PA are. And knowing that, and knowing how dangerous even the most miniscule exposure to peanuts could be to such a child, I would never take the chance- the chance that some miniscule trace of peanuts would find its way into my process. With all of the employees, equipment, ingredients from so many different vendors, etc. there's really no way I could ever guarantee that some whiff of peanuts hasn't gotten into my product.
In fact, if I made any kind of consumer product I think I would label similarly. If I was an automobile manufacturer I would put a sticker on every car "May contain peanuts." You never know what the assembly line workers ate for lunch that day, or the people who test drive the car before you, or whatever else. The liability, should a tragedy occur, is just too great.
Now, with smaller, specialty food manufacturers I think it's a different story. They can supervise their process, vendors, etc. more closely because the operations are smaller and they can focus on being, for instance, peanut-free. Nabisco may specify "peanut free" when they buy cocoa powder, but they necessarily have to buy said cocoa powder from large vendors with massive cocoa powder operations, who have the same problems... The specialty producer can deal with a specialty peanut-free cocoa powder provider.

Nutster -
Wish that were true with food manufacturing. My son's physician (Dr. Wood at Johns Hopkins, peanut allergic himself) advised us to stick with the larger manufacturers due to allergen testing, etc.
Cathy