Dennis Andrews wrote:
>Has anyone seen the Kraft Cheese packages that are labeled 0 grams
of lactose per serving? Is this 0 due to rounding error or is this
a new product?

They're not a new product and I don't think it's an error. I think it's quite
deliberate.

Government regulations allows manufacturers to round to the nearest half
gram. A serving of these Kraft cheeses is one ounce or 28 grams. Therefore
they can have up to 0.5 grams of lactose legally. Say they have 0.4 gram.
That's 1.4% lactose.

Now for all I know these cheeses really do have 0% lactose. Most hard cheeses
are quite low in lactose through natural aging. And 0.4 gram of lactose is a
ridiculously tiny amount that won't affect any but the most extremely
sensitive. But I don't know this, and I can't know this from the current
labeling requirements.

My guess is, however, that if they had no lactose they would say so. The
bottom line is that we need lactose labeling on foods. Anything else is mere
guesswork.

Steve Carper
Steve Carper's Lactose Intolerance Clearinghouse
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stevecarper