[ Please pardon the musings below. Many of you have
already explored this in depth. ]
> Wouldn't it be nice if all packaged goods had the "U"
> or parve indications on the package.
It would be nice if all included this. If you live in a
predominantly Jewish neighborhood, more foods do.
This has been mentioned before, but the Pareve symbol,
while a good indicator, is not absolute. Nor is the D
symbol. That's because it's from a religious tradition,
not a medical one.
Ultimately comes down to how hair-trigger you are. For
most people, the presence of a Pareve indicator is just
fine. In the remote chance that the ritual cleaning of
the equipment leaves minute particles in the next few
batches, even those batches might be safe.
And, if something is labeled dairy, but none of the
ingredients is dairy-derived, then the risk can be low
(but higher than with something labeled pareve).
But if you're one of the unlucky ones, and even the
smallest amount of contamination can set you off, then
even pareve comes with a small but non-zero risk.
Still, it's almost the best indicator we have. Truly the
best is when a manufacturer truly doesn't use dairy
equipment to produce dairy-free foods and labels their
products as such.
What we really all need is a coherent labeling scheme
that talks to us, the dairy-allergic/intolerant, and not
us the ritual keepers of kashrut. A small oversight in
cleaning might put a religious person's soul in a little
peril, but it could put an allergic person's life in
jeopardy.
On the other hand, once you bring labeling and corporate
liability into play, there may well be some completely
safe foods that are labeled "dairy", just to take the
manufacturer out of the liability pool. "Don't sue us,
we labeled it dairy." To this day, we're not sure
whether the many foods now labeled "may contain nuts"
are a real risk, since the label is the only thing that
appears to have changed in a product that we've safely
consumed for years.
It's never simple.
Mark
> Thank you all for the great information. I actually called Famous Amos
> cookies and asked if the chocolate chip cookie was dairy free. They told me
> it was dairy free and then after hanging up I noticed the "U" with the "D"
> on the package, so I guess the product support staff were wrong. Wouldn't
> it be nice if all packaged goods had the "U" or parve indications on the
> package.
>
> Thanks again for your help.
> Lori
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