Why are sesame seeds in so many foods?

In 2022, the FDA added sesame seeds to its major allergens list. This required food manufacturers and restaurants to disclose if products contain or have come in contact with the seeds. Turns out, sesame seeds are small and expensive to guarantee seeds will not cross contaminate other foods. So instead, companies simply added sesame seeds to their foods and included it on their list of ingredients. #food #history #historyfacts #foodie #foodies

[idontcare]

"I am joining the war on sesame seeds on the side of sesame seeds"
-some companies most likely

[かなたあ]

Honestly, this is the first time I asked for my self, "Seriously WHAT could go wrong?"😂

[ImperatorSupreme]

This was mostly a problem for fast food restaurants. The supply chain for them involves large industrial bakeries that make their buns in batches. The same equipment that makes regular buns also makes sesame seed buns. Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP, the FDA’s regulations for food production facilities) require that before switching to a process that is supposed to be allergen free, the entire room, all surfaces, absolutely everything must be thoroughly cleaned to remove all trace of the allergens.

I work in a GMP facility, when one of our production lines needs to switch from allergen to allergen free, the cleaning process takes an entire production crew about 6 hours. That’s with equipment designed with this sort of switching in mind.

The bakeries probably didn’t have their equipment set up with allergen level cleaning in mind, which would likely mean cleaning requiring multiple shifts to complete. At some point they will likely have a round of reinvestment and retool to equipment that will allow them to do allergen cleaning more efficiently (or have a separate allergen free line)… but until then, the cheapest form of compliance was intentional addition.

[agentdopkant]

That explains why i started seeing a sign at burger King that says "all our buns contain sesame seeds"

[AtarahDerek]

Sounds like the real problem here is the bureaucracy not being content with warning labels that a product _might_ contain sesame.

[Kardiown]

Reminds me of a waste disposal company in Germany. They could not throw certain chemicals into their furnace due to the Dangerous Goods included. But treating a bunch of chemicals is very expensive so instead they mixed them with sawdust until the % of Dangerous Goods was under a certain threshold and could be thrown into the Furnace, generating energy and getting paid by the government for doing so.

[commandertaco]

WAIT, THIS IS WHY MY FUCKING CANDY CORN HAS SESAME IN IT NOW!?!?!?! BRO WHAT THE FUCK

[sowrabham]

The companies just collectively went " f*ck them allergic people"😂

[elektro]

Why the hell do they NOT allow "may contain" or "may come into contact with" labels??? That's the real fuckup here.

[charlesrichards]

Reminds me of when the EPA was going to punish a wastewater treatment facility in Alaska for failing to remove the required percentage of organic contaminants because the water was too clean. They ended up having to buy fish guts to dump into the water so there was enough contamination to remove. 🙄

Some people were asking for the source since it's not showing up when searching. I tried searching for it myself and can't find it! It's a bookmarked link on my computer which I tried posting, but no joy. It's a newspaper article titled "Rules Fouling Alaskan Waters" by Paul Harvey, Aug. 3rd, 1991. This article is in the Kentucky New Era, copyright 1991 Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

[wiifitt]

I am actually allergic to sesame seeds, the amount of products that changed to having sesame seeds over night was insane. Products that I safely consumed for years suddenly were marked as containing sesame seeds, where as I could easily get away with something marked as "may contain", or "produced in a facility with." It's nice to be recognized and safer, but this made my options much worse. Even now, my wife is baking her own buns since the party I'm going to said their buns have sesame in them.

[rkwatchauralnautsjediparty]

Yeah, as a father of 5, 3 of which have multiple anaphylactic food allergies, it’s very difficult to find food that is ok. We’d rather have a _might contain_ label than no options at all.

[captaincriticize]

Adding an allergen to a lost of allergens actually seems perfectly reasonable. Like not one of those "oh that's ridiculous, you shouldn't do that."

[girla]

They really didn't think this through. If the baker only has a choice between "definitely no sesame particles per tonne" (very expensive to guarantee) vs "definitely some sesame in every batch" (costs a cent), they'll pick the latter. The market for bakeries producing only food without sesame is too small as well, not to mention all the other allergens. Plus it doesn't serve allergic people well, because some are only slightly allergic and can tolerate the random seed in their food, but now there's no labelling for "probably has a dozen seeds per tonne", which would be fine for them.

[antonberglund]

In Sweden (and Europe?) you are allowed to label a product "May contain X"

[A_Hat]

As someone who is allergic to sesame this was very frustrating because for a while and still now I can’t eat burgers or anything with bread buns (I.e chicken sandwiches, normal sandwhiches) because most bread companies which didn’t used to be an issue started putting sesame in stuff and food labels were hard to get from chain restaurants.

Edit: I’m referring to them putting sesame flour in bread

[pasztorferenc]

I really like this channel all videos' structure:
-The year ...
-Problem
-Solution
-"Sounds like a great idea, with the best of intentions! What could possibly go wrong?"

[JohnSmith-qywm]

Ironically, getting trace amounts of sesame seeds in everything might actually, over time, reduce sesame allergies. (Assuming you aren't having severe enough reactions to kill you.)

[MissInformer]

Honestly, as someone with allergies (not sesame seeds but some of the other major allergens), there are certain things i just have to do for the sake of my health, like not go somewhere if i cant guarantee the food is safe. I work with food and personally, i just plan to open a bakery that caters to recipes that accomodate rhe allergies I have, and i think more people with allergies should do the same. You cant expect corporations who only see you as potential profit to care about your best interests or catering to non-majority groups. Sorry but every time people try, they weasle around it and create an objectively worse issue in the process. Just BE that place you want to experience. Be that place for others in your shoes. Give people more local options they can trust.

[crackwitz]

What's wrong with listing "sesame seeds, 1 nanogram" to cover the eventuality of "may contain"