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I am Vegan but also highly allergic to milk and wondered if anyone is familiar, or has come across any knowledge about which foods and food groups are typically processed in a factory which also handles dairy, other than the obvious like milk, cheese and products labelled with dairy.

So for example, a lot of different chips/crisps have been exposed to dairy as have dark chocolates even though these products don't always have dairy in their recipes.

I am essentially, trying to eliminate dairy from my diet but sometimes products inadvertently are contaminated with diary by the lines they are produced on etc.

TheLearner
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    I'm not sure if larger or smaller companies would be more likely to be contaminated -- larger factories would multiple processing lines going at once (possibly leading to cross-contamination), but smaller factories would be more likely to run a batch, then convert the line to run another batch. (and as someone who has milk issues, I definitely sympathize) – Joe Mar 09 '17 at 12:53
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    Many companies now label their packages with information listing other products that are processed in their facilities so that persons with allergies or dietary restrictions will be aware. – Cindy Mar 09 '17 at 14:09
  • You may be interested in http://vegetarianism.stackexchange.com/q/560/70 -- it's more about veganism than allergies, but still useful related reading. – Erica Mar 10 '17 at 14:43
  • I'm vegan and also can't consume cow's milk. When gathering for games or the like, a friend of mine uses the Kosher labels to be sure that at least one of the snacks he gets is 100% dairy free. Kosher Parve or Universal items have never had contact with dairy (or meat). – user61524 Jan 02 '18 at 23:28

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Practices will differ with country (or community in some cases) of origin. A country where few dairy products are commonly consumed or produced, or where a significant amount of the population is not dairy tolerant (parts of asia) or where religious codex exists about dairy use (eg jewish communities) is likely to have different practices from scandinavian countries that lead the world in per-capita dairy consumption.

Equally, the country where the product is marketed/consumed is important, especially when it comes to what has to be declared on the label, with which tolerance levels, by whom. Also try to take advantage of multi-language, multi-market label text - sometimes important hints are found only in foreign language versions of ingredient lists or allergy advice (ever noticed that they sometimes differ - where it is unlikely that two different products are described)....

rackandboneman
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