anybody else hate the new style of allergy labelling?

[trixymalixy]

Where they put the ingredients in bold? It seems much easier to miss an ingredient they are allergic to than when the allergens were listed separately. I hate it!

I agree. I like the 'allergins' and then the list. I also think it is too easy to miss something when it is merely bolded.

I'm just being tested for coeliac so it's just become relevant and so only just noticed it. I thought it was a good idea. I pay attention to things anyway.

the problem with old style was that you really needed to read both food list and allergen box as mistakes in the labels happened every so often.

one list with highlighted in bold seems sensible to me.

I can see that it is sensible, and helps to eliminate mistakes. So generally I'm in favour.

However, I do miss how easy it was to dismiss stuff that says "contains milk, egg, nuts, sesame etc." in a separate allergy box, and put it back on the shelf without having to trawl through the whole ingredients list.

I always read the whole ingredients list anyway, partly because I'm paranoid about mistakes and partly because DS is allergic to some foods that are not required to be listed in the allergy information (e.g. peas, beans, lentils, kiwi and bananas).

Now I have to read ALL ingredients lists, not just some of them.

I agree. It was nice to be able to glance at the allergens box and put the product down if it wasn't suitable. Now you have to trawl through the whole list. I always checked the full list anyway given that e.g. After eights don't have milk in their allergen box, but list butterfat as an ingredient .

Totally agree.

the after eights label will now change to 'milk' in bold, and not just say buttermilk.

I suppose the After Eights mistake is a good example of why it's a bad idea to encourage people to rely on the allergen box alone.

However, the manufacturers may well forget to put the buttermilk in bold...

I do worry about people who don't read very well, or who have English as a second language - I think it will be much more difficult for them to wade through all the e numbers and emulsifiers etc. looking for traces of the foods they and their children are allergic to.

What about things like whey and casein, will it say whey (from milk) for example or will whey just be bolded?

bold (milk) from what I understand.

I managed to completely miss almonds in bold on a tub of ice cream the other day. I have no idea how as I checked in the shop and then at home. I got caught out as under the ingredients it said May Contain Nuts, which I took to mean didn't have nuts in the ingredients, it actually meant that it may contain nuts other than almonds.
I've also found a couple of things recently where the ingredients are either written very small or in a colour difficult to see, which makes it really difficult.

I think that it's soon going to be a legal requirement to put allergens in bold, where as allergy boxes were optional. So they really shouldn't forget to put allergens in bold.

I agree that it was often easier to look at the allergen list if there was one but the problem was there was no legal requirement to have one so some did and some didn't. To be honest, I never really trusted them though so always read the ingredients anyway. At least with the new legislation we know that we ALWAYS have to read the ingredients list now, now shortcuts! Plus all of the EU listed allergens must always be in bold or a different colour so it should be clearer...hopefully!