Standardized symbols for marking food allergies / warnings?
I was reading a blog posting about someone who visited Google's cafeteria and noticed the picture of a sign labeled 'Menu Labeling Symbols'.
As I occassionaly participate in pot lucks and similar, and end up bringing index cards or post-it notes & a sharpie so that I can mark whatever it is that people bring, I've often thought about need some standards for marking things.
There are some things that have been around for years, such as a capcicum (chilie pepper) to mark spicy, or a the various markings for Kosher food (in which most of the letters only are claims by the manufacturer/packager, unless there's also a certification group mark as well).
But are there standard symbols out there for 'contains dairy' or 'doesn't contain dairy' or any of the other items on this list?
I'm thinking that the assertion of 'this is safe' for a given group is generally more useful for potlucks and such than more controlled food sources (catered events, cafeterias), as you always have those unknown items where you can't make an assertion if it's safe or not. (or it's put out without getting labeled).
So, the question is -- is anyone aware of any symbol standards for this sort of labeling, other than spelling it out (I'd like to avoid the "may contain nuts" and "processed in a facility that processes nuts" ... it's either safe, or it isn't) or the Kosher markings which may not be sufficient for allergies and intollerances?
update : okay, the question's a bit rambling ... take a look at this picture, and it'll hopefully make sense.
Best Answer
The only true specifications for allergies that I know of are medical ICD-9 diagnosis codes used for medical bracelets and billing at hospitals. However, these codes are not easy to understand, and therefore many people who have food sensitivities or allergies may not actually be aware of them. I would use a listing of common allergens and "-free" after them. (Ex: "gluten free"/GF, "dairy-free"/DF, "peanut-free"/PF, "nut free"/NF, "egg free"/EF, etc). As someone with severe food allergies, I would be able to comprehend this or any obvious images or icons. As long as you make it explicitly clear, you should be okay.
You can find the ICD-9 & 10 codes here:
Pictures about "Standardized symbols for marking food allergies / warnings?"
How do you label allergens in food?
The name of the food source of a major food allergen must appear: In parentheses following the name of the ingredient. Immediately after or next to the list of ingredients in a \u201ccontains\u201d statement. Example: \u201cContains wheat, milk, and soy.\u201dHow do you mark allergens?
Allergenic ingredients must be emphasised in some way every time they appear in the ingredients list. For example, you can list them in bold, contrasting colours or by underlining them....An example of how to list allergens on your productWhat are the 14 allergens listed?
The 14 allergens are: celery, cereals containing gluten (such as barley and oats), crustaceans (such as prawns, crabs and lobsters), eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs (such as mussels and oysters), mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites (if the sulphur dioxide and sulphites are at a ...How do you write an allergy disclaimer?
Allergens: Attention customers with food allergies. Please be aware that our food may contain or come into contact with common allergens, such as dairy, eggs, wheat, soybeans, tree nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish or wheat.Are food allergies more common now? 6 Minute English
More answers regarding standardized symbols for marking food allergies / warnings?
Answer 2
Here are some more Allergy signs: http://www.compliancesigns.com/allergy-warning-signs.shtml. The site encourages 'restaurants and hotel, office, factory, school or church kitchens and cafeterias' to use their signs (in exchange for a certain amount depending on the size of the sign).
The signs include warnings aimed at kitchen personnel warning of latex and peanut allergies, and other food related warnings for customers. Many signs are text-only which means they would be less suitable for establishments that are likely to serve non-english speakers.
Most of the food-allergy signs are of the form "our food may contain..." which isn't exactly what the OP asked for, but there are two (text-only) signs which state unequivocally that they do not contain gluten and another which might possibly be used to indicate that peanuts are not used.
Use this drug forum to discuss more about allergies.
Answer 3
There's a proposal to get allergens into Unicode as emoji.
Unfortunately, this might only work for digital usage, as you could then compare code-points, as in the printed version, different fonts might render the symbols dramatically differently. Even if there were standard forms for the new code-points, the proposal recycles a few existing characters (cow, octopus, chicken, apple, orange, etc.), so it's more likely that there would already be significant variation.
(and this would only cover allergies and intolerances due to ingredients, not restrictions based on processing (eg, Halal, raw vegan, fruitarian))
Answer 4
This doesn't directly answer the question, but I thought I'd provide what we did for our situation:
- Sent a message to all of the people, asking them if they had any food restrictions.
- Made up a bunch of cards with icons for the various food restrictions we were concerned with listed on them, with a space for writing the name of the dish.
- Assigned someone to watch the pot-luck table, and quiz people on what they brought so it could be labeled. (crossing out 'vegetarian' if it had meat, etc.)
As all of the label cards listed all of the restrictions, people could work off of either the pictures or the position on the card. (I'd share our card, but the person who made it got images off the internet, and I don't know if we might have copyright issues)
Some problems with the approach:
- As space started getting tight, we had to re-arrange the table. It was tricky making sure that the label stayed with the appropriate dish. (rather than a 'tent' style fold, might be better to have it the fold at the bottom + tape the label to the bottom of the dish?)
- We tried screening for Kosher and Halal but started running into problems as there are different degrees of Kosher. (We either crossed it out, or put a question mark when it fit the general criteria but wasn't made in a blessed kitchen)
Emailing everyone in advance to let them know that we had made plans for dealing with vegan / gluten free / soy free / dairy free / kosher / halal / etc. meant that we had participation from lots of people who normally wouldn't have even bothered coming to our departmental picnic. (and many of them were grateful enough that they also volunteered to help out).
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Nataliya Vaitkevich, Nataliya Vaitkevich, Nataliya Vaitkevich, Mat Brown