This impacted my family directly. A family member has a severe sesame allergy. Honestly we weren't aware people could be allergic to sesame before we found ourselves in the hospital after a severe reaction.
Shortly after the hospital incident and after much time spent scrutinizing every ingredient label the law changed. We were excited about this at first. It became much easier to identify things we couldn't have in the house.
The unfortunate side effects of the law were most visible in the bread aisle, where nearly every item now contains sesame. This included all of the store brands and most of the brand-name products. Initially, we were limited to only one brand of bread (shout out to Kings Hawaiian). We also found a few artisan / local boutique options we could trust, but that's a pretty expensive way to make a PB&J.
Our situation has improved a bit. Recently a second, slightly less expensive, name brand sandwich bread went sesame-free. We're still stuck with oddly expensive artisanal hotdog buns. Why are the fancy ones all top cut instead of side cut? It's just weird that way.
Anyway, I expect that eventually more brands will go sesame-free as recipes change and factories go through whatever update process where it makes sense to separate allergens.
We're still happy about the regulation change and how easy it is now to identify dangerous items. Seeing global brands add sesame to a product to avoid whatever cost necessary to change their process was...not endearing. Hopefully their share price went up a few cents I guess.
> Why are the fancy ones all top cut instead of side cut? It's just weird that way.
How very dare you. They're the superior cut and it's appalling side cut even exists. To answer your question though it's because that cut originates from New England and is used for "higher end" foods like lobster rolls. So they're perceived as fancier.
But they're just objectively better. Side cut buns are uneven which makes sense for a sandwich where you a thicker top bun but is utterly ridiculous for a top facing slice. Can you imagine a taco where one half of the tortilla was like three times as thick? Like look at this https://imgur.com/tF9uBp7 — absurd. That little flappy thing just falls apart. Also the flat part of the roll is at the bottom so when you top cut your hot dog can stand upright on the plate and not fall over. Typically the sides of top cut rolls are also flat which makes grilling/toasting the roll much easier. You get a delicious crispy buttery on the outside fluffy on the inside roll.
>that cut originates from New England and is used for "higher end" foods like lobster rolls.
Yeah. Because it would suck if your hand-picked lobster fell out of your bun onto the ground (It also allows you to pour melted butter over the top, something you can't do on a sidecut bun).
If you like hot dogs I would hope you feel the same way about your hot dog.
I don't have a fundamental issue with top cut buns, it's just the ones I've had aren't cut deep enough to fit Italian sausage and all the fixings. But if you want better bread that's the price you pay.
I have never had a hot dog fall out of a side cut bun. Every time I've used a top cut bun I've felt like it was going to fall out, and it has on at least one occasion that I can remember - and it's not like I remember the details of eating foodstuffs.
The side cut gives you easy gripping surfaces. The undisturbed tops and bottoms of hot dog buns are easy to grip. The sides are inherently less structurally sound because they're "inside" portions and spongy, and when you grip them you're likely to grip the bun very well but apply pressure to the hot dog itself from direct points at your fingers rather than the bun distributing the pressure evenly through the structure.
Gripping a top-cut hot dog bun is like squeezing a baseball half in a mitt - The ball just pops right out the front, and so does the dog. It launches straight upwards and then falls where it may.
My closest grocery store (an Albertsons in SoCal) completely lacks any top-cut hotdog buns. They have 9 different varieties of side-cut buns (Including 2 varieties of potato rolls; I counted). I'm from Rhode Island, so this situation is rather unacceptable to me.
I did wonder if that one provocative statement would even be noticed :-)
You make a good argument. I see the functional point of a top cut. Helps prevent condiment excursions. Less likely to break in half. BUT, it's just so much bread. And the hotdog does want to pop out.
I'm unaware of any baseball park or hotdog stand where top-cut buns are sold. This is clearly an established best practice. Hotdog consumers have made an aesthetic choice here.
> I'm unaware of any baseball park or hotdog stand where top-cut buns are sold.
Baseball Park: Fenway[1]
Hotdog Stand: Not uncommon in Rhode Island (and probably other parts of New England). I've seen Saugys[2] sold from food trucks in side-cut buns but it's the exception rather than the rule.
I'm with you 90%. However, side-cut buns have one advantage top-cut buns don't: if you're very careful and a little bit lucky, you can open them all the way and toast them face down on a griddle with butter.
Clearly we need a special cooking tool that is like a toaster heating element that can be buttered and inserted into a top-cut bun to get the best of both worlds.
You could say the same thing for sandwich bread, but it's rather obvious to me why both that and hot-dog buns are pre-sliced, so I'm not sure if you're being serious.
Before I moved, my old grocery store actually had a public facing bread slicing machine. You could take those artesianal rosemary and herb loafs and what not that they made and actually slice them fresh. It was actually a Kroger believe it or not. I’ve never seen that machine before or since.
As an immigrant to the U.S., I am glad that the U.S. has better protections for the public than some other countries (although inferior to the EU), AND I think that the current legally fraught situation is insane and untenable, both for companies who must obey an insane thicket of regs and laws (which drives them to constantly decrease "quality" and add sugar), and for the supposedly chronically ill almost everybody.
Just got back from a European vacation. Noticed that each restaurant had an extensive allergen list on the menu. Around 15 individual allergens were called out, and labeled next to each it, with an index typically on the back page of the menu. New to the system, we found that crustaceans were a 3 in Spain and France, but in Italy, they were a 2 in some restaurants and a different number in others. The index was always written in the local language. So, if you lived in one region, and knew you had an allergy to “5” (whatever that might be), when you go to another region, if you blindly just avoid items with a “5”, you could still get unintentionally poisoned. The EU really missed an opportunity to standardize the numbering system, and may have caused more harm than good.
> Strikingly, media reports indicated that some food manufacturers began adding sesame to products that previously did not contain the ingredient following the implementation of the new allergen labeling requirements (Aleccia, 2022; Chatman, 2023; Hughes, et al., 2023).
I have to wonder if they really started adding sesame, or just began accurate labeling?
Second, we document that, following the enactment of the federal law,
some food manufacturers engaged in risk mitigation by adding small
amounts of sesame to products that previously did not contain the
ingredient. Doing so allowed firms to use the safe harbor provided by
the allergen labeling rule rather than the ambiguous and non-protective
“may contain” precautionary labeling. This was most observed in the breads
and buns category, products for which the prevention of cross-contamination
may have been more challenging and the likelihood of a recall or litigation
higher.
I also wondered if they didn't just start labeling as such since they couldn't guarantee that things didn't get contaminated with sesame. "This product is made in a facility where sesame is used"...even if we didn't use sesame in this product being the unwritten part.
That's literally exactly the reason why they did it. They made their food in a factory that also has sesame, and instead of building an entire new factory for only one item (which is expensive and might not even be financially viable in some cases), some companies did exactly that due to the FDA regulation change.
See, that's just stupid on the FDA's part. What did they expect them to do? The FDA's job is not to tell bakeries that they must produce sesame free products. They can only regulate that if there might be sesame in the product, then the product must be labeled as such. If a company wants to make some products with sesame and some without sesame while not being able to guarantee that there is no sesame contamination, then stating that on the label is the best option.
Definitely feels like overreach to me, and slapping the overreaching hand is not a bad thing. That overreach is not valid reason for shuttering the overreaching agency though.
This impacted my family directly. A family member has a severe sesame allergy. Honestly we weren't aware people could be allergic to sesame before we found ourselves in the hospital after a severe reaction.
Shortly after the hospital incident and after much time spent scrutinizing every ingredient label the law changed. We were excited about this at first. It became much easier to identify things we couldn't have in the house.
The unfortunate side effects of the law were most visible in the bread aisle, where nearly every item now contains sesame. This included all of the store brands and most of the brand-name products. Initially, we were limited to only one brand of bread (shout out to Kings Hawaiian). We also found a few artisan / local boutique options we could trust, but that's a pretty expensive way to make a PB&J.
Our situation has improved a bit. Recently a second, slightly less expensive, name brand sandwich bread went sesame-free. We're still stuck with oddly expensive artisanal hotdog buns. Why are the fancy ones all top cut instead of side cut? It's just weird that way.
Anyway, I expect that eventually more brands will go sesame-free as recipes change and factories go through whatever update process where it makes sense to separate allergens.
We're still happy about the regulation change and how easy it is now to identify dangerous items. Seeing global brands add sesame to a product to avoid whatever cost necessary to change their process was...not endearing. Hopefully their share price went up a few cents I guess.
> Why are the fancy ones all top cut instead of side cut? It's just weird that way.
How very dare you. They're the superior cut and it's appalling side cut even exists. To answer your question though it's because that cut originates from New England and is used for "higher end" foods like lobster rolls. So they're perceived as fancier.
But they're just objectively better. Side cut buns are uneven which makes sense for a sandwich where you a thicker top bun but is utterly ridiculous for a top facing slice. Can you imagine a taco where one half of the tortilla was like three times as thick? Like look at this https://imgur.com/tF9uBp7 — absurd. That little flappy thing just falls apart. Also the flat part of the roll is at the bottom so when you top cut your hot dog can stand upright on the plate and not fall over. Typically the sides of top cut rolls are also flat which makes grilling/toasting the roll much easier. You get a delicious crispy buttery on the outside fluffy on the inside roll.
>that cut originates from New England and is used for "higher end" foods like lobster rolls.
Yeah. Because it would suck if your hand-picked lobster fell out of your bun onto the ground (It also allows you to pour melted butter over the top, something you can't do on a sidecut bun).
If you like hot dogs I would hope you feel the same way about your hot dog.
I don't have a fundamental issue with top cut buns, it's just the ones I've had aren't cut deep enough to fit Italian sausage and all the fixings. But if you want better bread that's the price you pay.
I have never had a hot dog fall out of a side cut bun. Every time I've used a top cut bun I've felt like it was going to fall out, and it has on at least one occasion that I can remember - and it's not like I remember the details of eating foodstuffs.
The side cut gives you easy gripping surfaces. The undisturbed tops and bottoms of hot dog buns are easy to grip. The sides are inherently less structurally sound because they're "inside" portions and spongy, and when you grip them you're likely to grip the bun very well but apply pressure to the hot dog itself from direct points at your fingers rather than the bun distributing the pressure evenly through the structure.
Gripping a top-cut hot dog bun is like squeezing a baseball half in a mitt - The ball just pops right out the front, and so does the dog. It launches straight upwards and then falls where it may.
My closest grocery store (an Albertsons in SoCal) completely lacks any top-cut hotdog buns. They have 9 different varieties of side-cut buns (Including 2 varieties of potato rolls; I counted). I'm from Rhode Island, so this situation is rather unacceptable to me.
See ya at Dave’s next year
I did wonder if that one provocative statement would even be noticed :-)
You make a good argument. I see the functional point of a top cut. Helps prevent condiment excursions. Less likely to break in half. BUT, it's just so much bread. And the hotdog does want to pop out.
I'm unaware of any baseball park or hotdog stand where top-cut buns are sold. This is clearly an established best practice. Hotdog consumers have made an aesthetic choice here.
> I'm unaware of any baseball park or hotdog stand where top-cut buns are sold.
Baseball Park: Fenway[1]
Hotdog Stand: Not uncommon in Rhode Island (and probably other parts of New England). I've seen Saugys[2] sold from food trucks in side-cut buns but it's the exception rather than the rule.
1: https://newengland.com/yankee/history/fenway-franks/
2: https://saugys.com/
As a non-American, I was unaware that side-cut hotdog buns even existed.
Then again, in Australia, the standard container for a "sausage sizzle" (grilled sausage) is a slice of plain white bread.
so do you place the sausage along the hypotenuse or parallel with one of the sides? this feels more important than top vs side slices.
I'm with you 90%. However, side-cut buns have one advantage top-cut buns don't: if you're very careful and a little bit lucky, you can open them all the way and toast them face down on a griddle with butter.
Clearly we need a special cooking tool that is like a toaster heating element that can be buttered and inserted into a top-cut bun to get the best of both worlds.
Why are they even cut at all!? Do people not have knives any more?
This one guy wants to throw away the greatest culinary achievement in 100 years, the greatness of which all other accomplishments are judged by.
When I'm just grilling links outside, it's easier to not bother with all the extra prep space to bother slicing all those buns.
Just grab a bun from the bag, drop in a dog, hand it off to someone to dress it however they want at the line of condiments.
There's practically zero chance I'm buying non-precut hotdog buns when there's a cut variety already on the shelf.
You could say the same thing for sandwich bread, but it's rather obvious to me why both that and hot-dog buns are pre-sliced, so I'm not sure if you're being serious.
Cutting bread is tedious. Have you heard of these new fantastic labor-saving devices?!
they're the best thing since sliced bread!
Before I moved, my old grocery store actually had a public facing bread slicing machine. You could take those artesianal rosemary and herb loafs and what not that they made and actually slice them fresh. It was actually a Kroger believe it or not. I’ve never seen that machine before or since.
you should compromise... pigs in the blanket.
Related:
FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40797790 - July 2024 (580 comments)
As an immigrant to the U.S., I am glad that the U.S. has better protections for the public than some other countries (although inferior to the EU), AND I think that the current legally fraught situation is insane and untenable, both for companies who must obey an insane thicket of regs and laws (which drives them to constantly decrease "quality" and add sugar), and for the supposedly chronically ill almost everybody.
Just got back from a European vacation. Noticed that each restaurant had an extensive allergen list on the menu. Around 15 individual allergens were called out, and labeled next to each it, with an index typically on the back page of the menu. New to the system, we found that crustaceans were a 3 in Spain and France, but in Italy, they were a 2 in some restaurants and a different number in others. The index was always written in the local language. So, if you lived in one region, and knew you had an allergy to “5” (whatever that might be), when you go to another region, if you blindly just avoid items with a “5”, you could still get unintentionally poisoned. The EU really missed an opportunity to standardize the numbering system, and may have caused more harm than good.
Who downvoted you so hard and why?
As so often, people who didn't read the article, and whose religious beliefs I must have offended.
> Strikingly, media reports indicated that some food manufacturers began adding sesame to products that previously did not contain the ingredient following the implementation of the new allergen labeling requirements (Aleccia, 2022; Chatman, 2023; Hughes, et al., 2023).
I have to wonder if they really started adding sesame, or just began accurate labeling?
Really started adding. This is the key quote:
Yes, they added sesame.
https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/fare-responds-companie...
Edit: I mean, it's also in the linked article! Just keep reading!
I should have known better than to doubt a random article I read on the Internet, how silly of me, sorry.
I also wondered if they didn't just start labeling as such since they couldn't guarantee that things didn't get contaminated with sesame. "This product is made in a facility where sesame is used"...even if we didn't use sesame in this product being the unwritten part.
That's literally exactly the reason why they did it. They made their food in a factory that also has sesame, and instead of building an entire new factory for only one item (which is expensive and might not even be financially viable in some cases), some companies did exactly that due to the FDA regulation change.
They did that initially, then the FDA started threatening companies that did that, so they responded by actually adding the sesame.
See, that's just stupid on the FDA's part. What did they expect them to do? The FDA's job is not to tell bakeries that they must produce sesame free products. They can only regulate that if there might be sesame in the product, then the product must be labeled as such. If a company wants to make some products with sesame and some without sesame while not being able to guarantee that there is no sesame contamination, then stating that on the label is the best option.
Definitely feels like overreach to me, and slapping the overreaching hand is not a bad thing. That overreach is not valid reason for shuttering the overreaching agency though.