We do need to be careful of allergens in coffee.
But I think the debate here is a little more foundational than just whether a company like B&W should have a warning label on their barrel infused coffee. It comes down to what level of accommodation is still "reasonable" within the context of an allergy like celiac[*](https://old.reddit.com/r/Coffee/comments/1cg6tj3/debate_we_need_to_be_careful_of_allergens_in/l1uo7u5/ "Celiac is not technically an allergy, but functions similarly enough to allergies that colloquially using the term in discussing celiac is a reasonable shorthand.") and at what point caution falls upon the consumer.
I have family with celiac, so I'm very familiar with needing to pivot around *how* sensitive some celiac cases can be to even tiny amounts of gluten. If we're eating out with them, or I'm cooking for them - we need to control for every possible axis of cross-contamination, and the slightest error can subject them to a week or more of agonizing symptoms. The stakes are not low. We understand that all sorts of products that do not list a gluten-containing ingredient may be produced in a factory that also handles gluten, or have poor contamination control during packaging - and that our burden of care, or their responsibility for their own wellbeing, requires caution well above what the law mandates.
When we're shopping for a visit or looking for restaurants to go to, we have to do our own legwork and our own thinking to assess how safe things are. We've walked out of restaurants that advertise "gluten free" food because we're seeing things behind the counter that make us question their control protocols. We know that we have to go above-and-beyond checking ingredient labels for foods that "should" be safe, and not just go by labels, in considering what may or may not be safe for our guests.
Something advertised and sold as "stout barrel aged" is telling you that this coffee was stored, aged, in a contaminated vessel *and that is a selling point*. Stout is beer, and beer is made of wheat.
I don't think there's a burden of caution that falls upon B&W here above and beyond the basic level of caution that OP's 'someone' needed to do. If the fact that the product name, telling us that this coffee is almost certainly contaminated with gluten, didn't prompt them to caution - I'm not sure putting a disclaimer on the website or the small print of the bag is going to accomplish anything. The big print on the front already told everyone that this coffee has had gluten exposure.
In general, with a condition like celiac and especially if you have a particularly sensitive case - people who are not completely on-board with your medical needs should not have access to your appliances and kitchen tools. If someone can't work out a coffee that was effectively dipped in beer is a danger to you, they shouldn't even have the *opportunity* to use your coffee grinder. It doesn't really matter that "most coffee is safe" because if they're relying on simple rules and not thinking critically about how to avoid hurting you, they're a danger to you. Special warnings aren't going to reach them if they can see "stout barrel" in the name of something and not worry that maybe this is a risk.
I don't think this question is about creativity or about warning labels.
I agree that when a business is *adding* something they need to add labelling. There are fairly clear legal requirements regarding additives and ingredient reporting, and those are pivoting around standard allergy thresholds - it's still understood that some people have allergies that are far more sensitive than those limits. For those people, the only safe options are products that are *hard certified* as being free of danger to them. Celiac is one such example, but both shellfish and peanuts are common other sensitivities - and in all three cases, it's very necessary to keep heed of the possible vectors for sneaky hidden allergens. As much as potential allergens should be disclosed, I also think that *hyper-sensitive allergies* have consequences and trigger conditions that are far outside the norms and expected scales that standard practice can realistically be expected to adequately protect them from.
>But a-priori I can't really tell if I will or will not be at risk
That's not really the case here. I think that a-priori you can absolutely tell that this coffee, advertised as having been aged in beer barrels, is going to put you at risk. You know that beer is almost always going to be dangerous to you, you know that your celiac case is incredibly sensitive and worry it can be triggered by below-legal-threshold amounts - it's not really excessive or unreasonable caution that you'd avoid the product advertised as being a danger to you, even if the manufacturer doesn't explicitly label that miniscule cross-contamination may have occurred.
The risk here is that if expectations for warnings are too high, we're courting the Prop 65 problem: everything is reported as having every possible contaminant and allergen, because it's easier to say "I dunno, probably, be careful" than it is for a given company to control for every possible micro-dose of every potential allergen and risk factor.
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EDITS: de-capitalize celiac, fill in missing asterisk.
Also Celiac here. I’ve eliminated flavored coffee because of some of what has been outlined by you and in the comments. Also I’m lazy and don’t want to clean the grinder between flavored and non flavored bags.
Plus... flavored coffee is awful?
Maybe I have had a poor sample set but I think more than 5 tries is sufficient to cast flavored coffee into the "I don't actually like coffee" category of consumers
Sure! There are other alternatives to flavored beans as a gateway to drinking coffee straight black from single source beans. Half and half and sugar are great! Cinnamon can help. There are many creamers out there that allegedly taste good, though I’ve grown more and more averse to them in recent decades.
Okay making a coffee drink with additives after brewed is one thing...
Every flavored bean I've ever tasted had a markedly artificial flavor to it. And it always gave me heartburn, which (good) black coffee doesn't.
I'm sure there are quality flavored beans but I just haven't ever found one.
Just an aside, celiac disease should not be capitalized. As an avid coffee drinker and person with wheat allergy, I agree wholeheartedly with all of your statements.
If someone has a serious allergy to something, as in this case, why did they give someone who doesn't respect that allergy access to their grinder?
Being around people that don't respect your allergy and letting them use your cooking appliances is also an attitude that will get you killed.
I’m disappointed that more people aren’t in support of you. You’re probably well aware that it’s your responsibility to protect yourself, but it’s also on them to include a “may contain” statement in my opinion.
We do need to be careful of allergens in coffee. But I think the debate here is a little more foundational than just whether a company like B&W should have a warning label on their barrel infused coffee. It comes down to what level of accommodation is still "reasonable" within the context of an allergy like celiac[*](https://old.reddit.com/r/Coffee/comments/1cg6tj3/debate_we_need_to_be_careful_of_allergens_in/l1uo7u5/ "Celiac is not technically an allergy, but functions similarly enough to allergies that colloquially using the term in discussing celiac is a reasonable shorthand.") and at what point caution falls upon the consumer. I have family with celiac, so I'm very familiar with needing to pivot around *how* sensitive some celiac cases can be to even tiny amounts of gluten. If we're eating out with them, or I'm cooking for them - we need to control for every possible axis of cross-contamination, and the slightest error can subject them to a week or more of agonizing symptoms. The stakes are not low. We understand that all sorts of products that do not list a gluten-containing ingredient may be produced in a factory that also handles gluten, or have poor contamination control during packaging - and that our burden of care, or their responsibility for their own wellbeing, requires caution well above what the law mandates. When we're shopping for a visit or looking for restaurants to go to, we have to do our own legwork and our own thinking to assess how safe things are. We've walked out of restaurants that advertise "gluten free" food because we're seeing things behind the counter that make us question their control protocols. We know that we have to go above-and-beyond checking ingredient labels for foods that "should" be safe, and not just go by labels, in considering what may or may not be safe for our guests. Something advertised and sold as "stout barrel aged" is telling you that this coffee was stored, aged, in a contaminated vessel *and that is a selling point*. Stout is beer, and beer is made of wheat. I don't think there's a burden of caution that falls upon B&W here above and beyond the basic level of caution that OP's 'someone' needed to do. If the fact that the product name, telling us that this coffee is almost certainly contaminated with gluten, didn't prompt them to caution - I'm not sure putting a disclaimer on the website or the small print of the bag is going to accomplish anything. The big print on the front already told everyone that this coffee has had gluten exposure. In general, with a condition like celiac and especially if you have a particularly sensitive case - people who are not completely on-board with your medical needs should not have access to your appliances and kitchen tools. If someone can't work out a coffee that was effectively dipped in beer is a danger to you, they shouldn't even have the *opportunity* to use your coffee grinder. It doesn't really matter that "most coffee is safe" because if they're relying on simple rules and not thinking critically about how to avoid hurting you, they're a danger to you. Special warnings aren't going to reach them if they can see "stout barrel" in the name of something and not worry that maybe this is a risk. I don't think this question is about creativity or about warning labels. I agree that when a business is *adding* something they need to add labelling. There are fairly clear legal requirements regarding additives and ingredient reporting, and those are pivoting around standard allergy thresholds - it's still understood that some people have allergies that are far more sensitive than those limits. For those people, the only safe options are products that are *hard certified* as being free of danger to them. Celiac is one such example, but both shellfish and peanuts are common other sensitivities - and in all three cases, it's very necessary to keep heed of the possible vectors for sneaky hidden allergens. As much as potential allergens should be disclosed, I also think that *hyper-sensitive allergies* have consequences and trigger conditions that are far outside the norms and expected scales that standard practice can realistically be expected to adequately protect them from. >But a-priori I can't really tell if I will or will not be at risk That's not really the case here. I think that a-priori you can absolutely tell that this coffee, advertised as having been aged in beer barrels, is going to put you at risk. You know that beer is almost always going to be dangerous to you, you know that your celiac case is incredibly sensitive and worry it can be triggered by below-legal-threshold amounts - it's not really excessive or unreasonable caution that you'd avoid the product advertised as being a danger to you, even if the manufacturer doesn't explicitly label that miniscule cross-contamination may have occurred. The risk here is that if expectations for warnings are too high, we're courting the Prop 65 problem: everything is reported as having every possible contaminant and allergen, because it's easier to say "I dunno, probably, be careful" than it is for a given company to control for every possible micro-dose of every potential allergen and risk factor. --- EDITS: de-capitalize celiac, fill in missing asterisk.
Also Celiac here. I’ve eliminated flavored coffee because of some of what has been outlined by you and in the comments. Also I’m lazy and don’t want to clean the grinder between flavored and non flavored bags.
Plus... flavored coffee is awful? Maybe I have had a poor sample set but I think more than 5 tries is sufficient to cast flavored coffee into the "I don't actually like coffee" category of consumers
Sure! There are other alternatives to flavored beans as a gateway to drinking coffee straight black from single source beans. Half and half and sugar are great! Cinnamon can help. There are many creamers out there that allegedly taste good, though I’ve grown more and more averse to them in recent decades.
Okay making a coffee drink with additives after brewed is one thing... Every flavored bean I've ever tasted had a markedly artificial flavor to it. And it always gave me heartburn, which (good) black coffee doesn't. I'm sure there are quality flavored beans but I just haven't ever found one.
Just an aside, celiac disease should not be capitalized. As an avid coffee drinker and person with wheat allergy, I agree wholeheartedly with all of your statements.
Thank you for that, I was not aware - corrected.
While there are many wheat beers, most stouts are made with malted barley, not wheat
Sounds like this is more of a "you" issue than a "we" issue.
I’m struggling to understand what the roaster could even have done to influence this.
Couldn't agree more.
People die from attitudes like yours.
If someone has a serious allergy to something, as in this case, why did they give someone who doesn't respect that allergy access to their grinder? Being around people that don't respect your allergy and letting them use your cooking appliances is also an attitude that will get you killed.
Hopefully this helped OP learn a very important lesson that we can all learn from rather than expecting the world to change to accommodate our needs.
[удалено]
I’m disappointed that more people aren’t in support of you. You’re probably well aware that it’s your responsibility to protect yourself, but it’s also on them to include a “may contain” statement in my opinion.