--- title: Food Allergies: Can I Trust Allergy Warnings On Food Labels? description: "May contain” statements are voluntary under FDA regulations. Here's what to know about food allergies and food labels canonical: https://time.com/3957590/labels-food-allergies-warnings/ author: Markham Heid article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-15T13:55:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T08:36:05.200Z article:section: Health og:title: You Asked: Can I Trust Allergy Warnings On Food Labels? og:description: "May contain” statements are voluntary under FDA regulations. Here's what to know about food allergies and food labels og:url: https://time.com/3957590/labels-food-allergies-warnings/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfdc8c88667be814e/69885ae7a988ca2d8b6b3735/may-contain-peanuts-illo-peter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2100 og:image:height: 1181 og:image:alt: may-contain-peanuts-illo-peter og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: You Asked: Can I Trust Allergy Warnings On Food Labels? twitter:description: "May contain” statements are voluntary under FDA regulations. Here's what to know about food allergies and food labels twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfdc8c88667be814e/69885ae7a988ca2d8b6b3735/may-contain-peanuts-illo-peter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # You Asked: Can I Trust Allergy Warnings On Food Labels? > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Markham Heid](https://time.com/author/markham-heid/) ## Markham Heid Markham Heid is a contributor at TIME. He is the author of The Habit Trap, due out in early 2027. Jul 15, 2015 1:55 PM UTC  Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME by [Markham Heid](https://time.com/author/markham-heid/) ## Markham Heid Markham Heid is a contributor at TIME. He is the author of The Habit Trap, due out in early 2027. Jul 15, 2015 1:55 PM UTC When you’re trying to shop for a child with a severe peanut allergy, wishy-washy language is the last thing you want to see on a food label. So when you read warnings that begin “May contain traces of…” or “Manufactured on equipment also used for…” you may be left scratching your head. Believe it or not, all of those “may contain” statements are voluntary under current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. While not required, food manufacturers sometimes choose to include them if there’s a chance an allergen snuck its way into your food. “A manufacturer might use the same equipment to make different products,” explains Megan McSeveney, a press officer with the FDA. Even after cleaning this equipment, a small amount of an allergen may inadvertently end up in the next product the machine processes. In this situation, a manufacturer might include a “may contain” advisory statement, McSeveney says. The FDA is working on new rules that would tighten regulations on this kind of cross-contamination. But for now, if you or a loved one has a severe allergy, your only safe bet is to read “may contain” as “likely contains” when it comes to label warnings, [the FDA says](http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm433555.htm). That raises some important questions. For one, if “may contain” statements are voluntary, doesn’t that mean a lot of potentially contaminated food products don’t include any warnings at all? And couldn’t haphazard food manufacturers just slap on a “may contain” statement to make up for their shoddy practices? “Companies cannot use voluntary advisory labeling in lieu of good manufacturing practices,” McSeveney says. She says the FDA can seize products with inaccurate allergen information or take other actions to ensure compliance. But, in most cases, “firms generally recall such food products from the marketplace voluntarily when they become aware of a problem,” she says. Basically, no one is trying to hoodwink consumers—or expose someone with an allergy to a potentially harmful ingredient. If a food product is made with any one of the eight major food allergens—milk, egg, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts and soybeans—then its label has to identify that allergen either in its ingredients list or in a “contains” statement right next to the ingredients list, McSeveney explains. Also, she says this identification has to feature the allergen’s “food source name”. That means if a product contains something like casein, which is a type of milk protein, the label has to include the word “milk” somewhere in the ingredients list or accompanying “contains” statement. When it comes to potential allergens outside of that list of eight—gluten, for example—the FDA does not require a manufacturer to include a warning. You still may see statements like “gluten-free” on food labels. But McSeveney says that, much like “may contain” statements, any “free” from statements are voluntary. Though optional, they’re still subject to [the FDAs general misbranding requirements](http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm337628.htm). So rest assured, food manufacturers can’t simply lie to you without repercussions. Though there’s certainly room for improvement in the current labeling system, up until 2006, the FDA didn’t mandate _any_ allergy warnings. So historically speaking, the world today is a lot less uncertain for food allergy sufferers. It might be an unsatisfying answer, but the bottom line is that life comes with an implicit “may contain” warning. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3957590/labels-food-allergies-warnings/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3957590/labels-food-allergies-warnings/"},"headline":"You Asked: Can I Trust Allergy Warnings On Food Labels?","datePublished":"2015-07-15T13:55:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T08:36:05.200Z","description":"You can, but deciphering some of those label statements can be tricky.","url":"https://time.com/3957590/labels-food-allergies-warnings/","keywords":["Diet & Nutrition","FDA"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfdc8c88667be814e/69885ae7a988ca2d8b6b3735/may-contain-peanuts-illo-peter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Markham Heid","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/markham-heid/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfdc8c88667be814e/69885ae7a988ca2d8b6b3735/may-contain-peanuts-illo-peter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"may-contain-peanuts-illo-peter","caption":"","creditText":"Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/dietnutrition/","name":"Diet & Nutrition"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3957590/labels-food-allergies-warnings/","name":"You Asked: Can I Trust Allergy Warnings On Food Labels?"}}]}] ```