This is probably the last I post about warnings, uh, hopefully. Because the allergies thing pissed me off in the way that it is neither true to my (lifelong) experience of allergies, nor is it true to my opinions about warnings and triggers. So, here's the comment by liviapenn:

I'm a person with food sensitivities. If I go to a potluck and everything isn't labeled with ingredient lists, what can I do? Ideally everyone would have labeled their food. But they didn't. Is it fair that the burden is on me to avoid eating things that might be perfectly fine, just because I *can't be sure?* No, it isn't. But the burden is still on me. That's just the way it *is.* And that being the case, if someone pointed out to me, "You know, here's a helpful way you could figure out what to eat-- why don't you track down the person who brought it, and ask them what they put in it? Or have a friend taste it first?" That person isn't even commenting on whether the food should or shouldn't have labels. She's pointing out that realistically, in the situation that we're in right now, there *are things* I can do to prevent myself from breaking out in hives. (liviapenn in zvi’s journal)

Man, whatever. I am also a person with food allergies. In fact, I have had several near-death experiences due to unlabeled or falsely labeled food. If I to go to a potluck then the situation is usually this: either the people participating know about my allergies and avoid that particular ingredient/label their food accordingly, or the people participating will ask the other participants whether anyone has food allergies. It doesn’t mean I don’t still have to ask if I suspect that something contains the things I'm allergic to, but it does mean that I don’t have to ask about every single thing.

There are several allergies that are very common, and that are explicitly warned for on most store bought foods (at least in the UK there are separate warnings about things like peanuts, milk, egg, etc.). If I don’t see a list of ingredients and don’t expect the product to contain the thing I’m allergic to, I will eat it, because I can’t go around being scared of getting an allergic reaction every time I eat something. Similarly, if I had to ask the cook every time I had a meal, I’d probably never eat anything that hadn’t been prepared by myself or someone who knows about my allergies. I’d be hugely limited in my choice of food, and I’d often go without. As a kid I often experienced that, because many people didn’t realize that you couldn’t cook things in butter when someone is allergic to milk, and restaurants didn’t have substitutes available. It sucked. I don’t want fandom to suck, and I don’t want anyone sitting at the table eating raisins instead of cake, just because there’s no list of ingredients. So I think fandom needs to be informed about triggers and the importance of warnings. Writing about noncon and not warning about it is like putting peanuts in a cake and not mentioning that it contains peanuts. It will most likely hurt someone. And I do think we all have a responsibility to not knowingly hurt each other. Be the change you wanna see, and all that jazz.