Frito Lay: Kind of Helpful Milk-Free List (and Kind of not)

Frito Lay on their website has a list of Foods that contain no lactose or milk. Of course this sounds okay until I get to the bottom and read the disclaimer:

*The above products do not contain milk; however, they are produced on the same line as our products that do contain milk. Although the lines are washed between batches, a slight residue may remain on the line. Individuals who are extremely sensitive may be affected.

So what do I do with this information? For me, as far as my child is concerned, I consider these foods to contain milk and I won't be giving them to him. Of course my child's food allergy is pretty severe.
If your child has a mild allergy however, this site might be useful.

Detecting Milk In The Foods You Buy

In the past, it was somewhat more difficult to figure out whether a food contains milk products or not. The Food and Drug Administration now now requires that manufacturers list any of the 8 most common food allergens (milk, egg, soy, wheat, fish, shellfish, peanut, and nut) in their ingredients list, or at the end of their ingredients list because of The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA), which took effect in 2006.
Because of FALCPA, you should be able to read an ingredient list to find out if something contains milk. It will state CONTAINS MILK at the end of an ingredients list, or the word MILK will be written in parentheses after a dairy ingredient. For example, an allergen warning might look like this:

Ingredients: Wheat flour, sugar, oats, eggs, butter (from milk), baking soda.

Or, like this:

Ingredients: Wheat Flour, sugar, oats, eggs, butter, baking soda.
CONTAINS MILK.

Unfortunately, FALCPA does not state how manufacturers should label potentially contaminated products. It is up to the manufacturer to voluntarily print warnings of cross contamination on labels that state "manufactured on equipment shared with milk" or "manufactured in a facility that processes milk products" or "may contain traces of milk". It is up to the consumer (and his or her allergist) to assess whether a product is safe to consume.
In general, if a product claims to be "manufactured on shared equipment" with milk, I assume it has milk in it and don't offer it to my severely milk-allergic child.

Non-Dairy Isn't Dairy-Free

Many so-called “non-dairy” foods aren’t really non-dairy at all - such as “non-dairy” coffee creamer and “non dairy” whipped topping. They contain casein (milk protein). Sodium caseinate means the same thing. Soy cheese sounds dairy free, but most soy cheese is made from casein as well (vegan soy cheese is milk free.)
Food manufacturers really shouldn't be allowed to label foods as non-dairy when they are obviously not. But until the USDA regulates food labels more, we are stuck with "non-dairy" products with milk in them. When reading product labels, never assume that "non-dairy" is dairy-free.