There has been a predictable outcry in the allergy world this week’s in response to Rachel Johnson’s piece in Thursday’s Evening Standard on ‘dietary requirements’ and food fads. Being charitable, I am assuming that she has never suffered from or lived with someone with a food allergy. However, I do have some sympathy with her basic contention that we have become too food faddy. Not because I object to people having personal food preferences – that is their issue – but because it horribly muddies the waters, especially in the food service/catering world, for those with genuine allergies.
Allergy is a complicated subject and it is already hard enough to train food service operatives in its basic rules – that eating even a tiny amount of an ingredient to which a customer is allergic could kill them. So knowing what is in the food that you are serving and ensuring that it is not contaminated by allergens are absolutely crucial. But when they have to deal day in, day out, with ‘preferences’ (which all too often go by the board when a particularly delicious looking bread or dessert is offered) it is hard to keep those rules in mind.
However, the requirement for a server to ask about allergies before they take orders is a significant step in the right direction – and it is no more intrusive than asking if you are warm enough or if the table suits you. Not only does it remind the server that they need to be allergy aware, but it gives a perfectly ‘normal’ opening for someone who genuinely does have an allergy but who might be shy (especially if they are quite young) about bringing it up, to tell the server about their needs.
Whose responsibility?
Rachel Johnson suggests that the onus should be on the person with the allergy to ‘deal’ with their allergy – but this is a two way stream. We go to considerable lengths to accommodate those with disabilities of other kinds (bubbled pavements, kneeling buses, hearing loops etc etc) so why would we not do the same for those with life threatening allergies? More importantly, if someone with a food allergy is to make a responsible choice about what they can safely eat, they need to be given the comprehensive and accurate information that will enable them to do so.
The tragic deaths of Natasha Ednan LaPerouse and Owen Carey would never have occurred if accurate information had been provided about the food they were about to eat. In Natasha’s case if the ingredients of the sandwich she chose had been listed on the packet (thanks to the recent Natasha’s law hopefully this will not happen again); in Owen’s case, had the buttermilk coating of the chicken burger he ordered been listed on the menu, or if the server had known about it when Owen asked if the burger was milk free as he was allergic to milk, he would still be alive. If the Food Standards Agency manages to push through a legal requirement for all allergen information to be listed on menus that hopefully, that situation will not arise again either.
Try it for six months
I would not normally wish a life threatening food allergy on anyone, but when one reads thoughtless, pot boiler articles like Rachel Johnson’s I am tempted to wish six month’s worth of a life threatening allergy on her. Just so that she could gain some understanding of what it is actually like to live with the knowledge that every meal that you eat, unless you know exactly what is in it and totally trust whoever has prepared it for you, has the potential to kill you. Or, almost worse, to have a child with such an allergy.
No peanuts on flights?
If her child had a peanut allergy she would then also understand why responsible airlines ask passengers not to eat peanuts if there is a peanut allergic person on board. Because inhaling or ingesting peanut dust can cause as serious a reaction as eating a peanut and because on a flight the air is continually circulated so that during the course of the flight that dust could get everywhere in the plane. Being deprived of your favourite snack for even a long haul flight seems a small price to pay for saving someone’s life.
Changing times
And have things changed that much as far as allergies are concerned? Yes, they have. When I was at school way back in the 50s, peanut allergy was unheard of. Now one in every 50 children has a peanut allergy – that is at least six children in even a relatively small school. And we are not talking about a ‘preference’ here – we are talking about a diagnosed life threatening allergy. Food allergy is a serious social problem and must not be either ignored or dissed.
Next time, Rachel Johnson, do your homework before putting finger to key board.
Other allergy news
Precautonary Allergen Labelling
Back in May this year the FAO and the WHO reported on yet another Codex meeting on the subject of PAL (May Contain labelling). See this article in Food Safety Magazine for more. Given how long it takes for anything to actually happen in this field, I shall not apologise for being so tardy in reporting it.
They appear to have finally decided that using risk based reference doses (how much of an allergen woud be needed to trigger a reaction in all but the most sensitive of allergic individuals) to establish levels at which Precautionary Allergen Labelling should be used would be a good idea. Hallelujah!
Such dose levels have been available for 15 years via the Australian VITAL bureau. It is therefore hugely frustrating that allergic people are still having to put up with the current all but useless voluntary PAL system which provides them with very little reliable information as to geniune levels of potential allergen contamination. However, do not hold your breath – they don’t move fast.
Ready2React
The allergy charities and the professional allergy bodies are all concerned that not enough people, whether they have an allergy themselves or merely know someone who has, are able to identify when an allergic reaction is becoming life-threatening – or are able to properly administer a life saving adrenaline pen.
They are also concerned that over 20% of those with severe allergies are unaware that out of date adrenaline pens may be of little use to them when they need them. (There are alert services that you sign up with to warn you when your pen is getting near the end of its useful life.)
You can read their full report here – in which they also give advice as to how an adrenaline pen should be used if someone is having a reaction – and suggest that everyone should know how to do this.
Managing allergies at work
And finally, the Anaphylaxis Campaign has added a useful new section to its website about managing allergies at work. Helpful tips for both employers and employees about both food and environmental allergies.
Bioplastics – a solution or part of the problem?
I keep changing my mind on what the worst bit of that piece is. Currently leader is: “If you have a violent allergy to shellfish … don’t choose it if it’s on the menu. You don’t have to make a federal case about it.” Don’t make a big deal about, say, checking for the possibility of cross-contamination or even mentioning your allergy to waiting staff? It’s life or death. It is a big bloody deal!
Yep!!!!
Just wonder if it was a reaction piece, very little researched content and no care of the damage it could cause specially for her children’s friends who might visit in future who might have allergies 😡. Too flippant so many parts of article wrong on many levels!
I think you are right,Caroline – which was what really annoyed me about it. She is not stupid, nor I suspect is she particularly uncaring – but this was such an unthought-through piece.
I think the article would make me very angry. As you know I have a long term allergy to corn starch and any corn dirivatives. This means any over the counter medication is a no no. For many years Boots specials provided me with Paracetamol powder, but the company was sold. this year and they now make medicinal canabis!. I briefly found another company but they have also discontinued. I am trying to find a new company with very little help from my surgery. The surgery pharmasist suggested I try over the counter tablets and see what happens! It appears that the medical profession are just as ignorant. I did contact Allergy UK who said they have almost daily calls about corn allergy, but can only suggest I discuss it with my doctor. II it were listed as a main allergy ,the pharmaceutical industry would colapse.
Can you imagine the backlash if she wrote a piece about disabled people just staying at home rather than costing businesses money to accommodate them? Can you image if she wrote about any other disability with such contempt and lack of empathy? Thank you so much for sharing Michelle. Rachel holds a place of responsibility with her job as a main stream newspaper journalist and she misuses that power when she implies that anyone with life threatening allergies shouldn’t have the right to be included, or at the very least to ask whether they can be. There are plenty of places out there that are happy to cater for those with allergies, those that can’t just need to open and honest and tell patrons about cross contamination risks. Michelle I’m with you – Rachel can have 6 months with four life threatening food allergies and see how she copes with it. Shame on you Rachel.
I was thinking it is such a shame, she could have used her platform to educate and illuminate. I agree, a reaction piece, so ignorant it’s embarrassing.
I’m sorry to be so rude, but what an arse! That’s all I could think of to say. The end.