Proper food labelling for people with severe allergies

@forumhostpb wrote:

Is there ANYTHING …. anything at all … that your son is not allergic to???

There is no need for sarcasm, my child’s allergies could cost him his life. Any parent who has a child with allergies would back me up on this. Do you have children?

Imagine if one of them had a life threatening allergy that is found in alot of foods, foods that you wouldn’t even think that nuts or milk could be in such as sausages, bread or chips and even in some drinks etc …

How would you feel if they had a serious reaction to a food that would normally be Ok for them to eat, only to find out that some irresponsible manufacturer as labelled the food incorrectly or unclearly. Even foods that I prepare from scratch I have to be careful about because of hidden ingredients, that may be listed as ‘Vegetable fats’ or as ‘vegetable oils’. Even milk has other names it can be listed as such as ‘whey powder’ or ‘whey’.

@bat wrote:

Tilly this sounds like a nightmare for you. What CAN your son eat? I presume things like fruit are ok? I confess I don,t know an awful lot about nut allergies, but I do know that nut allergies seem to be very common these days. I don,t remember anyone having such things when I was a kid, it was obviously rarer than it is now.

He has to eat alot of things like pasta, rice, he can eat bread if it is ‘tesco’s own brand’ and ‘Aldi’s own bread’ – it amazing how the cheaper loaf’s do not contain or may contain ‘traces of nuts’. I buy soya butter so that he can have toast for his breakfast. I also make him cakes using this soya butter and soya milk.

He can eat things like Wetabix, cornflakes, Rice crispies. He can eat Iceland’s own brand of Sausages, Chips, Fish Fingers, Beef Burgers. The only sweets he can eat that I have found to contain no traces of milk or nuts are Skittles, Chewitts, Fruit Pastilles and Wine Gums. I have not found chocolate yet that he can have.

There probably are more foods out there he can have, if maufacturers would consider making foods in a safer more protective atmosphere, where there are no nuts or milk or other allergens ie, Gluten, Wheat etc.. (Luckily my son can have gluten and wheat – just as well because if he couldnt there would be really nothing he could eat.)
Most maufacturers know that there foods do not contain the above ingredients, but they would rather cover there own backs then care about their customers health and well being.

If they made sure there foods were ‘nut free’ and the same with other serious allergens, whether it be milk or Gluten or whatever, then the person with the allergy would have a larger variety of food to choose from.

Chickenman you are right, if you buy a food you expect it to have the ingredients it needs and not the ingredients they want to add, or what they add to the ingredient lists just so people do not sue them.