Allergy Prevention is NOT just one click away...

Recently one of my best friends tagged me in a video to watch, about a peanut food detector... called the Nima Peanut Sensor (also available in a Gluten detector). You can watch the video below..

Device can detect if your food has peanuts

This ingenious device can detect if your food has peanuts

Posted by NowThis Future on Monday, January 8, 2018

How many times do I have to state my opinion.. if you cannot take the time to properly know what is in the food you are serving - and make sure your staff do also.. YOU DO NOT DESERVE NOR SHOULD YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO HAVE ANY TYPE OF FOOD SERVING ESTABLISHMENT! If innocent people are trusting to eat at your establishment, they should not have to bring any type of mini chem-lab or device to check your food - YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT IS IN IT AND GIVE THEM THAT INFORMATION!

If your allergy is THAT severe that you don't trust the information given to you and you have to check it yourself - YOU SHOULD NOT BE TAKING THAT RISK! Why would you go through humming & hawing over it and risking "oh well let's order it anyways and I will check it myself"!?
First of all you're going to be charged for it, whether you can eat it or not, you could easily save that money and use it to buy already nut-free food from a store or the ingredients to make it yourself. And again if your allergy is THAT severe than you should NOT be touching it just to put it into a device anyways!?

This is simply teaching people to become lazy. To entrust a little man-made machine with their lives, especially if their food-based allergies are FATAL. If any food service owners/workers don't know the answers to what is in their food (first of all I would leave..) then they shouldn't be working and serving it OR at least give an honest "I don't know, i would greatly advise you not to order it."

But again this technology is probably going to be great for anyone who has minor allergies, such as lactose intolerance - I know many friends that take those pills in order to still be able to tolerate some degree of lactose in their diet. I'm sure that for example, this device would be good to give them some knowledge about how much lactose is in the food, in order to save them from some possible "discomfort" in the future. One of my coworkers mentioned that it may be good technology to use primarily if you are travelling to countries that have significant language barriers to your own. She recently took a vacation to Japan and it was hard to translate between English-Japanese to explain about her allergies. So yes I do think the technology could be very helpful in certain situations.

That being said, my food-based allergies are fatal. My allergies are to not only peanuts BUT ALSO tree nuts as well! I would never risk my life in this way during average daily life in my own country - travelling I may bring it as a very last resort backup... BUT If you don't know.. PLEASE DON'T TRY IT, don't touch it, order it or go near it.

Yup.. Food is still Rotten (part two)

I previously shared: In my opinion..Some food is Rotten a blog post about the newest series on Netflix called ROTTEN. The show discusses food production, imports/export history, falsification, trends and more. Each episode discusses a different food from chicken to honey to garlic...etc. I first heard of the series because ALLERGIC LIVING posted an article about one of the episodes.

Previously I spoke about several facts..
(1) that although allergies (food-based or otherwise) have not been this common as recent years, this condition HAS been around more than most stubborn/ignorant people think - we may not have just always paid attention or had a medical name for it.
(2) that restaurant/food service owners & workers should KNOW what is in the food they are responsible for giving to their customers - and not copping out with shady cross contamination or ignoring FATAL allergy restrictions when customers inquire about ingredients.

Might I say.. just one more time..  If you cannot take the time to care for the people you are responsible for serving, if you cannot take the time to properly know what is in the food you are serving - and make sure your staff do also.. YOU DO NOT DESERVE NOR SHOULD YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO HAVE ANY TYPE OF FOOD SERVING ESTABLISHMENT!

Another point I wanted to talk about in my 'part two' is the concept proposed at the later end of the episode.. (which I think is horrific IF you have FATAL allergies).. oral immunotherapy (OIT). 

"The idea of oral immunotherapy (OIT) – introducing food early to retrain the allergic individual’s immune system – is explained so briefly and uncritically that I fear it leads to less than more understanding. 'Just eat the food' is the message that resonates, but the process is still in clinical trials, comes with side effects and isn’t for everyone." - Gwen Smith, ALLERGIC LIVING journalist/author

Because of the fact that my allergies to ALL NUTS (peanut and tree nut) are FATAL I think this idea is not only horrific but completely idiotic. I personally would never put my own life at risk like that. To eat 0.025 of a cashew or a pine nut every other week and slowly up the amount just to experiment with my life that there might be a 50/50 chance I may be able to eat nuts one day!? There is more of a risk one day you will end up dead.
BUT this is not me saying for people who have more minor allergies that it is not a fair idea and possibility for them. I am only saying for people with FATAL allergies that your life should not be so easily put at risk like that. Gwen Smith in her ALLERGIC LIVING article makes it clear also.. little is explained in the episode about this research & procedure that is it basically like giving fuel to all the people who so ignorantly tell you "oh come on just eat it, you'll eventually be fine."

Although I'm sure they had only neutral intentions with the episode, Gwen also points out "There’s too much of one bad guy and an extremely condensed explanation of where we’re headed with food allergy therapies - the other five episodes take aim at the production of individual foods: honey, chicken, garlic, milk and cod." Not the slander or massive decline due to blaming any type of allergy or ailment. Considering how often I still get turned down when ordering or hoping to purchase food, with seeing (or reading a POSSIBLE MAY CONTAIN LABEL) peanuts/tree nuts in food & restaurants, I personally do not think the decline is as drastic as it seems, then again it was only one farm's perspective in one State.

All in all what I took away from this episode is... (1) Allergies are real - GET OVER IT (2) Allergies are real- BE CONSIDERATE AND DEAL WITH THEM (3) treatment is NOT always a safe option (4) Food service owners/workers NEED to take responsibility and (5) PLEASE REMEMBER THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PEANUTS AND TREE NUTS!

And please comment if you'd like me to discuss my opinion on the other episodes, or any other allergy trend/topics right now.

In MY opinion.. Some food is Rotten?

One of the newest series on Netflix is: ROTTEN a discussion series that focuses on food production, imports/export history, falsification, trends and more. Each episode discusses a different food from chicken to honey to garlic...etc. I first heard of the series because ALLERGIC LIVING posted an article about one of the episodes.
The episode that has recently sparked interest is "The Peanut Problem." It starts off describing (or some would say accusing) the recent plummet in peanut (and tree-nut because YES they are different) sales due to the increasing rise of people with food-based allergies. They also are quick to show some people's opinion that allergies have only began over the past several years.. which in my opinion IS completely WRONG!

First of all, there has always been allergies, there has always been viruses and diseases - the thing people don't think about while they are complaining is that have we ALWAYS known what they were? NO! Have we always known what to call them or how to cure them? NO!

I may not be a scientist but I can assure you things like Chickenpox or the Flu or even minor/major allergic reactions have been around FAR MORE than just the recent years they have increased. Way back in the 1600's or even the 1300's way before modern medical technology I'm sure they had illnesses..etc that people would suffer and die from. But back then they probably didn't label or call them anything other than a plague or the work of God(s). Back then people didn't talk and research about the things that killed them to the extent that we do now. I'm sure even back in our parents day there WERE people who had food (or any other type of trigger) based allergies but they possible assumed the symptoms were a cold, or the flu, or just a 24 hour bug they caught from someone else.. It's true the rise of fatal allergies is quite alarming, and I'm sure over the past several years most allergies were not as fatal.
So yes I do personally believe something is happening in our food or biology that is making allergies more severe. But no I do not believe that they have just magically shown up in the past 40 years to mock and torture anyone in the food & farming industries.

Although the episode does spend a great deal of time talking about some incidental deaths in the UK caused by negligent/ignorant restaurant owners who CLEARLY used peanuts & tree nuts in their food but told customers otherwise, I think people are missing the bigger point of why they mentioned it in the episode in the first place..

“If you don’t know what’s in your food, get out of the business – today,” - Chef Ming Tsai, American restaurateur, television personality, and celebrity chef.

Tsai is completely right! If you cannot take the time to care for the people you are responsible for serving, if you cannot take the time to properly know what is in the food you are serving - and make sure your staff do also.. YOU DO NOT DESERVE NOR SHOULD YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO HAVE ANY TYPE OF FOOD SERVING ESTABLISHMENT! The same way that venues are responsible as the last point of contact for someone drunk when they leave, you are responsible for the food you serve.
This also emphasizes a point I make constantly that people are ignorant or lazy to the fact peanuts ARE in a different family than tree nuts. They think people that are allergic to peanuts are fine to eat tree nuts or vise-versa. So it must be fine to just tell them there are no peanuts in the food, even though there are tree nuts (or again vise-versa.) This is NOT always the case!? Some people are allergic to peanuts, some tree nuts, SOME ARE ALLERGIC TO BOTH! Some people stay away from ALL NUTS because they do not want to risk their life in order to eat a pine nut but not a cashew.

My point being, if you can take the time and commitment to open a restaurant in the first place, you can take the time to protect the people who are trusting you to serve them. It is NOT anyone's fault that they are born or grow into a food-based allergy. It is NOT the family's fault that for once they want to take their children out to dinner to feel like a normal average party of society when all they do is read ingredients lists and hide at home because they feel no one is considerate or cares enough about food allergies. I cannot keep track of how many restaurants or cafe's I have been to and had to leave because the servers or cooks when asked about the oils they cook with, or if they have cross-contamination with ANY nut products say "I don't know."

Tsai points out that it is very easy to make your information known for employees AND customers; all you need is a binder or book with a chart of the most known allergens, list all your food products and simply check of the boxes of what contains what. SIMPLE! Everyone can refer to the book! I can't tell you how many times I have been told "I'm sorry I don't know BUT please hold on while I get the book, if you don't mind looking through it." OF COURSE I don't mind! That shows that even if they don't know my answers they know enough to let me look through the book and make a decision based on my own comfort level. GOOD SERVICE!

There are other points I could talk about from the episode, but I'd rather not turn my blog into an essay (haha) but I will make this a two-part post and cover more of my opinions. In the meantime you can click here to read the ALLERGIC LIVING article. And please comment if you'd like me to discuss my opinion on the other episodes, or any other allergy trend/topics right now.