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There is a lot of thought and care involved when you are dealing with a food allergy.
For example, if you're going to be dining out or going to a family gathering, it's very
important to realize that there may be nuts, or peanuts or tree nuts or whatever you're
allergic to at those places. The safest thing to do is to make sure that you have a snack
or something that you are able to eat. It's difficult because friends and family may really
explain to you that what they've prepared is safe for you. But to be on the safe side,
you may want to have your own food. I have an example of a woman that I know that has
a severe peanut allergy. When she went to her friend's party, her friend absolutely
guaranteed that these chocolate chip cookies that she had made were going to be fine for
her. They didn't contain any peanuts whatsoever. The woman with the allergy had a cookie and
it almost immediately had an anaphylactic reaction where her throat swelled and she
had to be taken to the hospital immediately. It was later discovered that the woman who
had made the cookies, right before she had made the chocolate chip cookies, had made
peanut butter cookies in the same bowl. So just that transference of he peanut butter
cookie to the chocolate chip cookie batter later on, but was enough to cause a reaction
to this peanut allergic woman. This is called cross contamination. That's when a food that
you're allergic to actually gets into a food that you think is safe. This happens all the
time and it's extremely important to be careful that there is no cross contamination. A lot
of manufacturers nowadays, have food labels on them that explain what is in their ingredients
of the product and, at the bottom of the ingredients, it lists what, if any, food allergies are
contained in that product, such as wheat, soy, egg, tree nut or peanut.