Mike G wrote:Anyway, although I am sympathetic enough to this problem that I or my wife makes a soynut and jelly sandwich every day for one son because of the kid in his class who has a deadly peanut allergy (and am fully prepared, when the kid comes to our house, to stab him with an epi pen if necessary), at the same time, it's all too easy to see where this could go, and it's not good for either the minority with allergies or the majority without them, though as always, somehow the lawyers come out ahead.

Mike, that kind of consciousness about and compassion for your son's friend is commendable. It shows your instincts are all in the right place. Unlike others who might think their son's God-given right to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is more important than some other kid's right to live, you are a good person. And since, in that attitude, you personify much more than anything I am asking for on the part of a restaurant, I'm at a loss to understand why we seem to be on opposite sides of the restaurant issue.

After all, I'm not asking restaurants to take allergens off their menus (the analog of your taking peanut butter off your son's menu for the sake of his friend). I'd simply like that they inform about these allergens, in the way of simple menu descriptions. Not legal disclaimers. Not mandatory waiter spiels. Just simple menu descriptions.

It's not a libertarian issue. It's not an issue of "who's a grownup and who isn't." It's not an encroachment upon our freedoms as Americans. It's just an issue of simple decency and caring about others--qualities of which you are an exemplar in your own life.

riddlemay wrote:I'd simply like that they inform about these allergens, in the way of simple menu descriptions. Not legal disclaimers. Not mandatory waiter spiels. Just simple menu descriptions.

Well, I think my first post upthread made it quite clear that I agree with this policy.

In sum, my position boils down to the fact that I believe the onus is almost 100% on the patron to advise the restaurant of any and all food allergies.

I do think it appropriate, not absolutely necessary but both reasonable and appropriate, to include somewhat detailed descriptions of food items on the menu for those allergic to certain types of foods and for the other reasons stated in my upthread posts.

I think it important the patron with food allergies, especially those of the type that can be deadly like some of my mother's food allergies, come extremely prepared to a restaurant to protect themselves. Prompt the allergy discussion. Disclose all allergies. Be absolutely clear on what you cannot eat. Do not assume ANYTHING when presented with a dish without a description no matter what it looks like or what you think it is. Let your close family and friends know of the deadly food allergies you have. Etc., etc., etc.

Then, once you take that first step, if the place doesn't/won't reasonably work with you to avoid food allergens then F*ck them and go somewhere else. They do not deserve your business. But, as noted above with my mother's success of dealing with her allergies when dining out for over 20 years, this will be a rarity if you disclose your allergies completely and tactfully to the staff.

It is not the restaurant's responsibility to delve into its patrons' health issues. In fact, they technically should not do so - it may violate various privacy laws and regulations. But, if the patron puts the health issues (allergies) on the table - it is fair game from there.

Bster

Bster wrote:

riddlemay wrote:I'd simply like that they inform about these allergens, in the way of simple menu descriptions. Not legal disclaimers. Not mandatory waiter spiels. Just simple menu descriptions.

Well, I think my first post upthread made it quite clear that I agree with this policy.

In sum, my position boils down to the fact that I believe the onus is almost 100% on the patron to advise the restaurant of any and all food allergies.

I do think it appropriate, not absolutely necessary but both reasonable and appropriate, to include somewhat detailed descriptions of food items on the menu for those allergic to certain types of foods and for the other reasons stated in my upthread posts.

Bster, when I read your post upthread, I made a mental note that it was a formulation I could pretty much agree with. And I feel the same about this post. I could totally agree with it by putting a triple-underline under the words "reasonable and appropriate," and boldfacing them, and putting them in italics. This would blur the difference between them and the phrase "absolutely necessary," I realize, but that is where I am--that menu descriptions, when it comes to allergens, are somewhere in between reasonable/appropriate and absolutely necessary. Not in a legal sense, but for the health and welfare of customers for those times a customer takes something for granted that he shouldn't. When the pancakes have walnuts, it takes so little thought and effort to call them walnut pancakes that not calling them walnut pancakes is unreasonable to the point of being either an act of allergy-ignorance (which should be corrected) or an act of masked aggression. But with that typographical emphasis added to your statement (even if you wouldn't go along with it), I'm glad we're basically in agreement; that is, I'm glad we're only a typographical change apart from each other.

Bster wrote:It is not the restaurant's responsibility to delve into its patrons' health issues. In fact, they technically should not do so - it may violate various privacy laws and regulations. But, if the patron puts the health issues (allergies) on the table - it is fair game from there.

Bster

Exactly!!!

riddlemay wrote: When the pancakes have walnuts, it takes so little thought and effort to call them walnut pancakes...

I agree with this completely.

riddlemay wrote:...that not calling them walnut pancakes is unreasonable...

I can't quite get to "unreasonable" but I think this would be kinda shitty not to do and perhaps somewhat insensitive.

riddlemay wrote:...to the point of being either an act of allergy-ignorance...

riddlemay wrote:...(which should be corrected)...

Well, losing me a bit here.

riddlemay wrote:...or an act of masked aggression.

Now you've completely lost me and, though I'm not in your head, I cannot imagine you really believe that chefs are purposefully leaving allergic ingredient descriptions off their menus to go after their patrons with allergic reactions. This is hard to accept. Really hard.

Bster

Mike G wrote:And certain items will simply disappear from menus as insurance company lawyers start telling chefs and owners that shellfish, for instance, will send premiums through the roof.

This is why I believe it's in all of our interests to keep this an informal, non-us vs. them process. A chef who learns about a patron's actual issues will take control of the issue and react creatively to it. A chef who knows that every diner has to be treated as if he's one spoonful from death and a lawsuit throughout the meal will be a cog in the wheel daring nothing and innovating nothing.

I agree with you generally, but although I understand that it's cool and certainly societally-accepted to bash lawyers, let's remember that it's the jury of laypeople that actually issue the $1M verdicts.

I realize I'm probably just reiterating what has already been said in some form, but there has to be a balance struck between a business owner doing whatever the hell he or she wants and there being no obligation on the part of an allergy-sufferer to take responsibility for his or her allergy. When both sides gravitate to the outer ends of the responsibility spectrum ("it's your responsibility," "No, it's your responsibility") then something bad happens because both sides are being passive.

So, why not make it both sides' responsibility? Allergy sufferers have to be proactive, and business owners have to be proactive. Weigh the relative responsibilities. If you're a restaurant, and you're serving something that is commonly-known to be deadly allergic to certain people (like tree nuts), be proactive, and identify the ingredient on the menu. If you're unwilling to identify it because the allergen is deeply embedded in the dish, or you're just plain unwilling because you-don't-have-to, then you're raising the risk that something bad will happen and when it does, the insurance company is going to cite to it as Exhibit A when premium-review time comes around. So, if you're a restaurant owner, rather than throw up your arms and complain about the state of the world -- be proactive! Look at the foods that are commonly known to be deadly allergic like tree nuts. Don't stop serving tree nuts altogether (yet) (although that would be one way to eliminate liability altogether, but that's not a world I want to live in), but take a few small steps to move toward the middle of the spectrum. List the item on the menu. Train your servers to take food allergies seriously. Train your chefs to communicate with the servers before service that certain dishes have hidden allergens (as opposed to passively waiting for customers to ask). If certain dishes have tree nuts that aren't visually identifiable in the dish or not listed in the menu description, train your servers to tell people that, say, the bean dip includes hiddlen ground brazil nuts, or the dish includes a nage made from shellfish. That's just a good business practice. A lot of restaurants already do that. But there's a world of difference between the business owner that sees the distinction between what he or she should do (because it's just a good business practice) and what he or she thinks they shouldn't have to do. The latter business position is just plain combative, and passive, and results in "something bad happening" which gets the insurance companies nervous.

Does this mean that both sides need to go into overdrive? No. I don't think allergy sufferers should have to be obnoxious in order to get a safe meal because the restaurants treat them as pariahs who are potential lawsuits and I don't think the restaurant should feel like it's necessary to ferret out every potential allergy in advance of dinner. (That's the us v. them mentality that MikeG was referring to.) Dinner shouldn't feel like a visit to the doctor. On the other hand, the allergy sufferers need to be proactive, but I think most of them know that.

What I'm saying is, with a few proactive steps by both sides, there's no need for restaurants to stop churning their creative wheels and there's no need for allergy sufferers to stay at home. And - with both sides doing both - the relative risks of "something bad happening" will be reduced, and the insurance companies and the lawyers won't have a reason to get involved, effectively stalling their joint eternal quest to take this country to hell in a handbasket.

Aschie, I agree with every word of your post.

Bster, you said I lost you when I wrote that a restaurant's refusal to identify known allergens could be an act of masked aggression. I think aschie sums up well what I meant by that term when he writes:

If [you as the restaurant owner are] unwilling to identify [a commonly-known allergic agent] because the allergen is deeply embedded in the dish, or you're just plain unwilling because you-don't-have-to, then you're raising the risk that something bad will happen...

(Italics mine.)

The "just plain unwilling because you-don't-have-to" would embody a nasty attitude that fits the definition of masked aggression. In fact, in your own words, Bster, when you write it's "kinda shitty" not to identify allergens, you're saying in different terms what I mean by masked aggression. Fortunately, it's rare.

Because I haven't gotten myself into enough fights this week:

http://www.harpers.org/media/slideshow/annot/2008-01/index.html

The article is focused primarily on childhood food allergies, but includes a good deal of broader information.

I'm sure the suggestion that the impact of the purported food allergy epidemic and the response thereto are being vastly overblown will ruffle feathers, but if the information in this piece is true, it is definitely worth considering.

(Disclaimer: I don't mean to suggest for a moment that this isn't an incredibly serious and difficult problem for those it affects -- and please also put my posting of this article in context by understanding that I'm a big risk assessment doofus who thinks it's ridiculous that we spend as much money and energy on airline safety as we do. I also realize that this is an article... but it's a very interesting one.)

Dom, I looked at what you linked to. I think it's obvious that the author has never herself experienced the sort of anaphylactic reaction described so vividly by Cooler by the Lake in the original post in this thread, nor does she have a child burdened with this problem. I imagine her impetus is just to write a "daring" article, going against the grain of what is now accepted. (Ironically, though she asserts that the current thinking about food allergies is based upon half-truths, she herself seems to be less than straightforward in her "facts" -- e.g. she claims that allergy tests produce many false positives. I believe that is true for skin tests, but not for blood tests.)

As many of you know, my son is allergic to peanuts, eight kinds of tree nuts, and (recently discovered) sesame. That's all been confirmed with blood tests. He also has asthma, connected to these allergies according to his asthma doctor. We've spent hours with him in the emergency room because of this problem. A tiny bit of the wrong kind of nut can produce systemic reactions -- violent vomiting, horribly painful stomach cramps, severe asthma, and swelling of the tissues of the throat to the point that his breathing is impaired. That's the potentially fatal part of this.

The Harper's author reports that the number of actual deaths from food allergies is low. Her conclusion is that the food allergy problem is not so serious. I disagree with her conclusion. I am overjoyed to know that only a few people have died from food allergy problems. My conclusion, though, is that the low death rate should probably be attributed to the heightened awareness that medical staffs now have about this problem, and to the fact that doctors and other personnel have educated families about the seriousness of food allergies.

Something that all doctors we have dealt with have stressed -- but that the Harper's author neglects to mention in her article -- is that anaphylactic reactions get worse over time. So parents of a child who has a mild reaction so far need to be careful because future exposures to the allergen could produce a much more serious reaction. Taking precautions to prevent a severe, potentially life-threatening problem for one's child is hardly absurd, despite the author's sneering tone.

Amata wrote:Taking precautions to prevent a severe, potentially life-threatening problem for one's child is hardly absurd, despite the author's sneering tone.

Nobody here, including this author, to my reading, disagrees. The question the article raises is what level of precaution, on a non-individual level, is reasonable, and are we determining what constitutes "reasonable" based on faulty information.

You refer to the author's sneering tone, but if the facts are straight, they raise a valid point, and I find it unfortunate that questioning the validity of statistics used to justify large-scale policy is automatically considered "sneering".*

Edit: That's not fair -- your feeling that the tone is sneering isn't necessarily because of the facts (true or not) put forth.

First, I need to correct something in my post above:

Amata wrote:... I think it's obvious that the author has never herself experienced the sort of anaphylactic reaction described so vividly by Cooler by the Lake in the original post in this thread, ...

I lazily didn't go back to look at the beginning of this thread. The post I was thinking of by Cooler by the Lake is elsewhere:
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=40951#40951

It's a very vivid description of what happened to him at Costco after inadvertently sampling a Paul Newman salad dressing containing walnut oil.

Second, Dom, the last thing I want to do is to engage in one of the endless discussions that have become so prevalent these days on LTH. There are a number of things that one could say in response to your post. But let's not continue this, okay?

Amata wrote:Second, Dom, the last thing I want to do is to engage in one of the endless discussions that have become so prevalent these days on LTH. There are a number of things that one could say in response to your post. But let's not continue this, okay?

Agreed. I probably shouldn't have posted this, especially given the week it's been (no thanks to me). My thought was, when I read it, that it was an interesting piece of information, if true, that had some relevance to a recent discussion, but I realize it's a hot issue that's just going to be a difficult conversation no matter what.

The message of this article is in part dangerously misleading -- saying that fear of allergies may do more harm than the allergies themselves.

Our son landed in an emergency for many many hours, in intense pain, with difficulty breathing... why? Because a snack at school that he was given was incorrectly labelled. This was not a psychosomatic incident but a genuine and -- if not properly treated -- life-threatening emergency. To watch your own child -- or any child, for that matter, -- suffer as we did that night, strongly inclines one to have a less positive view of this piece than one might otherwise have.

Dom, I'm glad you posted the link, because I may have otherwise been unaware of this school of thought about the allergy that afflicts my small son and many other chiuldren these days. In my estimation, the article is more intended to rile up the feelings of those in the mainstream unaffected by the actual problem but feeling somehow, more or less, inconvenienced by legitmate concerns for the well-being of individuals.

Antonius

Post edited for content.

A few points:

I found the Harper's article fascinating. Thanks for the link, Dom.

I hope LTH never becomes a place where difficult issues have to be avoided because they might be contentious.

Food allergies are real.

There are also instances where people claim to have food allergies just to make them seem "special." (See several of Jeffery Steingarten's articles, including "Fear of Formaggio" in "It Must've Been Something I Ate.") I once knew a woman who claimed she was deathly allergic to tap water, and could only drink water from a bottle. I later discovered that one friend, who would host her, as well as others of us occasionally, would fill bottled water bottles for her with tap water. She never knew, and clearly experienced no dire consequences. While I wouldn't condone such deception, it did drive home the point to me that, in some instances, some of these alleged food allergy issues aren't real.

Edited to correct my stupidity - Thanks GypsyBoy!

nr706 wrote:(See several of Jeffery Steinberg's articles, including "Fear of Formaggio" in "It Must've Been Something I Ate.")

In the interest of directing people who may be interested, that would be Jeffrey Steingarten.

Antonius wrote:Smarmy crap journalism that riles up the feelings of those in the mainstream unaffected by the actual problem but feeling somehow, more or less, inconvenienced by legitmate concerns for the well-being of individuals... Yeah, a great piece...

Antonius, regardless of the merits (or lack thereof) of the piece, I don't think it's fair to paint those who are curious about the realities of the extent of the problem as people who are somehow unconcerned with the well-being of individuals. That's a very, very broad brush.

You object to the tone of the piece, and I honestly don't know enough about the subject to know whether or not its tone is appropriate. What interests me is the substance of its assertion that the reality of the situation and how it is portrayed are vastly different, which I don't consider to be a good thing anywhere under any circumstances. The national conversation about childhood food allergies has been based on the idea that there is a recent explosion in number and severity. If this is not true, I hope you are not suggesting that a desire to have the conversation based on accurate information somehow makes me unconcerned with other people's well-being.

What's more, as my wife, a doctor who is in the business of helping people, will attest, there is nothing more frustrating than exaggerated "epidemics", because from a medical standpoint, it only muddies the waters and makes it more difficult to identify and help those (like your son) who truly need it. I do not know if that is or is not the case here (nor does she), but if asking questions about the reality of the situation is automatically received as uncaring, I find that unfortunate and unfair.

I realize this is a very sensitive issue for you and Amata, but I thought I made it clear that I found some of the facts asserted in this piece to be very interesting, and that I was, of course, unsure of their veracity. I hope your reaction to the piece and my post is because of how you read the tone of the piece, and not simply because it asserts a skeptical view of what is now commonly accepted as an epidemic.

Dom... Please note that I had gone back and edited my post before you posted again, addressing me. My initial reaction to the article was strong and the tone in my post was not really what I wanted to leave standing.

I certainly have no problem with you posting the link and no personal 'beef' with you at all. But I do have the right to express my opinion, though I should have waited a little longer before first doing so.

Whether there are people who for some reason fear and/or imagine that they suffer from these allergies but do not does not change the fact that there are significant numbers of people who do have these allergies and their well-being is endangered by those allergies. As a scholar, I appreciate very well the necessity of asking the right questions and seeking honest answers but the skewed tone of this article and the implication that much or most of the rise in these allergies is much to do about nothing is not helpful in my opinion.

With regard to the expenditure of funds on this and related or similar problems which are apparently becoming more wide spread, such as asthma, that expenditure seems in a general sense appropriate to me, and surely would to you if you yourself or someone close to you suffered from them.

I almost got myself in trouble last week, and it was my own stupid fault. Or maybe I overreacted, in which case it was still my own stupid fault. Anyway, here's my long story of self-inflicted woe:

I have a peanut allergy. On a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is "die if somebody is eating a peanut 10 feet away from you," my allergy is a 3. I can eat peanut oil in reasonable amounts, and I don't worry about the tiny bit of peanut flour at the end of the ingredients list of my granola bar. But last Thursday, I had chicken enchiladas mole for dinner at a well known local place, where English is not particularly spoken. Now, I know from having enjoyed dinner at Chilpancingo several times that some types of mole have peanuts, but this was the traditional mole that usually does not. Didn't think much about it, I was working on a proposal and was not paying much attention and it's been a while since I had enchiladas mole.

In the car, I started getting the tingling of the mouth. Then a few minutes later, a little tightness... I kept driving, and starting trying to figure it out. And it dawned on me that they might have thickened the mole sauce with a little peanut butter as a cost-saving measure.

Now, here's the thing I've found... because my allergy is really only a 3, the panic attack is usually worse than the allergic reaction itself, because I can usually taste peanuts or peanut butter and stop after one bite. But I didn't have the phone number of the restaurant, I didn't know how to say "peanut" in Spanish, and I didn't really trust that I'd get the right answer anyway at that point. I had my rescue inhaler with me for my exercise-induced ashtma, and took a couple of hits of that. Of course, that makes me jittery, which is great when you're having a panic attack...

Fortunately, I didn't have to resort to anything dramatic, and my actual breathing was fine when I got home - I have a peak flow meter, and my reading was actually in the 99th percentile for me (probably because of the rescue inhaler). After an hour, the symptoms went away, and I went to sleep.

But... there is no doubt in my mind that this was 99.9% my own stupidity for not asking before I ordered, or if I didn't trust the answer, from just ordering something else.

I guess I have a double-standard. I expect an investor-driven restaurant to worry about these things, to have documentation of their practices (a rep from LEYE sent me an email within 45 minutes when I inquired about the menu at Wao Bao), and for the ACTION type plan which Flip mentioned upthread to be practiced religiously (at Big Bowl, they brought me an impressive 3-ring binder with pages listing every ingredient for each thing which could come of their kitchen). But I also expect that a mom-and-pop type place, especially with people where English is a second langauge if spoken at all, it's up to me to order defensively, even if that means not ordering something I usually like just in case the server doesn't quite know what they're doing in the kitchen.

threadkiller wrote:And it dawned on me that they might have thickened the mole sauce with a little peanut butter as a cost-saving measure.

A friend of mine from Texas, whose heritage is Mexican, confided her family mole "secret" and it was peanut butter, so this may be more common than you think.

I found the Harper's article worthwhile reading, especially the debunking of the widely covered "peanut butter kiss" incident. The tone did not seem sneering to me and I have personal experience of allergies and anaphylaxis, both as a child and an adult. While no one can blame parents of allergy-prone children for wishing all peanuts (or whatever) wiped from the earth, it does seem that some of the reaction to increasing allergies/awareness of allergies is, as the writer says, hysterical.

I grow increasingly disturbed by the widespread and growing fostering of food fear, whether the impetus is allergies, obesity or plain old puritanism, and I don't think Mike G's dire predictions upthread are at all far-fetched.

Antonius and Amata, I hope your son is fortunate enough to outgrow his asthma and allergies in time, as I have many of mine.

What was the point of that article? I mean, really - the real point? It is difficult enough to get people to understand that food allergy is not food aversion when you are an adult, so imagine what it's like for a 7 year old to try to get the point across to people who have no awareness? Is it asking too much for people to at least be aware of the issue? Is it hysteria or "nuts" (lame pun borrowed from author) to expect schools to have a plan in case of an occurence?

The test she refers to as having false positives is the RAST test (a blood test); why didn't she just say RAST test? This may be so, but what of it? Most kids (& adults) get that test after an incident. Its not like a vaccine or something, where everyone is required to get it. So that means that the people getting this test are allergic to something, and are trying to pinpoint it. What is so wrong about that?

As far as transdermal reactions, wrong here again. I am severely allergic to fish & seafood, as I have noted upthread way back. Guess what? If I even handle fish, I immediately break out in welts at the place where it touched my skin. This is one of the reasons I did not pursue a culinary career, although it was a passion of mine back in my 30's.

It was a pointless article but I am glad it was posted here if for no other reason than to bring awareness of the problem to light again.

FYI, threadkiller - peanut in spanish is cacahuete ; yahoo has audio pronunciation: IIRC you would say "tengo alergia a los cacahuetes"

Liz in Norwood Park wrote:What was the point of that article? I mean, really - the real point? It is difficult enough to get people to understand that food allergy is not food aversion when you are an adult, so imagine what it's like for a 7 year old to try to get the point across to people who have no awareness? Is it asking too much for people to at least be aware of the issue? Is it hysteria or "nuts" (lame pun borrowed from author) to expect schools to have a plan in case of an occurence?

Liz -- Agreed 100%, and I especially appreciate the clear statement above.

A

LAZ wrote:A friend of mine from Texas, whose heritage is Mexican, confided her family mole "secret" and it was peanut butter, so this may be more common than you think.

Good to know... that might have to go on my "don't eat unless you can talk to the owner" list, sort of like how I still avoid egg rolls much of the time unless I've been to a place with somebody who has tasted them before.

Mhays wrote:FYI, threadkiller - peanut in spanish is cacahuete ; yahoo has audio pronunciation: IIRC you would say "tengo alergia a los cacahuetes"

Thank you! As I was writing that post, I realized that I had promptly forgotten to look that up...

threadkiller wrote:I expect an investor-driven restaurant to worry about these things, to have documentation of their practices (a rep from LEYE sent me an email within 45 minutes when I inquired about the menu at Wao Bao), and for the ACTION type plan which Flip mentioned upthread to be practiced religiously (at Big Bowl, they brought me an impressive 3-ring binder with pages listing every ingredient for each thing which could come of their kitchen). But I also expect that a mom-and-pop type place, especially with people where English is a second langauge if spoken at all, it's up to me to order defensively, even if that means not ordering something I usually like just in case the server doesn't quite know what they're doing in the kitchen.

I think this is a reasonable formulation--and would point out that the post that started this thread was about an allergic incident that occured in a LEYE restaurant.

riddlemay wrote:I think this is a reasonable formulation--and would point out that the post that started this thread was about an allergic incident that occured in a LEYE restaurant.

Also recall that in that original post, the allergy wasn't Announced (the A in Skip's ACTION plan), lest we leave the impression that this LEYE restaurant wasn't following said plan.

Liz in Norwood Park wrote:What was the point of that article? I mean, really - the real point? It is difficult enough to get people to understand that food allergy is not food aversion when you are an adult, so imagine what it's like for a 7 year old to try to get the point across to people who have no awareness? Is it asking too much for people to at least be aware of the issue?

The point, I believe, was to let people know that the problem isn't a widespread "epidemic" as some accounts have made it seem, and that their children aren't going to die if they kiss somebody who ate a peanut-butter sandwich.

No one is saying that people shouldn't be aware of the issue. This article says that the numbers of children with food allergies have been exaggerated by agencies with a vested interest in allergy treatment. Kids aren't expiring right and left because of food allergies.

I know exactly what it's like for a 7-year-old to get the point across. "No, thank-you. I'm not allowed to eat that," was the phrasing I was taught, and only very rarely did anyone try to coax me once I said it.

If I could not tell whether the food involved contained one of my allergens, I was either to ask or decline it. My mom impressed on me very strongly that the horrible allergy attacks and subsequent nasty treatment were the result of eating forbidden foods, so I was very careful. (I'm amused to recall that I found it much harder to keep from petting the dogs and cats I was also allergic to than to turn down even chocolate.)

At this point in time I have no way to know whether my mother left it at that, but since I recall having to recite the litany, I guess that not everyone in a position to offer me food was informed of my allergies. Today, I would assume that any reasonable parent would not only teach an allergic child to decline problematic foods but also provide a list of foods to be avoided to anyone to whom they entrusted their child.

LAZ wrote:The point, I believe, was to let people know that the problem isn't a widespread "epidemic" as some accounts have made it seem, and that their children aren't going to die if they kiss somebody who ate a peanut-butter sandwich.

No one is saying that people shouldn't be aware of the issue. This article says that the numbers of children with food allergies have been exaggerated by agencies with a vested interest in allergy treatment. Kids aren't expiring right and left because of food allergies.

If the point--and effect--of the article is simply to put people's anxieties in a reasonable perspective, then I agree with you, that's a good thing.

But if the effect of the article is to let restaurants, schools, and other purveyors of food lower their guard on the issue, that is a bad thing. Because they musn't. Among those LTHers who are on the "allergy-consciousness" side of the issue, I think the possibility that this will be the effect of the article is the source of the consternation.

Dmnkly wrote:

riddlemay wrote:I think this is a reasonable formulation--and would point out that the post that started this thread was about an allergic incident that occured in a LEYE restaurant.

Also recall that in that original post, the allergy wasn't Announced (the A in Skip's ACTION plan), lest we leave the impression that this LEYE restaurant wasn't following said plan.

Dom,

Just to clarify the ACTION plan was not at an LEYE restaurant. I have worked at a couple of LEYE locations, and cannot remember any allergy plans.

Flip

Flip wrote:

Dmnkly wrote:

riddlemay wrote:I think this is a reasonable formulation--and would point out that the post that started this thread was about an allergic incident that occured in a LEYE restaurant.

Also recall that in that original post, the allergy wasn't Announced (the A in Skip's ACTION plan), lest we leave the impression that this LEYE restaurant wasn't following said plan.

Dom,

Just to clarify the ACTION plan was not at an LEYE restaurant. I have worked at a couple of LEYE locations, and cannot remember any allergy plans.

Flip

Yes, I phrased that poorly. I meant that if they had followed the plan you outlined and that riddlemay agreed was a good one, then it still wouldn't have done any good because the first step didn't happen.

Dmnkly wrote:I meant that if they had followed the plan you outlined and that riddlemay agreed was a good one, then it still wouldn't have done any good because the first step didn't happen.

Which is not to say that it would be a terrible idea for a restaurant to have a "fail-safe" option in case the customer doesn't make the first move: namely, to alert the customer in written (menu) form or orally to the presence of known allergens. But we've been over that ground.

I agree with threadkiller that the standard should be different in "investor-driven" restaurants than in foreign-language mom-and-pops. In the latter, the allergic customer I think reasonably should be expected to exert an extra degree of caution, i.e. the burden is on him even more than usual to make the first move. In larger and/or higher-end establishments, I think it's more reasonable for the allergic customer to expect the restaurant to be looking out for him in case he doesn't.