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GOURMET NEWS APRIL 2014 www.gourmetnews.com GENERAL NEWS 6 Food Allergies Continued from PAGE 1 There is no cure for food allergies. Strict avoidance of allergens and early recogni- tion and management of allergic reactions are key to preventing serious health conse- quences. Other food reactions and sensitiv- ities to food are called food intolerances. Food intolerances are reactions that are generally localized, temporary and rarely life-threatening. The most common of these is lactose intolerance. Gluten intoler- ance is another. The national school lunch program has very specific requirements for how to deal with students who have food allergies, and those have just been supplemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with the October 2013 release of Voluntary Guidelines for Managing Food Allergies in Schools and Early Care and Education Pro- grams. The guidelines were issued in com- pliance with the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act passed by Congress in 2011 to shift the focus on food safety from response to prevention. "The new guidelines are significantly broader and address issues that haven't had that level of structured attention: food in the classroom, the broader school day be- yond what happens at lunchtimes," says Diane Pratt-Heavner, Director of Media Re- lations for the School Nutrition Associa- tion. "It really makes sense for those children who have life-threatening aller- gies. Unfortunately, food is all around … Kids can encounter the item on the school bus, after class, in a party or at a bake sale, so it is important to bring everyone into the mix to make sure those children are in a safe environment." The guidelines note that children with food allergies may face health challenges that affect their ability to learn and their so- cial and emotional development, and that food allergies may even pose a daily threat to allergic children's ability to live produc- tive lives. CDC studies show that 16 to 18 percent of children with food allergies have had a reaction from accidentally consum- ing food allergens while at school and that one in four of the severe and potentially life-threatening incidents of anaphylaxis re- ported at schools happened to children with no previous diagnosis of food allergy. While milk is the single most common food allergen, fatalities associated with food-induced anaphylaxis are most com- monly associated with peanut or tree nut ingestion. Eight foods account for more than 90 percent of all food allergies in the United States: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, fish and shellfish. Debra Bloom is a mom who wishes that more Americans understood the potential danger of exposure to a food allergen. Her daughter Elisabeth was diagnosed with al- lergies to peanuts and eggs when she was just a year old. Elisabeth's first really notice- able allergic reaction happened on the third time she ate egg, Bloom recalls. "I was get- ting her something to drink, and when I turned back to the high chair, she had hives all over the side of her face and all over her neck," she says. "She started rubbing her eyes, which were swelling." Bloom called her pediatrician immediately and was ad- vised to administer Benadryl, which brought the reaction under control. "The swelling went down, and the hives went away, and she was fine." While her daughter was fine, Bloom her- self was scared. She made an appointment with an allergist and had Elisabeth tested. "She came up positive for egg and for peanuts. I wasn't surprised about the egg, but the peanuts results really threw me," she says. "I had heard many stories about reactions that were far worse than what Elisabeth had experienced, with children suffering full-blown anaphylaxis and not able to breathe. When that happens, you need to rush your child to the hospital. We were lucky." A diagnosis of food allergy is a life-alter- ing event, as patients and those who care for them come to grips with the realization that allergic reactions to food are unpredictable and can be deadly. Just because a food caused only a minor allergic reaction once doesn't mean that the reaction won't be much more severe the next time it happens. "You have to take every case seriously," Beauvais says. "You can't assume that if you only got hives this time, you know how your body will react the next time." According to the CDC, food allergen avoidance and the risk of severe allergic re- actions can have substantial daily conse- quences for both allergic children and their caregivers. Caregivers, especially mothers, can experience anxiety, stress and dimin- ished quality of life, and a study of children with peanut allergies found that those kids had significantly poorer quality of life than their siblings as well as greater separation anxiety. A 2012 study found that more than a third of children and teens with food al- lergies reported having been bullied specif- ically because of their food allergy, often by being threatened with exposure to an aller- gen. Some parents even choose to home school their children because of food aller- gies. In addition, parents with allergic chil- dren report that the food allergy significantly affects meal preparation and often family social activities. When it came time for Elisabeth to head off to school the first time, Bloom found that while the faculty and staff understood how serious was the need to protect her and other children with food allergies, other stu- dents' parents were not so understanding. That created conflicts almost as soon as Elis- abeth went to kindergarten. "The kinder- garten class had a lot of parties. I wanted to have a say in what they were having, to keep my daughter safe. It was something I had to do," she says. "At the first meeting to plan the class party, I felt like I was the subject of a witch hunt. We were talking about snacks for the party. I offered to bake 80 cupcakes for the entire kindergarten because I felt that if I baked all the cupcakes, I could ensure her safety." The other parents in the party- planning group revolted, and Bloom was ac- cused of trying to deprive the other children in the class of their treats. Bloom left the meeting, went to the su- permarket and started reading labels, mak- ing a list of safe snacks that all the kids could enjoy. Then she went back to the other mothers to assure them that no one was going to be deprived because her daughter needed to be protected from ex- posure to peanuts and eggs. "There are a lot of treats in the market that are safe for everyone," she assured them. Eventually, that list turned into the Safe Snack Guide, a resource schools and par- ents around the country use to screen the snack foods brought into their classrooms and offered to their children. Listing a qualifying product is free for the manufac- turer, and more than 500 schools are on record as recommending her site, www.snacksafely.com, to their parents. Elisabeth is in seventh grade now, and Bloom is finding that greater awareness of the potential consequences of food aller- gies is helping to diminish the intolerance she hears from other parents. Her daugh- ter has joined the ranks of older children and adults who have learned to monitor their own potential exposures and to ad- vocate for themselves to make sure that they are not exposed. That does not mean that Bloom is less vigilant on behalf of her daughter and other children with food al- lergies. "As far as being nervous, that will never go away unless a cure is found. Food is everywhere. It's such a part of life," she says. "What every mom wants for their child is to be safe, to be included and to be well adjusted. So many people take safety for granted," she continues. "You send your kid off to school, and you don't know if they're going to be exposed to someone else's snack, or eat something dangerous that's offered to them. You put your child's life in other people's hands all the time." GN Colorado Proud Guides Cooperative Effort to Promote Colorado Food and Agricultural Products Colorado Proud, the Colorado Department of Agriculture's consumer promotional program, is working with byCOLORADO, the new state marketing program, to pro- mote Colorado businesses in and outside of the state. Celebrating its 15th anniver- sary this summer, Colorado Proud has helped elevate the state's agricultural in- dustry, which contributes more than $40 billion and 171,000 jobs annually to the Colorado economy. The Colorado Proud program will continue to promote food and agricultural products that are grown, raised or processed in the state, while its new sister program, byCOLORADO, will focus its efforts on helping local producers share their stories with consumers outside of Colorado along with promoting non- agricultural industries. "Colorado Proud has been very success- ful and done great things for Colorado's food and agricultural industry," said Com- missioner of Agriculture John Salazar. "The program will continue to promote local products to consumers within the state and brandCOLORADO's efforts will support what Colorado Proud is already doing." Colorado Proud was developed by the Colorado Department of Agriculture in 1999 to promote food and agricultural products. Over the past 15 years the pro- gram has grown to more than 2,000 mem- bers, including farmers, ranchers, food manufacturers, restaurants and retailers. The program will celebrate its anniversary this summer with the "Choose Colorado Tour," a statewide campaign promoting local products to consumers. The byCOLORADO effort was launched in December of 2013 to help stimulate eco- nomic growth and make it easier to "buy local" by promoting non-agriculture com- panies such as technology, apparel, manu- facturing, energy, service businesses and more. Both programs will continue their ef- forts in promoting local products and will work together to meet common goals. "Colorado Proud and byCOLORADO share a common goal and have been collab- orating from the inception of this new pro- gram," said Aaron Kennedy, the State's Chief Marketing Officer. "We are excited to help build upon the success of the Col- orado Proud program to offer companies of all industries the opportunity to be identi- fied with Colorado." For more information about Colorado Proud, visit www.coloradoproud.org, and for more information about byCOLORADO, visit www.brandcolorado.com. GN

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