Food allergies

In many supermarkets in France when you buy loose fruit/veg, you often price them yourselves. Put them on the scales and look at the screen, which will have little pictures of the veg/fruit and its name. Touch the screen in the right square and out comes a label with, details of what you have bought, how much it weighs, price per unit and price for the weight you have bought.

This would easily adapt to print details of what the baguette/sandwich is and what ingredients it contains.

Sorry Jalima, not sure what your point is? surely the lawa applying to labelling refers to the point of sale, not where it's eaten?

I'm part of a group who run a cafe serving soup and cakes in the local hall once a week. All the food must be cooked and prepared on site in a kitchen which is inspected by environmental health. All the volunteers have to have a hygiene certificate and all known allergens must be clearly labelled. It's quite a list:
Last week it was nuts, celery, milk, butter and some gluten in the soup stock. . We often prepare a gluten free option.

Oven, hob and fridge temperatures are checked and noted.

Whatever happened to chef's spoon tasting and homemade jam!

If Pret make sandwiches/wraps/baguettes etc to order, will they have to write out individual labels listing contents on every order? A nightmare.
As I never buy that kind of on-the-go food, I don't know how shops will keep up with the labelling.

Jalima1108
The baguette was bought in the Pret shop in Heathrow airport but consumed on the plane.

I have a grandson who has a severe allergy to sesame and has two Epipens with him at all times. The national shortage of these pens is causing those of us who rely upon them extreme worry.

No, legally "foods packaged on-site before a firm sells them do not need a specific allergen label attached", hence Pret were actually following the letter of the law - that's what needs to change.

I wouldn't think so humptydumpty

I thought all products had to have labelling of ingredients which included allergens in bold lettering?
We have to examine any products very carefully with a coeliac in the family. It's easy for people to say - don't eat anything you haven't prepared yourself and generally we would - but it's not always possible.

Pret are now going to use labelling on their products. Personally I was very surprised given the severity and number of her allergies that she didn't ask about allergenics before eating the baguette, or at least eat a small bite first - but maybe she was going through a teenage phase where she was fed up with it all and just thought sod it...

The baguette was bought from Pret at Terminal 5, I think.
It's usually M&S foodBA serve on short hall flights.

MargaretX I think the baguette in question was eaten on a plane, not actually purchased from the Pret shop. It was not apparent that there were sesame seeds on the surface of the bread, they had been baked into the bread. That's what I understood anyway.
This firm and the airline who uses their products has a duty of care towards its customers; they should be aware of any ingredients which may cause problems and inform the customer, or at least label the package appropriately, and they failed.

Maybe the reason why we all remember so few children with severe allergies when we were young is simply that they didn't live with their allergies - they died when they were very young...

I agree Diana. I'm sure many allergies went undiagnosed.
Testing is much more sophisticated now.
I was diagnosed with late onset asthma when I was twenty one. I had been ill for two years, had been given some basic allergy tests, to be told it was just nerves and advised to give my self a shake! It was only when I ended up in intensive care for six weeks , that I was diagnosed with brittle asthma.

At school in the 1960s I do remember a couple of girls who couldn't do sports, they had had whooping cough in infancy and had a weak chest, don't recall anyone else.
There was plenty of pollution in those days as well as much poorer living conditions, there was much less advanced medical care too and it is highly likely allergic infants died early undiagnosed. That does not explain the current epidemic where a large number of children have asthma there is something damaging their immune system. Suspects are, babies in swimming pools, vaccinations, cleaning materials, food additives even plastic toys. Young children are not likely to have damage due to pollution, even in rural areas there are still allergic children, the smoke and dirt I had to endure as a child bears no comparison.

Caztown15 when my daughter was 4 I bought her a strawberry ice cream from Thorntons. I didn’t know the same ice cream scoop had previously been used to dispense Brazil nut ice cream. Her blood pressure plummeted and her face swelled and she looked like Coco the clown. She is allergic to nearly all nuts but not to peanuts. I ate lots of nuts when pregnant but not peanuts and this is one nut that does NOT cause her problems. Carried epipens for 24 years now. Brazil nuts are by far the worst.

I didnt know of anyone with food allergies when I was a child in the 50s. But of course there was hardly any prepared food available anyway.
When my eldest daughter (now 55) was about a year old she was munching on peanuts. Two years or so later we were in Australia and her younger sister was eating peanuts and an Australian friend said children should never be given nuts under the age of two. Presumably because of the danger of choking. There are so many foods that babies and young children should not eat these days that we and our own children ate without any problems. My DGD and her partner would not allow my DGGS anything sweet from a baby. Only fruit was allowed. Poor little one about 18 months old had a fit and the ambulance was called. The first thing they asked for was chocolate. Father said I have chocolate for me but my child does not have it. He was told that the child needed something sweet immediately to bring him round. A few years later he has several food allergies and behavioural problems too. I have a severe allergy to penicillin and other antibiotics and AS is frightening as I have experienced it a few times when doctors have ignored me because they knew best.

There is a recipe for nut free marzipan here, if it helps
realfood.tesco.com/recipes/nut-free-marzipan.html

I feel so sorry that a young girl should die because of a few sesame seeds. However I feel that if I or anyone else in my family had an allergy which could kill them. then I would not buy anything from a sandwich shop.
When going out I would make my own sandwiches.

I have intolerences to many things and for 25 years I cook for myself and take a rucksack full of food on holiday with me. you can't rely on food from factories to protect you.

The allergic people in my family (including me) were all born vaginally and were all breast fed. The worst affected was breast fed for 18 months.

There is a slightly higher rate of allergies among children born by cesarean sections and who are bottle fed, but the increase is not significant and there are many, many, children born after a normal birth and breast fed who have allergies.

Like GabriellaG I never heard of allergies either as a child, a student or when teaching in the 1970s. We all ate what we were given at parties and school dinners. Also - looking at the class photographs taken in my final years at primary school (1958, 1959), not one child was wearing glasses. And yet we had yearly 'examinations' at school with the school doctor so any problems would have been picked up (such as my flat feet when I was in the infants. Exercises from the school clinic cured them).

You don't always know what will cause an anaphylactic shock. DH walked into a garage showroom to hand car keys in for service. He got halfway across and collapsed. Ambulance administered treatment to get him to hospital where diagnosis given. Never had a reaction to anything before so no answer to what he could be allergic to. He carries antihistamine now.

Well I'm afraid I can put a spanner in the works for that theory.
In my son's case, he was a natural birth and just after he was born, when he was bathed in Hibitane, he broke out in angry, red weals all over his body. So began a very long list of episodes of allergic reactions, some life threatening, some less serious than others. He was allergic to antibiotics, anti histamines, general anaesthetic gas, peanuts, artificial additives, baby bath etc, etc...
He is a red head and my late mother, a midwife said that they used to dread having a red headed patients. An old wive's tale? I'm a red head and I too have lots of allergies to medication.
Perhaps someone should do some research on that. .

I read a report recently that blames the increase in childhood allergies on the fact that so many women now have C-sections instead of natural births, thus resulting in the baby not being exposed to the mother's bacteria in the birth canal which are thought to protect the baby from some allergies

My eldest son as a child had frequent recurring infections and eventually became allergic to pretty well every antibiotic that was available at the time. When I took him to the doctor on one occasion because he had swollen up to the extent that he couldn't bend any limb, the doctor refused to believe me when I said he was allergic to the latest antibiotic and said that the cat was responsible for the reaction and we should have it destroyed. We didn't! When he had to have his tonsils removed, he had to stay in hospital for two weeks because the only antibiotic that still worked for him was an extremely slow-acting one .We never trusted that particular doctor again.

I am allergic to all drugs in the Phenothiazine group. Unfortunately it is found in drugs for various conditions so I have twice gone into A S and ended in hospital - first time nearly 50 years ago. DD3 had an intolerance to eggs when she was a baby and her first few birthday cakes were egg free.
Luckily it wasn't a severe reaction and after a while she grew out of it but I am a firm believer, when one of the DGC is sick, to find out what they have consumed!