By: Keva N. Lockhart, Contributing Writer
Milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, fish and shellfish are 8 foods that account for 90 percent of all allergic reactions, according to the article “Know your food allergies” by The Health Experience Project Team.
A food allergy is an immune system reaction that occurs soon after eating a certain food. Consequently, even after eating a tiny amount of an allergy-causing food can trigger intense and excruciating symptoms such as digestive problems, hives or swollen airways. Unfortunately, in some individuals, a food allergy can cause a life-threatening reaction known as anaphylaxis, which is a severe whole- body reaction to a chemical that has become an allergen.
Researchers of The Health Experience Team have estimated that up to 15 Million Americans have food allergies, one in ten babies in Australia will develop a severe allergy before their first birthday and more than 6.5 million adults are allergic to finned fish and shellfish. They propose that the number of food allergies is increasing, but there is no clear answer to why it is occurring.
A food allergy can begin at any age, according to researchers of The Health Experience Team, every 3 minutes a food allergy reaction sends someone to the emergency department and can lead to an outrageous economic cost such as 25 billion dollars in the cost of treating the reaction.
With Food allergy as a major concern, the Dining Services Department of St. Leo University hosted a food allergy awareness event called, “Eat this, Not that” on Wednesday October 28, 2019. This event gave students the opportunity to learn about the top 8 food allergies, myths and facts about food allergies and taste a couple of good items. Mr. Stan Kaszuba from dining service made fudgy black bean brownies (that substituted for flour). Instead, the ingredients used was black beans and sun butter cookies that someone could eat in place of peanut butter cookies.
Employees of Dinning services handed out flyers about food allergies in addition to misconceptions about food allergies. Some misconceptions mentioned was that “Peanut allergy is the most common food allergy,” however, peanuts are not the most common food allergy, but it is included in the top 8 most common food allergies. Another misconception addressed was that “Benadryl is a good first response for anaphylaxis,” however, Epinephrine (adrenaline), which is a self -injectable medication should always be the first -line treatment for severe life- threatening allergic reactions.
Mr. Michael Bailey, Director of Accessibility Services coordinated the “Eat This, Not That” event. He stated that this event was helpful to the Saint Leo students and community because 1 in 5 students in the college campus from out the country have some diagnosed disability. As a community, he added that the event was to ensure that students gained knowledge and access to resources to learn about food allergies. Bailey explained that the event was to raise awareness and connect with individuals with a variety of support. The “Eat this, not that” event is held once per year as a part of Disability Awareness Week in October. The main goal is to help destigmatize what it means to have a disability. Often, people think about disabilities in a negative way and focus on limitations and differences.
Additionally, Bailey was impressed with the number of students that attended the event and the conversations he overheard at the event between students in ways to learn more about food allergies.
Simon Afifi, a freshman and Business Management major, described the event as educational. Simon stated he too thought that peanut was the number one food allergen, but he learned that it’s in the top 8. He also added that this event was an exceptional outreach event that provided information to the students of the university.
