Food allergy is an abnormal reaction to a food, triggered by body immune system. In adults, some foods that can cause allergies may include tree nuts such as walnuts, treenuts and eggs. On the other hand, milk, soy, wheat, peanuts and tree nuts affect children. These food allergies causes’ symptoms such as drop in blood pressure, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, itching or swelling in your mouth, tightening of the throat, breathing problems and hives. In most cases, the protein is the allergic component. The protein contained in these foods causes the body to itch, or even go into an anaphylactic shock, which can cause death. It is therefore more important to take good control measures to avoid the occurrence of these allergies to allergic people. In order to solve this problem of food allergies, experts in food management have come up with strategies to help overcome these allergies.
For instance food allergy advocate Joel Schaefer who is an author, chef, and an educator, has formulated new ways to aid most restaurant be more allergy friendly. In relation to producing allergy friendly foods, The National Restaurant Association have formulated new rules to help restaurants improve awareness among their staff and protect their customers.Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network in their booklet have come up with rules, which am going to discuss.
One of the rules suggests that the owner of the restaurant should select one person who is knowledgeable to handle the order. By doing this, the person will be able to make proper decision on what to cook, how to prepare it, and most importantly, what measures to take when preparing it. This will also help to control and avoid completely cross contamination that may be likely to occur. It is therefore important and wise for the restaurant to assign a well knowledgeable person in every shift to deal with the ingredients available in the menu.
The second rule states that one should take more time while preparing food for an allergic person. This will ensure prevention of any mistake that is likely to occur. There should also be a full comprehensive training program for the staff of the restaurant on proper ways of safely handling and preparing the food of the people affected with allergies. The restaurant should also provide a well-programmed poster available in the local dialect, or in the national language explaining about all the ingredients.
The third rule goes ahead and states that if a mistake occurs while preparing a meal, discard the meal immediately, and start preparing a new meal. This ensures that food served, is not served to the allergic customer or the food will not be exposed to anyone else who may be at risk. The other rule states that the person preparing the food should avoid using ingredients that he or she is not familiar. The rule goes ahead and explains that the chef should reveal all the information about the ingredients to the costumer so that he or she will be knowledgeable. Training of the kitchen staff is also important so that they do not mix the utensils they are using with the easily contaminated food.
The last rule goes ahead and states that the guest has the last opportunity to make the final decision on whether the product is safe or not. By this, the trust between the costumers and the restaurant will be increased thus maintenance of good relationship and partnership. It is evident that there is no hidden recipe concerning the food allergies, what is needed is an open and honest relationship between the people preparing the food in the kitchen, the management, that is the manager and costumer. Another organisation that advocates for customers and business protection against food allergies is [FARE] Food Allergy Research and Education group. Through its research analysis, it says that more than fifteen million Americans are mostly affected by the most eight common allergic foods. We should follow the rules discussed above in order to avoid the growing number and avoid food allergies in most of the restaurants in our state.
It is in my opinion that there should be different restaurants to handle different needs that the costumers’ desire.This way there would be specialization in different ways to handle costumers and therefore more attention will be paid to those costumers without the fear of cross contamination. It will also be wise for the government to come up with policies that will protect costumers that are affected with these food allergens that they will not feel left out as consumers of these products .It is also wise for most of those customers affected with these food allergies to know what really affects thems when they consume. In this way, they will be able to know what is good or fatal for them.
