“Food allergies.” What?! I knew that allergies ran in my family, because I grew up with them, but allergic to food? And not just one food group, but four major food groups, and others too?
A feeling of helplessness and fear came over me when my son Daniel, my third child, was diagnosed with life-threatening food allergies at the age of ten months old. The realization that my child could die from eating food was a shock, despite knowing another child with food allergies from the on-site medical day care where I worked as a pediatric occupational therapist and director. Thus began the eye-opening journey of education (mine and others’), label reading, revised cooking, and fear for every new situation that occurred.