I realise that a fair few of my readers are mothers of children with eczema and allergies, but I really wanted to do this post to gather some opinions and knowledge!
As a new adult, I am finding that I want to try new things that I couldnt before. So having the occasional drink with dinner or for a special occasion. But here is what I have found: Alcohol is one of the worst regulated in terms of allergy labelling.
For example: I decided I wanted to buy myself a singular bottle of beer for new years. Upon entering the bottle shop and having a browse, I realised that beer does not have ingredients on it! Now I did some quick googling to make sure I wasnt wasting my money and found I was okay, but it came as a surprise to me!
Allergy awareness and education is constantly focussed on the childhood part of life. Which is perfectly fair as children are more vulnerable and rely on others to prepare food and generally don't know much about allergies.
But what happens when these children get older and encounter the world of alcohol? I would hate to think of a nut allergic child having a reaction to their first legal drink because they didn't know.
Truth be told, I'm not a big fan of wine! Not only do I think its not the best tasting, but the labels all have something along the lines of: Milk and Egg used in the process!
Okay so at least they put it on the label, but honestly, I think we as an allergy community need to do a bit of work on the alcohol industry to get it up to par!
Until then I think I'll stick with the 3 drinks I know I can consume safely!
After a bit of online research, I also found that alcohol can worsen allergic reactions and that the sulphites found in some alcohol's can cause allergic reactions! It's amazing what can be learnt, even after you think you have learnt it all over the past 18 years!
For a bit of further reading on the subject, I found this great website which lists a whole lot of alcoholic products that nut allergic people CANNOT consume: http://www.nutfreeninja.com/blog/2014/5/16/the-ultimate-nut-allergy-alcohol-guide
So what do you all think? Should we improve the labelling on alcohol? Should we educate allergy kids more on their adult choices? Or is it not a big deal? Please let me know your experiences as I need some opinions!
Have a great day everyone! :)
It is a very big deal, my child is 14 and what if he is with friends and they are drinking and he wants to take part. No point pretending that this is not a possibility. Proper labeling might stop him from taking that chance.
ReplyDeleteSo very true! Peer Pressure is a big thing now and I am lucky I have good friends :) I think the biggest thing is education and making sure your child knows how to handle those sorts of situations.
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