Food Allergy

When I was young, I never heard about food allergy. I never met anyone who had peanut allergy or anything, until I found myself having a reaction to yams (mountain potatoes). This wasn't the type of food eaten everyday, so the first time when I had this, I was 6 or 7 years old. When I ate, I didn't feel anything, but later on, my skin became red and puffy. Every part of my skin that touched the potatoes became the rash and itchy. Since then, my mother never made anything with yams. The second time when I had to touch yams was when I was fifteen or so. I was visiting my aunt and she decided to make something with yams. I told her that I had an allergy and I didn't want to touch, but she didn't believe me and I had to help her shredding it. Soon after, my arms got red and itchy. In my case, I don't think I would die from this but the rash lasts for many days and very uncomfortable with itchy skin.
Not sure if more and more people are having allergic reaction to food, or if that is reported more and hear about it more, but aside from news and media, I get to know more people with food allergy. My husband has the eggplant allergy. This is actually quite serious and doctor warned him never to eat it because that could harm him seriously. My daughter notices that she does get tingling sensation in her tongue when she eats pineapples and she thinks she has an allergy. I do get a bit of tingling sensation when I eat pineapples, too but not sure if this is called an allergy.
Peanuts are banned from most of the schools because people could die from the allergy. Some people have sesame seed allergy, seafood allergy, mango allergy and so on.
I guess non severe allergy can be tolerated but I hope they can find a way to stop any severe allergic reaction to food. Children with peanut allergies often avoid birthday parties because they don't know what's going to be served. Parents of non allergy children can not always prepare a party considering all other children with allergies. With no one's fault, the children with severe allergy have to miss out social opportunities and getting together with others. It is really sad. My daughter's friend's baby sister has the peanut allergy, too. They didn't know until the baby had the first taste and became seriously ill. I hope medical community can find a way to cure this by the time she starts going to birthday parties.
 
Image by toddwickersty on flickr