Cute Allergen Foods

Those popular Internet celebrities/cute home-cooked foods that look soft and harmless and have their own "harmless" filter are the "heavy allergy disaster areas" for nearly 23% of the country's hidden food allergy population. According to the 2022 food allergy epidemiological survey data of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 80% of mild food allergic reactions have been mistakenly dismissed as "overeating", "acne during the change of seasons", or "inflammation" and ignored.

Last week, I went to the dermatology department with my best friend. Her face was swollen like a peach she had just eaten. She insisted that she was allergic to spring pollen. However, the doctor couldn't laugh or cry after reading the allergen report - the allergen was the three cherry blossom white peach snow queens she showed off the day before. The wheat gliadin added to the skin to increase the elasticity, the whey protein in the whipping cream, and even the sulfite preservatives used for dried cherry blossoms sprinkled on the surface, all three just hit her hidden allergy points. She had been saying before, "How can Snow Mei Niang be so soft?"

Don’t think that this is a rare event. Last month, someone in my circle of friends posted that he had been admitted to the emergency room after eating Internet-famous rabbit pudding. The pudding was white and sprinkled with cherry blossoms, and looked like a translucent panna cotta. Who would have thought that the gelling ingredient in it was made from isinglass extracted from deep-sea cod. He happened to be allergic to cod, and his throat became tight ten minutes after eating it.

Friends who are engaged in food research and development have complained to me several times. Nowadays, many soft foods that are mainly "cute" and "healing" will add 3-5 kinds of compound additives in order to meet the taste and appearance standards. Many raw materials are derived from soybeans, wheat, nuts, and dairy products. According to the current national standards, only the major category names need to be labeled, such as "compound thickeners" and "compound colorants." The allergens will not be listed separately, making it difficult for people with allergies to take precautions. For example, in order to make the commonly eaten mugwort green dumplings non-sticky and bright in color, many merchants will mix about 10% wheat flour and add a trace amount of gardenia yellow extract. People who are intolerant to gluten will most likely blame "glutinous rice for being too sticky to digest" because of flatulence and diarrhea.

The industry is now divided into two groups when it comes to dealing with such hidden allergens. One group is clamoring for the revision of the national standard, which requires all prepackaged foods to contain potentially allergenic ingredients. They must be marked in the most conspicuous position on the outer packaging with a font size twice as large as the ingredient list. Don't hide key information such as "contains trace amounts of nut ingredients" in the corner. The fonts are so small that you need a magnifying glass to see them.； The other group believes that there is no need to be overly nervous. After all, more than 90% of food allergies are mild to moderate. There is no need for ordinary people to do hundreds of allergen screenings at the beginning. They should keep a careful diet diary. If they experience acne, bloating, or itchy throat for no reason every time after eating a certain type of soft dessert, they can just glance at the ingredient list twice and they will basically hit the spot.

To be honest, I didn’t take it seriously until the last time I ate a box of Disney co-branded peach-shaped gummy candies. My throat felt itchy for half an hour. I flipped through the package and saw a line of small words printed on the corner: "The production equipment also processes nut products, which may contain trace amounts of cashew nuts." The sugar powder was so dimple that there was no trace of a nut. Who would have thought that it was related to cashews?

Oh, by the way, there are also cartoon-shaped milk slices and cookies that children love to eat. In order to make the shapes less fragile, many businesses will add a small amount of corn starch or brush a layer of ovalbumin to make them shiny. Children who are allergic to corn and eggs will get rashes after eating them. Parents will most likely blame their children for touching dirty things, never thinking that the problem is with seemingly innocuous snacks.

In fact, there is no need to panic. After all, even if most people have latent allergies, they are only slightly uncomfortable. But next time you drool over those soft and cute snacks, there is no harm in scanning the ingredient list - it is better than showing off happily and turning around and turning into a swollen face, right?