Fighting Food Allergy

From training the staff about how to handle guests with food allergies to indicating common food allergens in the menu and preparing recipes in a manner that leaves no scope for crosscontamination are some of the steps that restaurants can take to make dining out experience safer for people with sensitivity to certain ingredients or food products

- Jyotismita Sharma

How serious the issue of food allergy is can be gauged from a report that shocked the world last year. The owner of an ‘Indian’ restaurant in Britain was jailed for six years after one of his customers who was supplied with a curry containing peanut, died.

Fatal Negligence to Allergy

The customer had peanut allergy and he clearly mentioned that he wanted a nut-free dish while ordering his food. But the restaurant failed to inform him that its curry contained peanuts. Paul Wilson, 38, died from a severe anaphylactic shock after he ate his favourite chicken tikka masala prepared by the staff at the Indian Garden restaurant in Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

“Mohammed Zaman, the restaurant’s owner, was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter and sentenced to six years in jail after the jury at Teesside crown court was told he swapped almond powder in recipes for cheaper groundnut mix, containing peanuts, despite warnings,” The Guardian reported on 24th May 2016.

Zaman, it appeared, wanted to cut corners and therefore he swapped almond powder for cheaper groundnut mix. But that decision proved very costly for Zaman as it led to the death of an individual and a sentence of six years in jail for himself.

The tragic incident of this death due to gross negligence occurred in Britain but it could happen anywhere if restaurants are found wanting in properly conveying about the ingredients used in their recipes, especially to people who are allergic to certain food ingredients.

In such allergy-prone people, certain compounds in food trigger a cascade of immune system reactions that can cause symptoms ranging from a harmless but disturbing skin rash to a potentially lethal anaphylactic shock.

Different Allergy Sources