May contain: The food allergy risk
The Food Chain
BBC
4.7 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What it’s like for your child to be diagnosed with life-threatening food allergies? Ruth Alexander explores the realities of shopping, socialising and eating out with a food allergy, and discusses what needs to change to make food safer for everyone.
Amanda Bee and her daughter Vivian, 13, tell us how they navigate her allergies to milk, beef and dragonfruit.
We hear from Dr Alexandra Santos, a professor of paediatric allergy at King's College London, about why food allergies are rising across the world.
In which parts of the world is it most difficult to have a food allergy? Deshna in Coimbatore, India, tells us what it’s like to have a lactose allergy in a country that uses so much milk and cheese.
Chief of the food allergy committee at the World Allergy Organisation, Alessandro Fiocchi, and head of allergy at the paediatric hospital Bambino Gesu in Rome, explains the problems around ‘may contain’ labelling and how confusing they can be to consumers. And how despite the challenges, medicine is providing more and more solutions to those living with food allergies.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm no longer ravenous. I'll no longer eat until I fall asleep. The Hunger Game, |
| 0:05.9 | a new five-part series exploring the meteoric rise of weight loss drugs. It's been an incredible |
| 0:10.7 | story with these drugs. The uptake, the amount of product that's been sold, the amounts of money |
| 0:15.1 | is cost. What the drugs do, how they work, and the knock-on effects of their widespread use. |
| 0:20.5 | We'll be sitting here in three years' time going, oh, it caused problems that we're now going to have to fix. |
| 0:26.2 | The Hunger Game with me, Professor Gilesio. |
| 0:29.1 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.4 | We have dealt with real grief in our family over food allergies. |
| 0:38.1 | I've had EpiPen Vivian nine times to keep her alive. |
| 0:44.6 | I have held my daughter when she was younger while she sobbed for hours because it was so unfair that she has food allergies and other kids don't. |
| 0:56.7 | And why am I not getting invited to birthday parties? |
| 1:00.8 | Why am I not invited to play dates? |
| 1:07.3 | Parents would tell me, you know, they were just too afraid to have her there. |
| 1:13.0 | And that really hurts. This is Amanda B in Utah, the United States, the mother of Vivian, who's |
| 1:20.6 | 13, loves to play soccer, and is severely allergic to beef, cows milk, and dragon fruit. |
| 1:27.4 | I always keep my EpiPin with me and I read the ingredient labels on every allergic to beef, cow's milk, and dragon fruit. |
| 1:31.8 | I always keep my EpiPin with me and I read the ingredient labels on everything. |
| 1:35.5 | And I just make sure that I don't eat anything that I'm allergic to. |
| 1:39.2 | And she has to avoid cross-contact as well. So lots of hand washing. |
| 1:46.7 | Yeah. I can't eat chicken that's like cooked on the same thing that like a beef burger was cooked on. |
| 1:53.6 | This episode of the food chain from the BBC World Service with me Ruth Alexander is about food allergies. |
| 2:00.6 | What it's like to shop for groceries, cook and eat out, when even a trace of the wrong ingredient can be dangerous. We'll be talking to those with severe allergies, those who prepare food for them, |
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