Lessons from the Peanut Allergy Community for Avoiding Salmonella

If there is any possible silver lining to the current Salmonella outbreak, it's this: if you don't currently avoid peanuts due to an allergy, labeling laws in effect since 2004 will help you avoid the packaged foods that are currently being recalled at an alarming rate for microbe contamination as well as other potential sources of Salmonella Typhinium that may not yet have been identified.

Unlike previous incidents of peanut butter Salmonella contamination, the current issues involve a wholesaler whose products go to institutions, cafeterias, and food manufacturers -- meaning that jarred peanut butter is, ironically, perhaps one of the less likely products to harbor the strain of Salmonella that has sickened at least five hundred people. (You can learn more about the conditions at the Blakely, Georgia King Nut plant at Ingrid Koo's Infectious Disease site.) What the length of the recall list demonstrates is that avoiding peanuts goes far beyond simply nixing jarred nuts and PB&J. The recalled products include ice cream, popcorn, pet food, cookies, and more.

Avoiding peanuts in grocery store foods, if you so choose, involves careful label reading. (Check out How to Decipher Labels for Allergens and Foods to Avoid on a Peanut-Free Diet for a refresher course.) One tricky aspect of avoiding peanuts in eating out is that a number of cuisines use peanut butter as a potential hidden ingredient -- it's particularly common in east Asian cookery, especially Thai and Chinese, and as a thickener in some chilis and sauces (even spaghetti sauce!). Since the implicated manufacturer sold to some restaurants and wholesalers, eating out may be a particular concern if you're in a high-risk group for Salmonella poisoning.

Two good things can come out of this situation -- better oversight for manufacturing of food ingredients (if nothing else, this will certainly be top of mind during confirmation hearings for whoever is nominated to head the FDA) and a little more societal empathy for people who avoid peanuts all the time, not just when a health scare hits the news.

• AP: In Salmonella Scare, Look Closely for Hidden Nuts
• About.com Infectious Diseases: Foodborne Diseases
• About.com First Aid: There're So Many Foods!