Next Monday, May 11, marks the beginning of the 11th Annual Food Allergy Awareness Week. Awareness is kind of a tricky beast; virtually everyone would, when asked if they'd heard of food allergies, say yes. But at the same time, most people are (understandably) not clear on the potential effects of an allergic reaction and what it takes to stay on top of maintaining a diet completely free of any food, whether it's something ubiquitous or something not-so-common, until someone very close to them is diagnosed with an allergy. Well-intentioned people are sometimes hurt when someone with an allergy won't taste their home-baked foods ("I'm sure everything I used to make this is safe, really!") or when a parent won't blithely leave an allergic child in their care for a special outing ("I'll be sure not to feed her any peanuts at the ballpark, really!").
This is not to say that these sorts of precautions aren't worth it; quite the contrary. It's simply to point out that, at least to my mind, the gap in public awareness is largely in the area of understanding day-to-day management of allergies. And if that gap were filled -- if most people understood the intricacies of keeping away from allergens, and if most people realized that an imperceptibly tiny amount of food can cause a life-threatening reaction in a susceptible person -- it might make some aspects of living with food allergies easier. At the very least, it might help eliminate some of the more common social pressures ("Just let him try a little; a little won't hurt, really!") and reduce resistance to better accommodations in schools and other public places.
The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network has a Food Allergy Awareness Week resource guide with everything from a calendar of simple daily activities to templates for presentations about allergies. I'd also like to suggest a couple of ideas: one very simple, and one that may take a little more chutzpah.
The simple idea: do you have a friend or acquaintance who's interested in cooking? Especially if you're allergic to something that's in a lot of common ingredients, it might be illuminating to invite a friend over to share in meal preparation and eating with you. All sorts of questions often flow from these kinds of gatherings, and it's a friendly, fun way to pull back the curtain a bit and share information.
Another idea for those with a lot of chutzpah is to challenge people in your life to live "how the other half lives" for a week, or even a few days. If you have a blog, this might be an interesting thought experiment. The filmmakers of King Corn took this approach with their Corn-Free Challenge and quickly learned from the corn allergy community just how pervasive corn is in the American diet. And in turn, they raised awareness about just how difficult most people would find it to live without corn for even a short period of time. (You can read more about the challenge and find a link to a list of ingredients that contain corn here.)
I've seen variations of this challenge by Type 1 diabetics and by others who are living with chronic conditions. And I always find people's reactions fascinating -- there's so often an element of "Wow, I could never do that" and a new respect for the lifestyle they've tried out. As the old saying goes, "before you judge someone, walk a mile in his shoes" -- or, in this case, spend a few days in his pantry.