If I had a minor allergic reaction to a food once, can I continue eating that food?

Bob B. Gravani: Hi! I am Bob Gravani, I am a professor of Food Science at Cornell University in Ithaca New York. I spend a great deal of my career looking at and working on food safety issues and we have just recently completed a food allergen study, where we interviewed severely food allergic consumers and talked to them about, how they managed their food allergens. Today, I would like to talk a little bit about frequently asked questions regarding food allergens.

Host: If I had a minor allergic reaction to the food once, can I continue eating that food? Bob B. Gravani: When we think about avoiding certain foods because of severe allergic reactions, what we really want to look at is how we can get balance, variety and moderation in our diets and many of these offending foods are proteinaceous foods and there are lot of alternatives that can be included in the diet to make up the nutrients that might be lost in some of these food allergens.

So, again it's judicious choices, it's looking at alternatives, it's probably worth talking to a nutritionist or a dietitian, to get some advice on substitutes that can be added to the diet, to take the place of foods that were avoided because of severely allergic conditions.

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