As you may know we at Kafoodle have been taking part in the One McPeake Challenge to raise awareness for Anaphylaxis Campaign. As a part of this challenge, each member of the Kafoodle Team drew one of the 14 food allergens from a hat to live with for the next two weeks.
For some of the team this was to be their first experience of living with a food allergy, the first time they’d need to study food labels and ask for allergen folders in restaurants and it was eye-opening from the onset.
As people drew lots their first response was often ‘oh no I can’t eat X’ or ‘I won’t be able to have Y’ as it began to dawn on them the sacrifices those with food allergies have to make on a daily basis.
For some of the team living with food allergies is a part of their norm and adding one more to the mix may not have been quite as overwhelming but did present its own set of challenges, further limiting the choices available to them on the supermarket shelves and when dining out.
Our Head of Sales, Annie, drew fish as her food-allergy and when dining out to eat came across a decision that has to be made by many allergy sufferers on a regular basis - do you eat at a restaurant when your allergen features heavily on the menu and then trust that the kitchen is hot on cross contamination and will keep you safe?
Annie was open with staff about her participation in the challenge and chose one of the few non-fish dishes from the menu, but was told by the server that if she were to have had a real allergy to fish then ‘she should probably not eat here’.
Luckily for Annie, she could still enjoy her meal out but this encounter highlighted one of the difficult decisions that severe allergy sufferers must make on a daily basis, one which could potentially cost them their lives.
Moving into week two of the challenge the team are still going strong. Stay tuned to find out how we get on in week two of the challenge and for the post-challenge interviews to follow.
If you’d like to better cater for those with food-allergies then get in touch today to see how Kafoodle’s innovative food-management software and communications framework can help.