A 33-year-old British man has died after eating a plate of ultra-hot chile sauce, leaving his family to wonder if the chiles did it. Andrew Lee died several hours after eating a plate full of pasta sauce made with chiles grown by his father, in a contest with a friend over who could consume the spiciest food. He reported feeling itchy before going to bed; his girlfriend found him dead the next morning.



But how likely is it that the chiles actually killed him? Last year, the magazine Mental Floss compiled links to several studies about spicy food and death. Apparently, at least eight children have died from chile aspiration - but that means they inhaled ground pepper, not that they ate it. An academic paper about the physiological effects of capsaicin (the compound that makes peppers spicy) suggests that the toxic human dose would be so high it would be almost impossible to consume via regular food. So I'm guessing that Lee died from an allergy to something in the sauce, or from an unrelated cause. But that hardly makes for a grab-you headline, does it.

Sensitive to peanuts or eggs? Scientists may have found a new antidote.

People who are allergic to, say, pollen or animal dander can receive allergy shots, in which they are injected with small amounts of the substances that make them itch and sniffle.

Similarly, researchers at National Jewish Medical and Research Center are feeding small amounts of the proteins from peanuts and eggs to the allergic patients, to see if their immune systems can tolerate the food. They will consume increasing amounts of the proteins until they get to a "maintenance" level (much like how allergy shots work).

The researchers' hope is to eventually find an actual preventative treatment for people with peanut and egg allergies, instead of just telling them to try their best to avoid the foods that might make them react. And for people with serious allergies like these, this will hopefully be encouraging news.

At Duke University, researchers have been engaged in an experiment that could change the lives of those with severe food allergies. Those allergies trigger approximately 30,000 emergency-room visits each year and are sometimes the result of an exposure to a very tiny amount of allergen. This new study suggests that gradually increasing exposure to even smaller amounts of the allergen can build up a resistance - especially in children - and prevent one mouthful of the wrong food from becoming deadly.

In the study, children were given amounts of defatted peanut flour or an egg powder - very common, but serious, allergens - as small as 1/3,000th of a peanut or about 1/1,000th of an egg (under supervision at the Duke Hospital). Taken in pill form daily, the dosage was increased bi-weekly until the children were consuming the equivalent of 1/10th of an egg or 1 peanut, which became a maintenance dose that they took daily throughout the study, which lasted about 2 years. At that point, 4 of the 7 egg-allergic children could eat two scrambled eggs without any type of reaction (2 more could eat that much before reacting) and many of the peanut-allergic children could eat up to 15 peanuts before starting to experience a reaction.

At this time, researchers strongly recommend that you do not try this type of treatment at home, because it can be dangerous without careful monitoring. To the parents who joined in, however, the success could prove to be a lifesaver for their children and, as a result, researchers are optimistic that there could be a highly effective treatment available to parents and children within five years.

Back-to-school season means that more kids will be packing sandwiches with them on a daily basis and, more often than not, the sandwich of choice is peanut butter and jelly. Between nut allergies and simply growing bored with the same old sandwich, non-peanut butters are growing in popularity - which also means that they are more widely available than ever before. A few years ago, almond butter was relegated to health food stores, and now it appears on the regular shelf with cashew butter, soy butters and sunflower seed butter, which is completely nut-free for those with allergies.

These non-peanut butters can be substituted for peanut butter in more than just sandwiches. They make excellent cookies and work well in what would ordinarily be peanut flavored sauces and dressings. Most of the butters come in crunchy and smooth versions, as well.

Do you use non-peanut butters? If you can't find any at a store near your, you can try making your own cashew butter, but once you have a good source, you can branch out into other recipes. And don't forget to try them on toast or in pb&j!

Anywhere from 1-6% of Britons suffer, to one degree or another, from an allergy to latex. The rubber-based product is used in several types of food packaging materials, including rubber bands, stickers and adhesives. Often, these products to not come into contact with food at all, but a recent study commissioned by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) found that in some cases the latex is transferred to the food. It can take as little 1 one billionth of a gram to trigger a latex allergy, so some groups, like the UK's Latex Allergy Support Group, are calling for a change in labeling guidelines to protect consumers.

The FSA has said that it is too soon to draw conclusions based on the results of one study. There is no information available yet on how many, if any, allergic reactions have actually been caused from a food-related exposure to latex.

Can you believe that the cake on the front cover of this book is gluten free? Is everyone - whether you have allergies or not - drooling? 125 Best Gluten-Free Recipes is, as the title suggests, a cookbook of entirely gluten-free recipes that work. It's a great resource for both celiacs and for people who have friends and family with celiac disease. The recipes cover every meal of the day and primarily consist of made-over recipes that will reintroduce old favorites (now gluten-free, of course) back into your kitchen. There are many different muffins, cookies, cakes and even recipes for sandwich loaves because when authors Donna Washburn and Heather Butt asked families what kinds of gluten-free recipes they were interested in seeing, these were some of the favorites that they named. They're comforting foods and the book lets celiacs keep them that way.

In addition to the recipes, which are accompanied by wonderful photographs, there is an extensive guide to alternative flours and techniques for using them, which will enable cooks to adapt some of their old favorites to a new dietary standards.

A 19-year old South Carolina man died as a result of eating a batch of pancakes from an expired mix. It wasn't exactly the pancakes that killed him, though. He seems to have had an allergic reaction to a mold that grew in the mix.

As unfortunate as this story is, it can illustrate a valuable point to everyone about checking expiration dates, especially on things that have a long shelf life. While the ingredients, which in the case of pancake mixes consist primarily of flour, can last for a long time in a cool, dry place, unwanted things can develop over time. Sometimes a product can smell or look "off, though a potential problem may not be obvious to the naked eye. "Unseen molds can trigger both minor and severe allergic reactions, so it is best to throw out an old mix than to risk anaphylactic shock - especially if you are prone to allergies.

 Update: Link is now fixed

There's a lot of banning of foods going on these days - first sodas from school campuses to help fight childhood obesity, and now...nuts. With the seeming increase in peanut and other tree-nut allergies, schools, restaurants and airlines are banning foods that contain peanuts, almonds, walnuts, and other tree nuts.

I understand the idea behind "banning" say, sodas from schools. Sodas and junk foods are blamed for the decline in nutrition and increase of childhood obesity, so they must be removed from school campuses, where the target audience is likely not able to make wise, informed choices. They are children.

But peanuts? I do not particularly love peanuts, almonds, walnuts, or things that contain them like peanut butter. And I certainly understand the severity and gravity of nut allergies. In schools, removing nuts might be a good idea based on the same idea with sodas - that children with allergies don't always know what they're eating. However, it seems somewhat extreme to ban these foods from restaurants and airplanes, as if adult consumers weren't smart enough to make the choice not to eat something that is potentially life threatening to themselves.

If you have a peanut allergy, don't you know that you do? If you have a peanut allergy, you are careful about what you eat and don't have a problem asking what's in a certain food. If you have a life-threatening allergy, you're probably carrying an epi-pen, too.

 

Well, not exactly. Scientists are working with an enzyme found in fruits and vegetables that may prove useful in lessening severe allergic reactions to peanuts. In lab tests, the enzyme polyphenol oxidase (PPO) changed the proteins in peanut extracts such that they couldn't bind with certain antibodies and cause an allergic reaction. Still, this was only true for two of the eight allergens found in peanuts, and tests on animals or humans are far off. The goal of the current research is not to develop peanut products that are intended for those with peanut allergies, but to lower the risk of severe reactions if someone were to accidentally consume peanuts.

Peanut and other tree nut allergies generally produce the most severe reactions. Approximately 0.6% of Americans have peanut/tree nut allergies, out of a total of 1.6% with food allergies of some kind. Unlike some other allergies, which seem to be outgrown by children, the reaction to these nuts does not fade with age and can increase in severity with each exposure. In fact, the number of people who have food allergies seems to be increasing, according to Dr. Hugh A. Sampson of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the Journal of Pediatrics, though he notes that the reason for the rise has not yet been determined. It is thought that the increase may be due to an increase in the number of trace exposures to allergens, a concern that has contributed to the FDA's push for new labeling laws.