When children, all of us had foods that we really like, and many that we
really believed we hated!
Often, to the adults in our young lives, these likes and dislikes make no
sense whatsoever, and more often than not, they are correct to adopt this
view. For instance, as a kid I loved tomato soup but hated tomatoes and
tomato juice, which I admit makes no sense whatsoever!
As we grow older, most of us grow out of these likes and dislikes, simply
because that is all they were little more than a passing phase of liking or
disliking something.
For a large number of people, however, the problem that they have with
food is more far reaching and serious than this.
For these people, certain foodstuffs will trigger an adverse physical reaction,
and while not all of these people are completely allergic to any particular
foodstuff, their bodily reaction might indicate otherwise.
In the West, the most common food allergy is to peanuts, while allergic
reactions to tree nuts are far less common.
Despite this, however, most people know little about peanut allergy, or any
other form of adverse reaction to nuts.
They would, therefore, have very little chance of recognizing such a
condition in friends or family members, and this can be a particularly serious
problem for the parents of young children for whom peanut allergy can be
an extremely serious and distressing problem.
This book will teach you what you need to know about such allergies,
focusing primarily on peanut allergy (as this is the condition which most
people are likely to be exposed to), other adverse reactions to peanut-based
products, and what you can do to deal with those problems.
In the last few pages of the book, we will look at a few of the important facts
about tree nut allergies.