tree nut allergies and vegan food - a dangerous combination

With vegan diets on the rise due to medical conditions, health trends and availability of products at your local grocer, what does this mean for those with life threatening food allergies? Many vegan food products on the market contain tree nuts, particularly cashews. Can someone with a tree nut allergy even be a successful, thriving vegan? 

I've pondered these issues for the past few years, ever since my brother-in-law went vegan after suffering a heart attack. Then a second brother-in-law went vegan after his diagnosis of advanced heart disease. I have the utmost respect for people taking care of their health and improving their diets. And I know it wasn't easy for these meat eating, cheese loving, red wine drinking guys (actually, I think they still drink red wine). But I also want to protect my daughter, who has an anaphylactic allergy to peanuts, soy, peas and tree nuts.

So when the requests starting coming for our family get togethers to be vegan - and also gluten free for some others - in addition to my already existing requests for food to be peanut and tree nut free, it became a real challenge to safely feed everyone. Simply put, while most people in the general food eating population think it's incredibly innovative and fabulous that cashews can be turned into everything from cheese to burgers to, well, cheese burgers, it is just another dangerous food for someone who is severely allergic to tree nuts. Sometimes it can also be fatal.

Recently I stumbled across an amazing website - the F.A.T.E. Initiative (www.fateinitiative.com). F.A.T.E is a non-profit organization dedicated to training and educating individuals on life-saving practices in situations relating to food allergies. The site was founded by Joey Salmingo, of Markham, Ontario, in memory of his sister. Two years ago, 30-year old Joanna Salmingo purchased some mochi at her Whole Foods market. According to the Whole Foods website, "mochi ice cream is a trendy Japanese-American dessert made of bite-sized ice cream balls enveloped in sweet rice dough." According to me - it's good stuff and my daughters and I were instantly smitten with the pretty colors, interesting taste and texture, and novelty of this new dessert treat. 

Joanna Salmingo also had tried mochi before and liked it. She was not allergic to the mochi she had before. However, two things happened on the fateful day that Ms. Salmingo consumed the mochi from Whole Foods. First, there was no list of ingredients or allergy warning on the mochi display. Food items sold on the store shelves require a list of ingredients and highlighted list of top 8 allergens as per food labelling laws. But this display lacked any ingredient or allergen information. So Joanna, thinking she was not allergic to mochi, thought she would try some, assuming it was just rice and ice cream. 

Second, and most critically, the mochi that was purchased and consumed by Ms. Salmingo, who had a life threatening allergy to tree nuts, was vegan mochi. This unlabelled vegan mochi was displayed with the other mochi flavors. While the display screamed "Vegan!" there was no indication that vegan meant that ice cream was replaced with cashew milk. Tragically, Ms. Salmingo died almost immediately after eating the mochi she had no idea contained cashews.

The F.A.T.E. initiative was created in her memory, to educate others on the importance and necessity of proper training and labelling with food service at restaurants, airlines, schools, and more. Please check out this amazing website when you can. ​Whole Foods changed their displays after this incident and added proper labelling; but it is unfortunate that it took a tragedy for this to happen.