Middle-classes’ exotic diet blamed for rise in allergies

ADVENTUROUS middle-class diners are contributing to a sharp rise in allergic reactions to food because they are more willing to try exotic items with labels not written in English, food safety watchdogs warned.

Foods such as fruit and seafood are causing higher instances of adverse reactions, a report by the Food Standards Agency found. Teenagers and people in their twenties are most at risk, the FSA said, because they are more likely to experience peer pressure to try different foods, take risks with foods they are unsure about, and are more embarrassed about their ignorance, making them less likely to ask questions.

The watchdog said: “Reports from experts and consumers indicate that more adults are becoming allergic to foods and the types of foods which adults are experiencing issues with are more diverse.” It attributed a sharp rise in the number of allergy alerts issued to consumers to labels being written in a foreign language.

The watchdog is so concerned about allergies in young adults that it will use a board meeting this month to propose a shift away from its current focus on food allergy in infants and children, to researching adult allergies.

Comparatively little data has been collected on adults, but experts agree that middle-class lifestyles where world cuisine is commonplace were likely to be behind the increase. Holly Shaw, a nurse adviser at Allergy UK, said: “Modern lifestyles will be responsible for more people trying different foods as people have more diversity of choice now than they did 50 years ago.

“A lot of work has been done to address the problem of allergies in infants but there are big parts of the jigsaw that we don’t understand. Teenagers are a particularly worrying group in terms of eating away from home and not fully understanding the food.” There is no cure for food allergy or intolerance but the condition can be managed with a strict avoidance diet.

The FSA said the number of alerts it issued to consumers about undisclosed allergens in food increased from 73 in 2014 to 92 in 2015. The main reasons for this, it said, were products being placed in the wrong packaging, or labels not being in English.

The watchdog is also concerned that “may contain” allergy labels are used so widely that people with allergies are “indulging in risk-taking behaviour” and choose to ignore the claims.

The NHS does not hold data on specific food allergies but figures show overall allergies, which include food allergies, are rising. According to NHS Digital, there were 25,093 hospital admissions for allergies in England in 2015-16, up 36 per cent from 2011-12 when there were 18,471 admissions.

Hospital admissions for anaphylactic shocks also rose by 19 per cent, from 3,735 in 2011-12 to 4,451 in 2015-16.