Vague labelling makes my food shopping truly dangerous

BROWSING the supermarket shelves, I look longingly at custard tarts, croissants, chocolate cake and sticky toffee pudding.

I can’t eat any of them — and not because I’m on a January diet. The trouble is there is a risk that these foods could contain ingredients that at best could make me very ill, and at worst could kill me.

Like a growing number of people, I suffer from lifethreatening food allergies, in my case to nuts and fish.

When I was eight, I ate a peanut-butter sandwich and suddenly found myself struggling to breathe. In hospital a series of tests revealed I had developed allergies not only to peanuts but also to all nuts — and fish.

I’ve avoided these foods ever since — but doing so can be challenging. With almost every item I pick up in the supermarket bearing a ‘not suitable for nut allergy sufferers’ or ‘may contain traces of nuts’ label, I often go home empty-handed.

Recently, I got back from a futile trip round the shops to find two letters on my doormat. One was from my GP, the other from the chemist. Both informed me that my emergency allergy auto-injector — which I must use to deliver a shot of adrenaline if I have a reaction — may be faulty.

During tests, the needle had blocked in some adrenaline pens made by Emerade, meaning the potentially life-saving drug could not be injected.

Without a working injector I could die within 30 minutes.

Typically, someone suffering a reaction will experience difficulty in breathing and swallowing, as the tongue swells, and feelings of faintness.

They should dial 999 and slam an injector pen against their outer thigh — or have someone else do it for them — whereupon the needle ejects and delivers the adrenaline.

This drug brings down the swelling, opens the airways and raises blood pressure.

The problem is, there is no way of knowing if your pen is faulty until that moment.

The risk of malfunction is small, with only 2.3 in 1,000 Emerade pens thought to be affected, but to me it feels like playing Russian roulette.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency advises that all people at risk carry two autoinjectors at all times.

Nicola Brathwaite, a consultant paediatric allergist at King’s College Hospital in London, warns that young people are particularly prone to leaving their allergy devices at home.

Yet it is all too easy to be caught out with a food allergy, especially when food labelling is so poor. Until now, food prepared on the same premises from which it is sold has not been required to be labelled with every ingredient it contains.

From 2021, when Natasha’s Law comes into force, every ingredient will have to be listed clearly. It took the tragic death in 2016 of teenager Natasha Ednan-Laperouse to prompt this change.

Many allergy sufferers feel that labels should not only reflect what a product contains but also be specific about what they do not. The sheer number of ‘may contain’ labels makes living with an allergy incredibly difficult.

What are children supposed to eat at birthday parties when every food product carries a warning? We don’t all have time to prepare every meal and snack from scratch.

If an item carries a ‘may contain’ badge then it would be helpful if it explained why. Has the product been on the same production line as that allergen, for example? Or was it made in a factory where that allergen was present but in an entirely separate area?

There would be a big market for food supplied by nut-free factories. Until then, you’ll find me grasping my two adrenaline pens and weeping in the aisles for the cakes and croissants I daren’t have.