All of us with allergies are very careful…depending of the level of the potential reaction, maybe extremely careful. There is no substitute for asking questions about every bite of food you eat when dining out. If you’ve had the same salad at the same restuarant 10 times, you still can’t get lazy. A new cook, a new recipe for the dressing, unaware staff not being ultra-careful about cross-contamination; if you don’t tell your server what you cannot have, there may be an unwelcome surprise.
And, with experience, you do start to learn which foods or cuisines hold more risk than others. Upcoming, here is a look at the Big 8 – the eight most common allergen food groups (which make up 90% of allergies), and a sampling of the surprising places they often lurk.
