By Rickaya Branch, Environmental Health Specialist 2
As we all know, food allergens affect millions of people each year, including many of the customers you serve each day. Food allergies cause serious attacks on the body’s immune system when certain foods are introduced to an individual who is allergic to the proteins in that food. We also know that food allergens can be life threatening, causing anaphylactic shock, which can, sequentially, cause death.
The FDA is involved with enforcing regulations to assist us in identifying what allergen foods are in which products. Be sure to read the label of all containers of food to ensure that an allergen food is not being served to an individual who is allergic to that food. Cross contamination of allergen food with a non-allergen food must also be avoided. Be mindful to separate allergens foods as much as possible from non-allergen foods, ensure hands are cleaned thoroughly after working with allergen foods and ensure equipment and utensils are cleaned and sanitized thoroughly after being used with an allergen food. We must all do our part to ensure that we are keeping customers and the public safe from food allergens, which includes training food service workers in food allergy awareness as it relates to their assigned duties.
Please continue to be diligent in our quest to maintain healthy lives and keep our public citizens safe from harm by ensuring all employees are educated about food allergens.
For more information, visit https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/food-allergies
Cobb & Douglas Environmental Health Blog 