Food Allergies Are Now Mainstream

A new study from Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) reveals that 85 million Americans avoid buying food with the top nine allergens in it because either they have allergies or members of their households have them.

It’s a story that Spoon Guru, the global leader in nutritional artificial intelligence, and that we work closely with, has been helping retailers across the world solve that problem for shoppers.

According to FARE, the top nine food allergens in the United States are milk, wheat, sesame, tree nuts, soy, fish, shellfish and peanuts. One out of four Americans or 85 million people avoid purchasing foods with these allergens. And an estimated 32 million Americans are at risk of having life-threatening allergic reactions.

Shoppers spend $19 billion per year on specialty food products without allergens, and FARE believes it is time for universal allergen labels, one reason? 71% of this group spend three to five minutes reading labels on each item they buy. More than half (53%) of America’s Food Allergy Consumers indicate current labels are problematic.

There is no question that food allergies are on the rise all over the world. And we can argue why, but the reasons seem to be specific to environmental factors, pollution, genetics, common Western diets and gut microbe changes. Some would suggest that there always were lots of people affected by food intolerances or allergies, but with increased science and technology our testing has become much improved, and that is the reason we are discovering more cases and have the ability to choose the right foods to reduce occurrences.