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A thorough food allergy workup consists of your medical history, a physical exam, and one or more tests to determine if you are, in fact, allergic to certain foods and to identify the problem foods. Your allergist is likely to perform one or more of the following tests:

·        Skin tests: Skin tests consist of applying a tiny amount of the suspected allergen below the upper layer of the skin, usually by scratching or pricking the skin. A skilled allergist tests only the foods he suspects may cause reactions, based on the results of your history and physical exam, so no more than a few pokes with a needle are ever required.

·        Blood tests: Your allergist may draw a vial of blood and test it for the presence of antibodies that indicate the probability of an allergy to a specific food. These blood tests are commonly referred to as RASTs (short for radioallergosorbent tests) but more accurately called immunoassay for specific IgE. IgE (or Immunoglobulin E ) is a type of antibody that your immune system produces t Read the rest of this entry »

Most people don’t know or care where their nuts come from, but people who have tree nut allergies sure need to know. While peanuts, which aren’t really nuts, grow below the soil, almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, pecans, pistachios, and walnuts hang out in trees. Like peanuts, however, these tree nuts have a nasty habit of causing severe reactions through even the smallest exposure.

Technically, tree nuts have no family ties with peanuts, but their allergens share structural characteristics, which may explain why they are so potent and why 30 to 40 percent of the people who have peanut allergy also have tree nut allergies. If you’re allergic Read the rest of this entry »

An alcohol precipitation step in most total fiber analyses excludes monosaccharides and disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and fructans, and thus these substances would not be considered dietary fiber if one of these analytic methods constituted the definition of fiber. Most would argue that it is appropriate for monosaccharides and disaccharides to be excluded because they are formally characterized as sugars rather than fiber, but some disagreement exists on oligosaccharides and fructans. In particular, the oligosaccharides in beans (raffinose, stachyose, and verbacose) do not precipitate in alcohol, nor do certain manufactured carbohydrates, such as methylcellulose and polydextrose.