What works, what doesn't work.

I've talked to quite a few people lately about food allergies and dealing with them and there seems to be quite a bit of misconception about how to clean surfaces so they're "safe" for a food allergic person. I also had people ask about cooking the foods, if that will make them "safe".I decided after reading another blog that I'd do a bit of a PSA about how to deal with surfaces and cleaning them and why cooking foods doesn't necessarily work.

Thanks to H1N1, people are washing their hands more frequently (or at least we're told to do so). Basic soap and water with lots of hand to hand contact will remove those food proteins left behind. Many wipes and spray cleaners do the trick, too.

What doesn't work? Plain water alone, plain soap alone and hand santizer. Hand santizer DOES NOT REMOVE FOOD PROTEINS! It just kind of spreads them around.

For airborne allergens, nothing works except NOT consuming the offending food. Peanut it the most common airborne allergy, but some people, including Bryce, are also airborne to egg. We can bake with eggs or hard boil and egg, but we can't scramble or fry an egg when he's around. It releases the proteins in the air & causes a reaction. This isn't very common, but it does happen.

Now to the misunderstanding regarding cooking foods and making them safe for a food allergic person. I think this comes in to play because some folks with an egg allergy, let's say, can tolerate some egg in a baked good (like a muffin), but they can't eat an egg on it's own. This relates to that person being able to tolerate some amount of the food and has nothing to do with the egg having been cooked. It's a person by person issue.

Let's review:
Works: hand washing, vigorous scrubbing, with soap AND water
Doesn't work: hand sanitizer, wiping dry hands on napkin, waving them in the air