I feel bad for those with any type of allergy. Mine are pollen related.

I fly CO, and they serve cashews. (Yum) Anyway, do those with the peanut allergy only have the allergy with respect to peanuts, or are other nuts involved?

Everybody is different. Peanuts are the most common problem nut to people, because they are the most "potent". My wife is allergic to most nuts, but some are totally OK, some, if she eats them, make her stomach very upset, and the worst (the peanut) would cause her to have her breathing passage swell shut so that she would die. For her, the higher the protein content, the more allergic she is. Eating a single nut, likely the only nut that kills her is the peanut. That one, almost guaranteed, certain death.

I had a patient years ago who had a severe allergic reaction after sitting next to someone who was eating peanuts - apparently some people are so sensitive that inhaling the peanut oil from the air can trigger anaphylaxis. Obviously this isn't something you'd want to chance in an airplane with limited air circulation at 30,000ft!

Seems silly, but it really isn't.

As described on whfoods.com:

Contrary to what their name implies, peanuts are not true nuts but a member of a family of legumes related to peas, lentils, chickpeas and other beans. Peanuts start growing as a ground flower that due to its heavy weight bends towards the ground and eventually burrows underground where the peanut actually matures. The veined brown shell or pod of the peanut contains two or three peanut kernels. Each oval-shaped kernel or seed is comprised of two off-white lobes that are covered by a brownish-red skin.

Not to dismiss the topic of food allergies (My sister has some very severe ones and carries--and has had to use--an epi-pen), but isn't anyone else as surprised as I am to think about how dust and oils from what you are eating travel around a plane?

If people eating nuts can propel this stuff in the air, depending on how well they chew with their mouth closed, what about germs and other icky things (not to mention just breathing in oils and dust of anything that others have exhaled...) Not that I am totally naive here, but isn't it a miracle that more people don't get colds, the flu, even TB??

I guess I preferred to just not think about it and take my chances, but now you guys have got me thinking about it.... No wonder all those people wore masks during the SARS epidemic.

yeech!

Isn't amazing what Southwest will do when the cameras are rolling?

Peanuts are only "not true nuts" by a very narrow definition of a nut is, and one that would not be shared by most users of the English language. Unless you are doing technical work in botany, a peanut is a nut despite what that web page says.

It may be of interest to note that all food shops in the UK now have to post signs about possible food allergens in the items they serve. On my most recent visit to MAN, I noticed that the bakery I frequent for lunchtime sandwiches now has a warning sign accompanied by a citation of the UK legal ordinance that requires it. Also, the ladies preparing the sandwiches verbally warn you if you order anything with nuts in it. This might be an EU-wide regulation, because I saw some kind of sign while in France (but my French is too rusty to know whether it said "Beware of allergens" or "Beware of Americans"

On the positive side, at least you prefaced your comment by admitting you don't know anything about allergies.

For those of us with allergies, most of the time you can control the outcome, ie. don't drink milk if allergic to dairy, don't sit in a room with dogs if allergic to animals. With peanuts, like other environmental ones, you cannot control everything - even if you don't eat them or touch them, they are still an environmental risk. I'm fortunate that, while I can't eat them, I can be around them. Still, these things can be pretty severe - I always have an Epi-Pen with me as well as allergy medication. And no, it's not Benadryl from Walgreens.

That's why when people stay stuff about peanut allergies not being so severe - or a similar comment about being allergic to milk vs. lactose intolerant - they are not making a useful or intelligent comment, just an ignorant one.

What brings about the allergy? Is it a genetical predisposition to developing it, or something else?

I imagine that SE Asia mus be one giant no-go zone.

OUCH! Hot soup out the nose!

I saw that Airline episode, and I wondered why the mom chose Southwest when she knew it wasn't a "peanut-free airline." It was nice of them to vaccum out the surrounding seats, but I wonder how much it delayed the flight and possibly caused other passengers to miss connections.

No one knows what causes allergies. There a ton of theories floating around- whether you had a fever before 12 months of age, how much dust or animal dander you were exposed to as a child, foods you were exposed to as a baby, genetics, the phase of the moon when you were born- it's a big mystery.

Essentially, an allergy is an auto-immune disease. Your body thinks that something harmless, like peanut oil or grass pollen, is a germ. It causes an inflammatory response and invokes your immune system to "get rid of" the allergen. But it's unclear why most people don't develop mis-behaving immune receptors, but other people do, and why there is so much variation in what causes reactions & the severity of the reactions. It's very interesting stuff.

And, as has been mentioned, even if an airline is "peanut free" that doen't mean that pax don't bring their own on board (as I do).

There still could be peanut dust/fragments there from pax who brought and consumed their own.

It is a dicey thing, and those with true and violent allergies to same have my sympathy and support.

While the point about life threatening allergies being "real" has already been made, I'll add this recent example from the UK, the deadly problem in this case being tomatoes:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004592192,00.html

I was under the (mistaken) impression that most airlines stopped serving food with nuts years ago. I had certainly never encountered many nuts while flying until very recently on a Qantas flight, when the *only* snack options contained nuts.

I am allergic to tree nuts, not peanuts, and I am not anaphylactic, but I do have asthma as well so accidentally eating nuts is very painful and uncomfortable (throat, tongue and lip swelling), though not life threatening (yet - each exposure increases that risk though). A reaction lasts for about 6 hours.

So on the flight I told the attendant that I was allergic, she freaked, said that I absolutely must update my PNR with the allergy information as they "don't like to mess around". I was very surprised that they were only serving nut products though as nut allergies in particular have been very widely publicised in recent years.

I haven't yet done this though I have a lot of upcoming flights with UA. How much detail does one need to go when detailing special needs?

I'm always loath to ask for special-anything anywhere as it usually gets stuffed up. 3 weeks ago I was at a conference dinner and was literally just about to put a forkfull of desert in my mouth before a staffmember ran over and swapped it for fruit. They'd forgotten that the desert had walnuts.