May is Food Allergy Action Month and although food intolerances and food allergies may get mistaken for each other, they are completely different things. So you might be asking then, what is the difference? A food intolerance is when a person has difficulty digesting a particular food, and involves the digestive system. Food intolerances are not life threatening. A food allergy is a reaction that involves the immune system and can be life threatening. They are abnormal immune reactions to a particular food or foods. The only way to prevent a food allergy reaction is to avoid the particular food altogether as there are no proven pharmaceutical interventions currently available to prevent a reaction.

Almost 6% of American adults suffer from food allergies. The top nine most common food allergens in the US are milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, fish, shellfish and sesame. The top eight allergens was recently changed to the top nine allergens when sesame was added to the major allergens list on January 1, 2023. This required sesame to be labeled as an allergen on packaged foods, including dietary supplements. Although this change is in place, foods that were already in the store or on the way to the store will not have sesame listed as an allergen on the label.

This means if you or someone you know is allergic to sesame you must still use caution when buying packaged foods. You can call the manufacturer to know if sesame is in a particular packaged food. A last thing to note is that food manufacturers can change the ingredients in their product at any time. So it is important to check the food label each time you purchase the food product, even if you didn’t have a reaction the last time you ate it.