If your dc has egg allergy do you avoid foods from factories where egg is also used?

[CasaBevron]

I don't think I've ever started this many threads in one day! I think ds's allergies are really starting to sink in and I'm trying to get my head around weaning...

I've been looking at baby food websites to see if any of their foods are made in factories that also process nuts, and I don't think it ever occurred to me that I might need to do the same for egg. Surely you would have to rule out most ready-made foods if you did? Does anyone actively avoid foods that are made in a factory that also uses eggs??

Personally, no. As long as it doesn't say egg in the ingredients or 'may contain egg' then I let DS have it. Same goes for other allergens although I have occasionally given him things that say 'may contain milk/wheat etc' out of sheer desperation. I'm never sure how real the risk is though as some companies seem to put 'may contain' on everything just in case while others don't put it on anything. It's all so confusing and in the end I think you have to do whatever you feel happy with.

I don't either - and I also sometimes ignore 'may contain' warnings if I think they are probably just there for insurance purposes.

If we never ate anything which 'may contain' or was 'made in a factory which also handles', I just don't know what we would eat! I dread the day that Asda put a 'may contain' warning on their self-raising flour, pasta, apple juice...

I tend to try and think about whether or not the product I am buying might have been made on the same machine as something which contains dairy, eggs, nuts etc. I have learned that chocolate and other very sticky substances (such as dough) are very hard to clean thoroughly from the machinery, so the risks of contamination are greater.

For example, Warburtons crumpets are okay as they probably have their own dedicated machine, and Hovis Best-of-Both bread is okay for the same reason. However, DS had a nasty immediate-vomiting-and-very-flushed reaction to some Warburtons teacakes last week, and I suspect this was because they had been made on a machine which had recently been making teacakes containing foods that he is allergic to.

This whole labelling thing can be very worrying (as if you didn't have enough to worry about!!) but hopefully you will soon find a way through it, and will find your own personal favourite safe foods that you can fall back on

Thanks guys. To be honest, he is already eating stuff that has been made in egg-using factories, I just didn't realise until I went onto the company website to look up another product and saw that the snacks he has been munching on are made in a factory that uses eggs .

Thinking about it, I guess that at least anywhere that raw egg had been used would have to be properly cleaned anyway for food hygiene reasons, so the risk of cross-contamination is less...or am I just being naive?!

Sorry, meant to add hope your DS is okay Greenbananas. It's such a minefield isn't it?