In kindergarten, Owen Kellogg came home sobbing one day because another boy at school had told him that he had a peanut, and that he was going to force Owen to eat it.

Owen, now 7, is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, said his mother, Haylee Kellogg of Cedar Hills, Utah. In reality, the taunting boy did not have a peanut, but Owen didn't know that - he just knew that eating a peanut could make him stop breathing.
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Elizabeth Gordon is the author of 'The Complete Allergy-Free Comfort Foods Cookbook and Allergy-Free Desserts'. She was diagnosed with multiple food allergies in 2007 after the birth of her first child and decided to combine her social work background with her love of the culinary arts to help people just like her. She cooks up new treats, weekly, on her blog allergyfreedelights.com

The United States is home to 9 million adults and 6 million children coping with food allergies ranging from annoying rashes to life-threatening anaphylaxis. Millions of other families are taking note of government-funded initiatives like Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move project and reaching for less processed and more natural fare.

While healthy and safe eating is the common denominator between these groups, there is likely another: sticker shock when the checkout person hands over the grocery receipt.
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Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack and...on second thought, I'll just have a brat and a Miller Lite.

For millions of allergy sufferers across the country, someone else's snack can mean a deadly attack. Now one more major league team has been added to the roster of baseball parks offering dedicated peanut-free seating at some games.

The Milwaukee Brewers announced in a press release that there will be a 100-seat peanut-controlled area at Miller Park for games on Monday, May 7, Thursday, July 26 and Friday, September 14, with tickets available for pre-order starting March 1 at Brewers.com/peanutcontrolled. Because the entire venue will not be peanut-free, those seated in the area will be required to sign a waiver.
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"Dad, my throat hurts. Can you get me some cough drops?" B.J. Hom asked his father, Brian.

Brian had no idea those would be the last words he would hear his son say.

The Hom family had just arrived at a resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, to celebrate B.J.'s high school graduation and 18th birthday. But while Brian went to get cough drops at the gift shop, B.J. collapsed, his lips blue and his face pale, gasping for breath. He died that night from an allergic reaction, probably to unnoticed peanuts in a dessert from the dinner buffet.

"It was like someone reached in and ripped our hearts out," said Brian Hom of San Jose, California.

Read - "Study: Food allergies more common, more severe among children"

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Packets of peanuts are in no danger of disappearing completely from airplanes. In a nutshell, there's a law protecting them.

Last year, the Department of Transportation asked the public about a possible peanut ban on planes and other measures it said it was considering to address severe allergies among fliers.

It presented three options for debate: a complete ban on serving peanuts on planes, a ban on serving them when a passenger requests a peanut-free flight in advance, or a requirement for peanut-free buffer zones around severely allergic passengers who make advance requests.

The agency also solicited public input on health risks and the idea of maintaining current practice.

Read the rest of "Peanuts on planes protected by law" on CNN Travel.

Remember waaayyyy back to a few weeks ago when a bunch of Florida parents banded together in an attempt to bar a peanut-allergic first grader from attending school?

Now her father is speaking out about miscommunication and threats from people who've claimed they may try to deliberately trigger her attacks.

See all peanut allergy coverage

Previously – Parents picket peanut allergic girl

To most, they're just snacks on a plane or part of an innocent lunchtime PB&J. To an ever-increasing number of kids, though, even minimal exposure to peanuts can mean a trip to the hospital - or even death.

In Volusia County, Florida, parents of children at Edgewater Elementary School are demanding that one allergic girl withdraw from school, so that their children will not have to take such precautions as leaving their lunches outside or washing their hands before class. They argue that the time taken to enact these measures is stealing too much focus from their own children's learning, but the school is standing behind these measures, saying they're legally required to provide a safe environment for the first grader.
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We pay an awful lot of attention to what our commenters have to say, and so we took note of an argument that cracked wide open yesterday amongst the readers of our piece on packing healthy kid lunches.

By the way, re: peanut butter allergies in the schools... this might sound harsh, but other people's weaklings aren't our problem. Until the last 50 years, this would've been part of natural selection. Now we want to coddle everyone. If your kid can't handle peanut butter, keep them locked up in the house for all I care... but don't expect everyone else to have to "accomodate". - Joe

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Forget about snakes on a plane - there's a nuttier problem.

A recent proposal by the Department of Transportation could ban those petite packets of peanuts from being served on airplanes. The proposal came about in order to accommodate those flyers with severe nut allergies.

Weigh in: do nuts (the edible kind) belong on planes?

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