Instead of complaining, I would like to thank the hard-working restaurant owners and servers in Moab for their contribution to the community. This is often a thankless job with very little respect and appreciation from the public. The week of May 6-12 was Food Allergy Awareness Week, an opportunity to educate members of our community about the very common problem of food allergy. Statistically, about 2-3 percent of Americans exhibit some sort of food allergy. That means that possibly, several hundred local people experience mild to severe reactions from eating food that seems quite ordinary to the rest of us.
Reactions can be as mild as a rash or as severe as death.
The most common foods that cause reactions are peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, eggs, milk, soy, and wheat. Anyone who serves food to another person, especially in restaurant and tour businesses and in school settings, will be particularly interested in learning about food allergies. By educating yourself, you could prevent an accident for a food-allergic person. People with food allergies must be confident of the ingredients of everything they eat. It simply isn't safe for them to eat food without a reliable label or accurate information from a food preparer.