> Better to be safe than sorry
This is the only way to live and keep living when someone is having life threatening condition due to food allergy.
My wife 'only' have coeliac so it is not life threatening 'only' have (lasting) long term consequences but still - or precisely for this, due to its stealthy nature - we are very diligent. We, not only she, because it affects daily life of both of us. Our home is a gluten free zone. People do not bring here any consumables when they are unaware of its composition. Eating out safely is non-existent. She accepts a certain and unknown level of damage - that is not prominent at the time. There are rules, law, but there are rules for taxation and speed limits too, yet people break those rules. When they have related risks on themselves as well. Not like here where the direct consequence (so excluding law breaking) is on others. People could be sloppy, people could be tired. People could be clueless but pretend otherwise. People could lie their socks off for 2 dollars more income if the consequence is almost exclusively on someone else. People make mistakes, conditions are not always full in control. And there are the vague, inadequate and easy to circumnavigate regualtions that we cannot rely on. Even in places we know we tend to talk repeatedly about coeliac approaches because personnel change, business incentive and owners' incentives evolve. And still we never know if someone is lieing or clueless. Luckily talking with them we developed a sense of if the person in front of you is aware and straight, taking about things seriously that affects your health and wellbeing only. Nomally the most reassuring places are the ones we avoid as they either not aware of the difficulty of the situation (e.g. cross contamination, brought in contaminants by personel, ..), or just do not care and lie with a kind face. Those with doubt at least think it through honestly.
But for us it is not (immediate) life or death situation. Still lots of sacrifice (cannot travel calmly and freely, very little dining out, cooking is the primary center of life, time and energy consuming, ...). Still nowhere near to those with life threatening food allergy. Sacrifice is life for those with condition, or easily no life at all.
And this is where I cannot understand ignorant people who endanger their loved ones by taking unnecessary risk, like the mother who's child is now dead in London after having a sip of hot chocolate from Costa. Was it worth it? No. Aware, emphasizing the situation to the staff that looks smug about it yet still risking having allergic reaction while carrying no epi-pen either? I hate that this aspect is not reflected at all in media report only that Costa staff killed the poor little girl (well, they did, or at least caused it), causing unimaginable suffering to the mother. For a cup of hot chocolate. For fuck's sake people, take it seriusly and be cautious like the blog author here and you, the OP. Your and your loved one's life depend on it, do not put into the hand of others having no incentives, or worse, only having contrary incentives!