Carmine

[Ava]

Hi,

I have a recently diagnosed allergy, or I guess it is an intolerance, for Carmine (natural red dye 4). I have found it hard to identify it especially at restaurants since it is a lesser used dye. I have tried to get ingredient lists for foods from restaurants that I have had reactions to after eating, I am trying to figure out what actually contains Carmine. Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you!

[Julia (Admin)Keymaster]

Hi Ava!

I totally understand your pain- allergies outside the top 8 are always more difficult to manage. But with something like a carmine allergy, most servers can’t comprehend it much less find it in the ingredients of foods in their restaurant since it is so obscure. In your case, I would recommend previewing any restaurants you intend on eating at during an off-time before you actually dine. When you go ahead of time, ask the person at the front desk if you can speak to the chef about a food allergy concern. If this is possible, you can see if the chef will let you read the labels of various ingredients in foods that you are interested in so that you know what you can order when you actually dine.

Another suggestion that I will reiterate from my videos and blogs is to order foods that will be naturally free of your allergens. Some suggestions for this would be grilled chicken and vegetables or a salad, since those generally lack red food dies. I know that sometimes red dies are added to red meat to make it appear more fresh when it is sold, so I would double check on that or on any kind of red or pink flavored fruit drink (and other things that I’m sure that you already know to avoid 😉

I’m so sorry that my response has been so delayed- it never showed up in my editor’s feed, but I hope that was still helpful!

Julia

[Author]

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