Peanut Allergy and Peanut Oil

Did you know that if you have peanut allergy, you can still eat at your favorite restaurants that use peanut oil?  Read about having a peanut allergy and peanut oil…

Before you read this, remember that allergies depend on your case.  I am NOT a Doctor, just sharing info that I read online.    If our child had a peanut allergy, I would steer clear of it completely, but here is what I read online:  (There have been cases of kids having attacks just from the exposure in the air!) 

My friend has a daughter with a severe peanut allergy and was telling me how she found out, after buying Chick-fil-A’s food, that Chick-Fil-A (& Five Guys) use peanut oil to fry their foods.  Nervous and scared, she did a lot of research and made a lot of phone calls to find out that when you have a peanut allergy, you are allergic to the protein in the peanut, not the oil.

You can still eat at all of your favorite places, as long as you are careful not to eat actual peanuts (Five Guys has peanuts all over their restaurants).  This is great news for families of children with peanut allergies!  Our son was given a “positive” with a skin test when they tested him for peanuts when he was one year old.  He was also given a Positive result to EVERY other thing that he was tested for (bananas, chicken, beans, all fruits… you name it, he tested allergic), which explained his body’s horrible reaction to food and his very slow growth for his first two years of life!  Luckily,  a few years later, he can eat everything and keep it down (we didn’t know if that would ever happen!) We actually never changed his diet because there was not any food that he could eat (we had been to over 17 Doctors/specialists all over the state and never got any other advice so we just did what we could), so we had to keep giving him his “allergy foods” and, thank God, he doesn’t seem to have any problem eating them now.  Our nephew is also allergic to peanuts, so it is good to know that we can safely give him our favorite french fries!

According to the Peanut Institute:

“Since peanut oil is pressed from peanuts, some have questioned if peanut oil also contains peanut allergens. This question has confused many who would like to enjoy a Sichuan stir-fry, deep-fried turkey, or other foods cooked in peanut oil.

The fact is that highly refined peanut oil is different from peanuts, peanut butter, and peanut flour when it comes to allergy. This is because most peanut oil undergoes a refining process, in which it is purified, refined, bleached, and deodorized. When peanut oil is correctly processed and becomes highly refined, the proteins in the oil, which are the components in the oil that can cause allergic reaction, are removed. This makes the peanut oil allergen-free! The vast majority of peanut oil that is used in food-service and by consumers in the U.S. is processed and is considered highly refined.”

I thought this was so interesting and wanted to pass it along!

WITH THAT BEING SAID- this would depend on the severity of the peanut allergy!!!  

Again- you will want to double check with your Doctor before “trying something new” with an allergy, but hopefully you can enjoy eating out at those restaurants and not have to worry!

Bon Appetite!

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About Becky (Your Modern Family)

Hi! I'm Becky Mansfield ~ founder of Your Modern Family. I am a mother to my 4 little blessings and I am happily in love with my high school (& college) sweetheart. I am a teacher turned play therapist and stay at home Mom. I love to share my organization tips, kid ideas, money-saving tips and recipes with you.


Peanut Allergy and Peanut Oil — 3 Comments

  1. Studies on peanut oil indicate that 10% of people will react to unrefined peanut oil, and the reactions tend to be milder. As you say, for refined peanut oil theoretically there should be no reaction. for more information on this.

    However, and it is a big however, not all peanut oils are equal and I think that it is a lot safer to simply avoid peanut oil as well.

  2. Please Google “Teenage College Student Dies from Eating Half Cookie,” which happened in Spring 2013. The cookie contained NO PEANUTS BUT DID CONTAIN PEANUT OIL. My grandson is PA and we would never knowingly give him any food containing peanut oil! Some people are much more allergic than others and even have a severe reaction from AN OPENED PACKET OF PEANUTS FOUR AISLES FROM THEM ON A PLANE (for this, Google the recent “United Airlines flight lands in Missouri instead of Chicago due to Passenger Peanut Allergic Reaction.”

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