Allergenic foods
More than 120 foods have been described as causing food allergies. However, allergy experts only consider a limited number of those to be of public health concern.
The foods that most commonly cause serious allergic reactions on a worldwide basis are:
- cereals containing gluten
- milk
- egg
- tree nuts
- peanuts
- soybeans
- fish
- shellfish
Most countries require labelling of common allergy-causing foods, but these may differ between geographical areas due to dietary preferences.
As a result, some countries have chosen to include additional foods on their list of what must be declared on food labels.
See EU legal requirements for more information about current labelling regulations in the EU. These may change over time in the UK.
InformAll allergenic food database
We have created a database with information on all the foods that have been reported to cause allergy.
The InformAll database has summaries about each food, which are suitable for a wide audience.
In addition, each food contains a more technical part with a section on the clinical characteristics of the allergy (such as symptoms, and diagnosis) and a section on biochemical information about the allergens (e.g. allergen stability towards different processes).