Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

DEP E118
===

[00:00:00] Francine L Shaw: And there are people that will go into restaurants and they will say, I'm allergic to mayonnaise.

Right.

So just they get a fresh sandwich because they think if they don't do that, they're not gonna get one. And they don't really have an allergy. And at desensitized Yes. People to the seriousness of people with food allergies.

There are a million reasons as to why people don't take this as seriously as they should, but none of that negates how serious it is. People die.

[00:00:43] intro: Everybody's gotta eat and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil into shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans, Francine l Shaw and Matt Regu for a deep dive [00:01:00] food safety. It all down to Golden Rule. Don't. Eat poop. Don't eat poop.

Hello? Hello? Fred Seed.

[00:01:10] Francine L Shaw: I'm, you're laughing already,

[00:01:12] Matt Regusci: but I'm laughing because I just got what you said. So we were talking about Life 360 and those of you guys don't have Life 360. It's an amazing app. And Francine was like, all, why is your phone vibrating? And I said, oh, I have this app called Life 360 and my wife was just leaving Costco.

I said, have you heard of that? And Francine's like, no. What is it? He said, oh, you can see where everybody in your family is. It's really cool app. So all my kids are on it, and I could track where everybody is. They could see where I am, all that stuff. And Fred scene was like, I don't need to add that to my life.

I would be my husband knowing. I just left a jewelry store. And then I referred that and I pushed record and I started laughing because it was after I. After I pushed record that I got what you said.

[00:01:53] Francine L Shaw: I wanna be clear though. Book he knows. I tell him he knows if I anything. I haven't been indoor for long time.

[00:01:59] Matt Regusci: That's a really [00:02:00] good point though, because then how am I going to go to the jewelry store and get something for my wife and her not know. So I gotta think about that. I gotta turn my phone off or something.

[00:02:09] Francine L Shaw: Like a couple days before Christmas. I, we do have the thing on our Apple phones turned on. So you can see where somebody is if you want to.

Oh, right. You wanna look right,

[00:02:20] Matt Regusci: right. Yeah.

[00:02:21] Francine L Shaw: And so I am a present and I was like, it's a location share or something. And I was like, forgot to turn that off. I hope he doesn't look because he'd know why I was there and I'm not going for myself. You know what I mean? And my daughter shares hers with me. Like just an event, something would happen.

So

[00:02:42] Matt Regusci: you have that. Things you gotta think about with modern technology, right? Yeah. So that is not what we were talking about, but why are you lobbying already? Okay, so we had to talk about this because I just posted this article on LinkedIn from [00:03:00] Food Safety News yesterday, and you're very sad. But it's a good learning experience, I think for people in the industry of all levels of the industry about.

Allergens and the, and how important your job is when you're packaging things. The title of the article on Food Safety News by our good friend Jonathan Pal over there is Jonin Jonin. John are always messing his name, jonin and Coral. They don't have like a John Smith over there at Food Safety News. It's like, let's just talk to.

Was like, name super easy to say, terrible people, France. But this article, this just caught me because it's one of those that could happen to anybody and it's the title is Family Sue Safeway after mislabeled cookie causes grandmother's death. And this poor lady, she's a 78-year-old Margaret Jean, Peggy Bryant was at the grocery store [00:04:00] and she bought her favorite cookies that she thought were her favorite cookies, which are these oatmeal raisin cookies.

And do you buy baked goods at the grocery store? My husband does. I do too. I, they're like some of the best baked goods ever at the grocery store. And yeah, we have a king Soer right next to our house and we're buying everything from that deli. And it's like they just built this place and it is like a watch to it.

My wife and I walked through it. We pick out a bunch of stuff. And so this resonate with me because obviously this is, I assume this is not malicious intent. This is just somebody who probably pushed the wrong button. The lady buys these cookies or bought these cookies all the time. They're, they're her favorite cookies.

This says in the article, they're oatmeal raisin cookies, and she has an extreme allergy to peanuts. And she ate these cookies that she thought were oatmeal raisin and they were peanut butter cookies, and she passed for man of elected shock. And so. [00:05:00] The episode is not going to be really talking. I don't really don't want to dwell on that poor lady and her family and stuff like that, but really, truly like what are all the ways that this could happen?

Because you see a lot from the food service side. Francine, like people are going super fast and they just forget to double check that it's wrong or something. And that's why I posted on LinkedIn was I was like, I can see this happening quite frequently. Somebody on their POS or they're labeling machine typing in the wrong button, or you label a whole bunch of stuff because you cooked a bunch of batches of cookies and you pre-labeled all of these containers.

You then put the wrong cookies in the wrong container and didn't double check it. You closed it up and threw it on out on the shelf, and that has deadly ramifications.

[00:05:49] Francine L Shaw: Yeah. Printed out a whole bunch of tools at one time, labeled the bags, and then started putting cookies in bags, which should not do, especially when you have something like peanut butter.

People [00:06:00] that aren't allergic don't understand the risks and the seriousness. Of people who do have a food allergen, it's just not taken that seriously. It's just, it just isn't. I was reading something and I didn't see the skit, but apparently last Saturday night on the season Valley, Saturday Night Live did a skit about food allergens.

Oh, people are upset about it. I wanted to watch it and I, I forgot to watch it. I forgot about it just now. And I guess I can see Saturday Night Live, they make fun of everything and everybody so it, it is what it is. But people who with food allergens and some of the people who have children with food allergens were really upset because it's making light of the situation.

[00:06:47] Matt Regusci: Yeah.

[00:06:48] Francine L Shaw: And doesn't help the fact that two people don't take it seriously enough anyway. And there are people that will go into restaurants and they will say, I'm allergic [00:07:00] to mayonnaise. So just they get a fresh sandwich because they think if they don't do that, they're not gonna get one and they don't really have an allergy.

And that desensitized yes, people to the seriousness of people with food allergies. There are um, million reasons as to why people don't take this as seriously as they should, but none of that negates how serious. It is people die. It's not a matter of not all of them die, or at least some of 'em die. Or they might just get sick.

You never know who is gonna die. Right. And they do die. So you have to treat like they're all gonna die. Everybody's gonna die. And it just, people, it's really upsetting when you think about it 'cause they don't understand the seriousness of it. And we as a society and people who restaurateurs, people that work in the establishments a aren't taught enough about it.

It's not talked about [00:08:00] enough, it's not taken seriously enough by, even inspectors. Don't look at those things and take it seriously enough. Because if they did, we wouldn't be able to go into restaurants or go into grocery stores and find things that aren't properly labeled right, and we can every day.

[00:08:23] Matt Regusci: Yes. Well, it is the most widely recalled products are because of mislabeling. I think like something like 30% of the recalls annually, approximately estimated, are about mislabeling of products and not having allergens in there. My daughter has an intolerance to gluten, like she blows up and doesn't, it feels yucky and stuff like that.

And she started saying that she was allergic to gluten, and I said, no, no, no. That's celiac disease. You not have celiac disease. You have an a gluten intolerance. So you need to put that into your mindset and tell people that, because what exactly what you're [00:09:00] saying, you don't want to minimize celiac disease.

And if people start saying that they're, A lot of people do, they say they're allergic to gluten. They're not allergic to gluten. Their body has an intolerance. It doesn't like it. Like for instance, I have a. Like four kids that are Asian, so they, they can't drink or have as much milk as some of my kids that are not Asian, but they're not allergic to lactose.

They have an intolerance to lactose. And I think that the people have been using that so much. They're saying that they're allergic, that it desensitizes people to the real fact that people who are actually allergic to this are carrying EpiPen. And this could kill them from anaphylactic shock. It's a bad thing.

Like at my church through the years I've done like camp counseling and stuff like that, and parents who have kids that, that have anaphylactic shock will have allergies to food, will want me to be [00:10:00] their camp counselor because of my experience with a bunch of different special needs. I'll ask. Okay, so what are your kids?

Allergic to, and I'll get the list and I'll be like, is there an EpiPen? Can you have me see the EpiPen? And I tell 'em, bring your practice pen as well. So I have a kid who has seizures occasionally, so I have a similar pen for the seizures, but like, I want you to practice with me. I want you to watch me practice with the EpiPen.

But then I'll get moms who are like, yeah, my kid is allergic to all these different things. And they'll send me a list of all these things their kid is allergic to. And I'm like, okay. Well, so your, does your kid eat right? Like, and then they're like, and I'm like, okay, bring the EpiPen. Oh, he doesn't have an EpiPen?

What do you mean he doesn't have an EpiPen? Well, he doesn't have anaphylactic shock, and I'm like, so does he have an intolerance to this? Is he gonna get like his stomach issues and the sickness and, well, we just don't eat that stuff in our house. Okay. We're at a camp with camp [00:11:00] food. Is your child bringing their own food?

No. He doesn't have an EpiPen. No. Okay. We need to have a conversation about the difference between what you do at your house, what we're going to do at the camp, and what is an allergy. And that's the type of thing that I think where the Saturday Night Live, I haven't watched it, but now I'm definitely gonna watch this episode who's probably making fun of, because there's a huge difference between life and death.

What the culture is of your house and what you eat, and an intolerance from a child who really is a sickly child and may end up having issues because they're eating all this junk food. I totally get that, but okay, then what are you going to do to minimize this? 'cause the children who use an EpiPen that are really allergic.

That household is locked down. They'll bring a full ice chest for the three days that they're there. The kid has all of his food. He knows, or she knows exactly what they're supposed to [00:12:00] eat. We go, we put it on the shelf, we talk to the cooks there. They know because they're a public kitchen, they know that they have a spot specifically for that with his or her name listed on there, and that's what that kid eats and he or she knows.

That's all they're supposed to eat because God knows what is done in that camp kitchen. So yeah, like it's a cultural thing that really needs to be really described. '

[00:12:24] Francine L Shaw: cause that child may die if they come in contact items for that item. And that's the difference between an intolerance and an allergy.

With an allergy, you might die if you come in contact and some people will die if they come in contact with the items that they're allergic to. But then intolerance, you're gonna get sick and you might get really sick, and I don't wanna diminish that. You might get really sick. Diarrhea

[00:12:50] Matt Regusci: at a camp is not fun,

[00:12:52] Francine L Shaw: but

[00:12:53] Matt Regusci: it's a huge difference between diarrhea and like anaphylactic shock and dying

[00:12:58] Francine L Shaw: because with an [00:13:00] intolerance with gluten, literally it may go in one end and come right out the other.

Yeah, that can happen with gluten that quickly. A good time, but you're not gonna die. You may think you're gonna die from embarrassment, that you're not gonna die with a fifth allergen. There's a strong possibility in some cases that you may die. So that's the difference between the two.

[00:13:22] Matt Regusci: And if you don't die, that still means you need to go to the emergency room and you need to figure your stuff out because there's a potential still you can die.

Like it's really bad. Your body is like, no, this protein is not supposed to be in this body and we're gonna shut everything down. It is so different than an intolerance. Yes. Did you watch

[00:13:41] Francine L Shaw: conduct

[00:13:43] Matt Regusci: the.

[00:13:45] Francine L Shaw: Kentucky Derby?

[00:13:46] Matt Regusci: No, no. Kentucky Derby generally is not on my watching list.

Okay.

[00:13:51] Francine L Shaw: So any shocked?

[00:13:56] Matt Regusci: No, I'm not shocked at all.

I'm an employee that have [00:14:00] loved the Kentucky Derby and gone on their vacations for that stuff, and I've done seeing their outfits the, so like I can see how this would be a ton of fun, but yeah, not my gig.

[00:14:12] Francine L Shaw: Oh my. I think it would be a blast.

[00:14:13] Matt Regusci: The big, beautiful hats and the dresses and, yeah, totally get it.

Just I'm not one to wear those hats or those dresses, so Yeah.

[00:14:23] Francine L Shaw: Yeah. I think it'd be a good time. Anyway. I don't know that my husband, would

my daughter get into it. She would probably have a good time. Don't know that my son or my husband, either one might.

[00:14:39] Matt Regusci: I'm not, I'm not a gambler either, so like I'm not a racetrack guy.

[00:14:45] Francine L Shaw: Hi. But it's fun. Yeah. And I think it's fun. So anyway, what I wanna talk about is, one of the announcers that was there had a food allergy and I believe it was [00:15:00] peanuts.

And he ate something. He was given something.

[00:15:03] Matt Regusci: Oh, he

[00:15:03] Francine L Shaw: had to leave

[00:15:05] Matt Regusci: and go to the emergency room. Can you imagine like the announcer being like, and we have honeymoon in the first book.

[00:15:13] Francine L Shaw: It was an NBC. Yeah, it was, I believe he was one of the NBC announcers because the next Yeah,

[00:15:19] Matt Regusci: that would not be good.

[00:15:20] Francine L Shaw: They were talking about it.

Yeah. And he was there and he feels much better now, fortunately. But yeah, he had to leave national tv. Oops. We gave him something we shouldn't have. So much smart protocol for people with food allergies.

[00:15:41] Matt Regusci: Yeah, you know what, that would be a better place to have anaphylactic shock. 'cause there's a lot of people around you probably ruined the day for a lot of people, but you

[00:15:48] Francine L Shaw: know, probably had

[00:15:48] Matt Regusci: an EpiPen.

He had people around him to get him some place as opposed to this poor lady who died in your house.

[00:15:54] Francine L Shaw: And number of people that John Harry, their epic tense is just phenomenal to me. So when I was doing [00:16:00] a lot of training and a lot of training. We would talk about food allergies in class and sometimes people would say that they had allergies and sometimes I would ask, is there anybody in here that has a food allergy that you know you'd like to talk about or you'd like to share?

And sometimes people are willing to talk about it. And I would say, do you have your an EpiPen, the number of people that didn't have EpiPens with them? Or they'd be like, all it's out in my car. What the hell am I gonna do with if it container? Or they didn't even bring it. And that's something you need to carry with you.

Like your shoe, right? You, you need to bring it with you. But

[00:16:43] Matt Regusci: as a camp counselor, when I had kids with food allergies, the kid always had his EpiPen on him. I always had an extra EpiPen on me too, just in case. 'cause there's so much running around. And as a camp counselor, you gotta allow the kids to be kids.

And so there's running around, there's a lot of [00:17:00] throwing at sticks, there's a lot of swimming and all that different type of stuff. And so, yeah, I'd say to the kid like, no, don't, you don't need your EpiPen on your trunks. I'll make sure to have the EpiPen on me as well. And so, but I would carry the two EpiPens because sometimes.

EpiPen doesn't work and an EpiPen malfunctions, you don't want it to be when you're having anaphylactic shock. And I like as a camp counselor, like I'm thinking like in my mind, I'm not this kid's parents, I. The last thing this kid is gonna do is die on my watch. I don't want this kid to die at all, but I definitely don't want him dying or her dying while I'm watching them.

Right? So I was like, no, I'm

[00:17:39] Francine L Shaw: carrying both of these. Ben, I'm this. Just say like, we do not think this is funny at all. Just so anybody listening, so I would be teaching these classes and we're talking about food allergies and I'm honest about, I was in a room beside Laqua teaching one of these classes one time talking about food allergies, girl sitting.

In the front row, [00:18:00] not more than the width of a 18 inch table in front of me. And I'm like tight against this table as we're talking. And I oftentimes so stupid in hindsight, I oftentimes would take like a bag of mixed nuts or a bag of almonds or something like that to eat at lunchtime, and that would be what I would eat during lunch.

Thank God I had this conversation that day. We're talking about food allergies and she said she had an allergy. And you know, I said, well, you know, what are you allergic to? And she said, nuts. Basically any variety of nuts.

[00:18:41] Matt Regusci: And you're like, look on. There goes lunch,

[00:18:45] Francine L Shaw: almonds Peanut. So, oh my God, I'm so glad we had this conversation.

I had have broke out my nuts of.

[00:18:53] Matt Regusci: Yeah, you're like a serve safe class and you kill one of your students. Not good publicity [00:19:00]

[00:19:00] Francine L Shaw: mentioned corporations working for, at that time, my heaven, this is something else. I don't know who does this type of work for corporations or in house. Those that, because you don't have the allergy or maybe nobody in your family has the allergy, you're just not, you're eating it all day.

Much

[00:19:18] Matt Regusci: like in our house in. Thankfully nobody has an allergy to nuts in my house nor an intolerance to nuts in our house. So we eat like that is like the go-to snack for our household is we go to Costco. It's probably what my wife is buying right now is it's like Costco's got some of the greatest nuts.

You could just buy like bags full of them. We mix our own, their mixed nuts are good, but like some of my kids don't like some of those, so we buy. The two pound bags or five pound bags or whatever the poundage is. And then we go home, we mix 'em all up of what they like, and then we put 'em in the jars. And then that's like the go-to.

So like I could totally see if that's the culture of your house, like I am, [00:20:00] how somebody would be like, nah. So I, I'm just throwing these cookies in there. And there's peanut butter cookies mixed with the oatmeal raisin cookies. It's not gonna kill anybody. Huh? Actually it could,

[00:20:13] Francine L Shaw: yes, it could. A little bit of a different, did you know that Brazilian nuts can be toxic?

[00:20:20] Matt Regusci: No. I love Brazilian nuts.

[00:20:23] Francine L Shaw: Yes. Brazilian Melissa and I were just talking about this. Large quantities of Brazilian nuts can be toxic. Experts recommend no more than three defined nuts per day.

[00:20:38] Matt Regusci: Oh, whoops. I only eat three to five nuts in a city. Okay. When I was a kid, we had an almond walnut ranch and we ate so many almonds and walnuts.

It was insane.

[00:20:51] Francine L Shaw: Nuts. Brazilian

[00:20:52] Matt Regusci: nuts. I know, I know. But Brazilian nuts too. 'cause what we just. My grandma had all of those, like in the hard shell, she would [00:21:00] just have 'em on the counter and those Brazilian nuts. So satisfying to crack a Brazilian nut open. I, yeah.

[00:21:08] Francine L Shaw: Brazilian nuts.

[00:21:09] Matt Regusci: Let,

[00:21:10] Francine L Shaw: like if I have mixed nuts, I'm take them out.

Oh, and yeah,

[00:21:16] Matt Regusci: pecans too. That's one of my favorite nuts is the pecan nut.

[00:21:18] Francine L Shaw: Cashews favorite.

[00:21:21] Matt Regusci: Cashews are also potentially toxic, if not pro processed correctly. The fruit, so the cashew nut is on top of this like fruit pod, and that fruit pod is toxic and the stuff around the nut is toxic. So if you don't process the cashew correctly, that's also toxic

[00:21:40] Francine L Shaw: and not know that.

Yeah.

[00:21:41] Matt Regusci: Yeah. We don't wanna, so I eat so many cashews too.

[00:21:46] Francine L Shaw: I love cashews, so we've been randomly looking for bags of Brazilian nuts, just like a bag of, and can't find a bag of just Brazilian nuts.

[00:21:56] Matt Regusci: Yeah, you know what? You're right. So the Costco nut [00:22:00] mix has Brazilian nuts in it I love, but

[00:22:03] Francine L Shaw: probably very few is compared to the other.

[00:22:07] Matt Regusci: Yes. Yeah, that's probably why my grandma, well, when I was eating these as a kid, like they, there wasn't a lot of mixed nuts that didn't have like peanuts in it and stuff like that. So my grandma would buy 'em in the shell and then have 'em there. Yeah,

[00:22:24] Francine L Shaw: they can, cause it's called alium. Toxicity to toxicity.

[00:22:31] Matt Regusci: Toxicity,

[00:22:32] Francine L Shaw: yes. Thank you. Pat, breath, diarrhea, nausea, skin rashes, nerve pain, fatigue, brutal nails and hair, dizziness, irritability, metallic taste in the mouth, muscle tenderness and soreness, joint pain symptoms like kidney failure, cardiac arrest, and even death connect occur. What that's as and

[00:22:58] Matt Regusci: well, maybe I should cut back on some of [00:23:00] those nuts.

Given my body type cardiac arrest is, let's not give it more reason to have heart attack.

[00:23:11] Francine L Shaw: Oh, that's crazy.

[00:23:12] Matt Regusci: Yeah, that is crazy. Okay. So you can see that happening in a grocery store, no problem. But also it happens quite frequently within facilities as well. Not cleaning correctly or the. Product just ends up like by some of the extra product from one type of product ends up into it.

It's so easy. Contact, easy cross

[00:23:35] Francine L Shaw: contact people will have a food allergen and then make something that's supposed to be allergen free and not washer and instant sanitize the area that they were prepping on. That will create it. Not washing, rinsing, and sanitizing the dishes that they were using is another problem concern.

Just, there are just so many ways if you're not [00:24:00] careful, that these types of things can happen in restaurants and grocery stores and really using separate utensils, dishes, cookware for your allergen free items it the way to go If you can do that, like some stores, companies have designated purple as the color for the allergen free items.

To keep that as like sacred space. Or

[00:24:29] Matt Regusci: you can also see easily in a restaurant too, where you run out your frying oil or whatever and you have peanut oil and then you just grab the peanut oil and throw that in the fryer. So many of these things are, you can just see how it could be easily cross-contaminated.

My wife is allergic to seafood and she's. Like crustaceans. And so she gets worried about any type of food that's cooked with shrimp or whatever for that reason, right? What is the cross-contamination and that type of stuff. [00:25:00]

[00:25:00] Francine L Shaw: So do you have any idea how many restaurants went? They go have a two or three of that system, and the first fryer is always typical, always should be the cleanest.

And they rotate down, right? So like you will move the first to the second to the third, and then it gets thrown out. So inadvertently or intentionally, when the fryers are full and you need to cook something, whether or not you're supposed to cook the fish or the battered shrimp in the first fryer, it may get stuck in that first fryer just because you don't have space in another fryer at the time.

So somebody may say, or your fries cooked with the shrimp or the seafood. The answer typically should be no, because they're not supposed to be. But if somebody dipped shrimp, the battered shrimp in that fryer, the answer is yes. The risk is there. It could happen.

[00:25:57] Matt Regusci: Yeah,

[00:25:59] Francine L Shaw: and there's the [00:26:00] chrome contact. It happened.

[00:26:02] Matt Regusci: So anytime there's risk, you don't take it. So I went to

[00:26:11] Francine L Shaw: a local market place. I ordered salads a couple weeks ago. My husband can't eat iceberg lettuce. It makes him sick. He's not allergic to it, but it makes him sick. I asked if there was iceberg lettuce in the salad that I was ordering. They didn't know.

And I said, can you just, and that was the consistent answer. We don't know. We don't think so, but we don't know. I said, can you just go back and look at the bag that is in? It will tell you I. What kind of lettuce it is, but what's in the mix? Well, we ran out, so we had to go down to Giant and get some, okay.

Well there's Giant is an [00:27:00] approved supplier for the restaurant, but Okay, but I'm not gonna get into that. I said, well, it should still be on the bag. Just go back and look at the bag. And they just looked at each other and didn't say anything. So then they go back and look and they come back out and they're like, wait, there's nothing back there.

We don't know. We don't think so it's all dumped out in the box. So they taken all the bags and dumped them into a box. They were no longer

[00:27:33] Matt Regusci: in the bag. They were all dumped into a box. I'm like, okay, so.

[00:27:42] Francine L Shaw: There were a couple issues there. What was inside that box? Before the bags were in the box? What does this box look like?

How many hands are going in and out of that box?

[00:27:54] Matt Regusci: So you order the salad, Uhhuh.[00:28:00]

Do your husband get sick?

[00:28:04] Francine L Shaw: Huh? There was no iceberg the whole time. I'm thinking I'm just asking for trouble.

[00:28:11] Matt Regusci: This food safety thing with lettuce is just, it's really is hard for you, isn't it? As a salad eater

[00:28:18] Francine L Shaw: and I love salad.

[00:28:20] Matt Regusci: Yeah, I do too. Yeah. I would've been like, okay, I guess we're not ordering salad.

Yeah. But it's, I could see that's so

hard. Because, yeah. Which is why people with kids with anaphylactic shock and stuff like that don't eat out. There are restaurants that specifically cater, like in big cities, specifically cater to that community and they kill it because that's the only restaurant that this community goes to.

[00:28:54] Francine L Shaw: People will drive for a couple hours to get those places if they wanna go eat, because they trust [00:29:00] them.

[00:29:01] Matt Regusci: Trust. Most restaurants are, have the same experience that you do, or they'll just say yes, but they just like what you said, like they're, they could be cross contaminating the fryers or whatever, and it's just not on top of everybody's radar.

And I think too, people who say they're allergic to things that really have an intolerance, it doesn't help now saying, listen, I'm intolerant to this. This will make me, this will make me sick. Can you please double, triple check? Then people get it. But if it's just, I just. I'm allergic to it when I'm really not.

[00:29:35] Francine L Shaw: So it'll make him sick. He's not gonna die, but it'll make him sick.

[00:29:39] Matt Regusci: Yes.

[00:29:40] Francine L Shaw: I'm having this whole internal dialogue as this is happening.

[00:29:43] Matt Regusci: Yeah, yeah. About people with anaphylactic shock. I don't think people realize it is a special needs. It's different than down syndrome or autism or all that type of special needs, which in my household, I have kids that look like they have special needs and I [00:30:00] have kids that don't look like they have special needs.

That have special needs. Autism, right? Somebody who has anaphylactic shock. Perfectly normal child, but definitely a special needs. And then all of people say to me like, oh, that mom is so neurotic with that child. I'm like, first off, what? Of course she is. She's not neurotic. That's her child. She's seen that child go through anaphylactic shock.

That's right up there with PTSD seeing your child almost die. From something that is so ubiquitous in everyday diet is probably one of the scariest things because it's not somebody pulling a gun, which also people totally have PTSD over, but they've gone through that experience, which makes absolute sense.

No, it's, it's even, it's like worse than that because you see somebody opening up a bag of peanuts next to your kid and yeah, you're gonna freak out because you've seen that child almost die. At least once before. 'cause that's [00:31:00] generally how you find out that somebody is allergic to something. Yeah. They are freaked out.

Yes. They're going to be asking you questions about before their kid comes over to your house and wants to know, wants you to really know. Yes. They're gonna ask you, can you please practice with this EpiPen because. Saying that person is neurotic to me. I'm like, what happened to the golden rule in our society?

If that happened to your child, would you be saying the same things? No, you'd be freaking the hell out too. And actually that's awesome that you feel like that you're willing to have your child come to my house to then say, and ask me, can you please practice with this EpiPen with me? 'cause everybody who I.

Just the parents that I've worked with, kids with anaphylactic shock, they have a practice pen. They will do a practice with you to show you how you're supposed to punch that into your thigh, and you should feel honored that this mother. Is willing to allow this child to go to your house, not asking you, can you please not feed your children these foods [00:32:00] or saying to you like, you're terrible for doing that?

No. Can you please make sure that this day, that this, that you're, that my child is over there, that you have something that is not going to kill him and trust that you are going to do that. That is like the ultimate trust in the world because these parents don't have, they can't go out to eat with their children, so they have maybe a couple other kids that don't have anaphylactic shock, and so that household doesn't get to experience everyday things that other kids get to do without going out without the whole family or leaving the one with anaphylactic shock.

At home. It's a very disruptive part of these families everyday lives and 100% that child has special needs. It's different special needs, but it should be thought of and considered like special needs. They're protected by

the A DA. Yeah. Typically protected by the, but it doesn't, but it doesn't register in most [00:33:00] people's I ideas.

Most people dunno. Special needs are. Yeah.

[00:33:05] Francine L Shaw: I have to say, if I had a child that was allergic or had allergies like that and to let them go to somebody else's house, I think everybody'd be coming to my house.

[00:33:16] Matt Regusci: That's what happens most of the time.

That's what happens most of the time. Yeah, and I'll say to my kids, don't bring any food to that house.

Like when I'm like, when I was a camp counselor for these kiddos too, like you're not supposed to have food in these cabins, but. Kids are kids, right? And there's all this type of stuff like camp. Candies and all this stuff gets just handed out to kids all the time. And I'm like, no, you can, no, you definitely cannot be eating that food.

And I wouldn't blame it on the kiddo. I would just use the camp rules. No, the, we're not allowed to do that because of ants. You can't bring it in here. No. No. 'cause I don't wanna say, yeah. Johnny's allergic and that's why you can't be having this stuff in here. But that's what other counselors could [00:34:00] do.

And then it makes that kid feel like he has or she has special needs,

but the bullying ensues. Yes, exactly. Now

speaking of bullying, hopefully nobody on this show feels like we them. If they're the people who are like, dammit, I used to be able to eat nuts on a plane and now the people LEC shock have ruined that for me.

[00:34:24] Francine L Shaw: Well, they need to get over themselves. That's the case. I liked it when they were handing out nuts on the plane too, but not risky. Somebody, me too, but I wouldn't want the person next to me dying of anaphylactic shock. I wouldn't ruin the Kathleen Pig like peanut. I'll be okay. I'm okay with those little be Vita Crack

[00:34:43] Matt Regusci: first, or whatever they're going to be.

Yeah, the pretzel mix or the cookies or whatever. Yeah. Okay.

[00:34:50] Francine L Shaw: I'll survive. It's gonna be okay. Floating through the ventilation system

[00:34:57] Matt Regusci: and yeah. God. [00:35:00] Yeah. Well, okay, so what have we proved? I don't know,

but definitely this is a real thing. Anaphylactic shock. And I, you know, it's interesting. I think since us doing this show, we've probably had an episode on this like once a quarter.

It happens so frequently.

[00:35:21] Francine L Shaw: We don't go as in depth or talk about it as,

[00:35:24] Matt Regusci: remember we did an episode on that one poor doctor that died at Disneyland? Yes. And then that athlete who's like in the prime of her career, then she passed. But it happens frequently enough that it's on our show frequently enough.

The

[00:35:40] Francine L Shaw: girl city that came from another country.

[00:35:43] Matt Regusci: Yes.

[00:35:44] Francine L Shaw: Yes. We, yeah, we do talk about it pretty often.

[00:35:48] Matt Regusci: Yeah. I was surprised it happened to Disneyland because their SOPs and policies are very easy. I was shocked. Hi guys. Well, it's a real thing. I. Think about [00:36:00] it. And on that note, don't eat poop.