The Food and Drug Administration or FDA is a regulatory body of most types of foods, drugs, supplements, medical and cosmetics products sold in USA. It is also an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for the safety regulation of foods and drugs and plays a crucial part in monitoring the launch of drugs and alternative medicines in the market. It also set specific rules and regulations for approving all food products to ensure the clean and purity of the foods and also the safety for human consumption.

Is there a formal FDA Definition of food allergies? For the moment, there is none yet. If you are looking for a FDA definition of food allergies, the order of the FDA dated back to 1st of January 2006 stating that all the food products that contain any type of allergenic elements should be clearly stated on the package label. It is a reinforce of an older Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act which was passed in year 2005 which dictates that for foods or elements that could potentially cause allergic reactions should be mentioned under a separate head, “contains”. The categories of food that can cause allergic reactions such as eggs, peanuts, soy bean, dairy products, seafood, crab, shell fish or shrimp.

Although this might not be a formal FDA definition of food allergies, the existing laws and regulations are there to ensure people are well aware of the ingredients of the food that they are planning to buy or consuming. The label of the foods should contain not only the food contents but also the source of allergen. It is equivalently important to alert people who are suffering from any kind of food allergies to have a better understanding of the risk when consuming the food that they plan to purchase and also to help a person easily recognize it from the source or element of the food.

For instance, suppose that you have dairy allergy and allergic to dairy products such a casein or whey, the label of the product may list down the ingredients on the label but they can easily pass your scrutiny. However, if the label clearly mentioned that the product ‘contains dairy’ as warranted by the law, then you would definitely well aware of it and would probably avoid purchasing and consuming this product at all costs or else you would have the hard time fighting with the allergy reactions triggered by it.

According to the statistics, the risk of developing food allergy in adults is about 2% and 6% in children in United States. The numbers is showing a trend of increase over the coming years. Therefore, a set of new FDA rules are being implemented in order to help to prevent more casualties caused by food allergies. Even though there is no formal FDA definition of food allergies, the FDA is still playing an important role to prevent any of this from happening. However, if there was a simple FDA definition of food allergies, it will surely enable this institution to work better with the application and enactment of the recent laws by FDA.

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