A foods label is a marketing tool. “Unfortunately, sometimes labels can be a little misleading, and can give us a little bit of a false sense of security with certain foods and making us think they’re safe when they may not be.”

Dr. Laura Veras’s son has a tree nut allergy but enjoys chocolate without nuts. One day he wanted to try a new chocolate bar. “On the label it said alpine milk chocolate, which I thought was a safe option for him because he tolerates milk chocolate without adverse reaction. So, I gave him a few pieces and shortly after he began to complain that he had an itchy mouth and his face turned red.”

She said she was in disbelief and immediately began treating him. “My husband was reading the ingredient list and the third ingredient on that chocolate, that alpine milk chocolate bar, was hazelnut spread, which he's allergic to.”

Her son is now doing great, but she wanted to share her story to show an innocent mistake can happen to anybody. She said it’s critical that you always read the ingredient list and the contains statement. “It will be listed in a language that is understandable, you know, it's the actual food name itself that will be listed there…Sometimes there could be change in ingredient list. A cracker that you were tolerating before without having any adverse reaction might have milk or egg as a change in an ingredient, so that's not going to be advertised in the front of the package, but it will be listed under the ingredients and the contained statement,” said Dr. Veras. You can learn more by searching for food allergy on leehealth.org.


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Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.

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