A teal-colored pumpkin represents food allergy awareness among all the orange pumpkins.Photo Gallery
Most little ghouls and goblins love filling their bags with sweet treats on Halloween. But for kids with food allergies, the holiday can be downright scary — even life threatening.
That’s why the nonprofit Food Allergy Research and Education launched a national campaign to make trick-or-treating safe for kids with allergies. The Teal Pumpkin Project encourages people to hand out nonfood treats on Halloween and to signal that their home is safe for kids with allergies, place a teal pumpkin on the porch. (Teal is the official color for food allergy awareness.)
“This group realized there was a real problem among kids who wanted to be like their friends and go out on Halloween and get some tricks and treats,” said Dr. Carrie Caruthers, an allergist at The Vancouver Clinic.
The project was inspired by a local awareness activity in Tennessee before the nonprofit launched it as a national campaign in 2014. Last year, households in all 50 states participated, as well as homes in 14 countries, according to the Teal Pumpkin Project.
While parents of trick-or-treaters can simply look for homes with teal pumpkins on their porch — either painted pumpkins or artificial ones — or signs indicating nonfood treats are available, the project website, www.foodallergy.org/teal-pumpkin-project, also has an interactive map where households can indicate they’re participating.
More than a dozen Clark County homes are already on the map, listed as handing out glow sticks, pencils, small toys, stickers, crayons and rings. People can hand out candy, as well, but Caruthers recommends keeping the candy and nonfood treats in separate bowls.
1 in 13 affected
Food allergies affect about 5 to 8 percent of children in the U.S., which is equal to about 1 in 13 kids, Caruthers said.
“It definitely affects many kids throughout Vancouver,” she said.
The most common allergies among kids are cow’s milk and eggs, both of which children can develop an allergy to as young as infancy, Caruthers said. Oftentimes, children will outgrow those allergies by the time they’re school-age, she said.
Peanut and tree nut allergies, however, tend to not develop until kids are 1 year or older, but kids are less likely to outgrow those allergies, Caruthers said. Other less prevalent allergies include soy and wheat, she said.
For kids with any — or many — of those allergies, Halloween may be full of more tricks than treats.
“Most treats would cause kids to be excluded,” Caruthers said.
When Bethany Stefan’s son, Aaron, went trick-or-treating as a kid, the Vancouver mom would go through his candy bag when they got home. Aaron, who is now 21, was diagnosed with a peanut allergy when he was about 1 year old.
“If he ate peanuts, he would start feeling weird and then throw up,” Stefan said. “Then his lips would turn white.”
“It was scary, for sure, and scary for him,” she added.
Aaron understood his allergy meant peanuts would make him sick, so he’d also ask his mom if candy in his loot was safe to eat. Stefan often replaced the candy he couldn’t eat with pieces he could have.
“He probably wouldn’t have minded not getting any replacements,” she said. “He would just rather not eat something and get sick.”
“I’m just glad it wasn’t as bad as some kids,” she said of Aaron’s allergy.
Kids with mild allergies may just experience hives. But, for some kids, ingesting a food they’re allergic to could lead to difficulty breathing and decreased blood pressure, making epinephrine injectors life-saving medication, Caruthers said.
To Learn More
• For more information about the Teal Pumpkin Project, visit www.foodallergy.org/teal-pumpkin-project. The website also includes an interactive map of participating homes, printable Teal Pumpkin Project signs and nonfood treat ideas.
Doctors and researchers are seeing an increase in food allergies, and they don’t quite understand why, Caruthers said. More research is being done to determine if when a child is introduced to a potential allergen affects whether the child develops an allergy, she said.
For kids who have allergies, Caruthers and others hope the Teal Pumpkin Project will make the upcoming holiday a little more enjoyable.
“Even kids who don’t have food allergies may like a nonfood treat,” she said.
