Do I Have A Nut Allergy?

Becoming a chef with a nut allergy?

• I have a sever life threatening nut allergy but I also really love to cook. Every single job I've ever had has bored the hell out of me and I want to go to school and become a chef. I can be around nuts but I can't ingest them otherwise that's where I run into big trouble. How do you think I can go about this dream of mine to make it a reality even with my nut allergy?

• Answer:

  Just don't go into it thinking your path will be like everyone else's. Turn lemons into lemonade, as it were. Your goal should be to start your own restaurant or food brand (or both), ones that are completely nut free. Then seek jobs that will help you reach that goal. When you go shopping for food, you're well aware of the gluten-free trend (because suddenly it's everywhere), and vegan/dairy-free foods have been around a long time. There's a reason for this: the gluten-free crowd is well organized and vocal, and vegans have tenure. But where's the nut-free crowd? What little there is is scattered, not vocal, and not well organized. It's so non-vocal that most people don't even know that "nut allergy" isn't necessarily the same as "peanut allergy." It's changing - witness the movements to take peanuts out of airplanes and schools. So as that trend moves toward more consciousness of nut exposure and peanut exposure, you could become a pioneer in nut-free cooking or restauranting.