A young woman’s Facebook post about a severe allergic reaction has renewed the conversation about the dangers of eating in local restaurants while having food allergies.
Huijin Jinnie’s visit to Soup Restaurant’s Jurong Point branch ended in a trip to the accident and emergency (A&E) department of Ng Teng Fong Hospital after unknowingly consuming scallops, according to her post.
While Jinnie said that she told the staff multiple times that she was allergic to seafood and ordered spinach and eggs — a supposedly seafood-free dish — she began feeling allergy symptoms soon after taking her first bite.
“By then I stopped eating the dish and was feeling uncomfy and my skin started itching badly,” Jinnie noted. “My eye started swelling as well”.
After noticing strands of an ingredient on her plate that resembled scallops, she spoke to the staff again. Eventually, a waiter confirmed they were indeed scallops, stating nonchalantly: “oh they put a little bit inside only.”
Jinnie left the restaurant immediately, heading straight to the doctor with her mother. Thankfully Jinnie has since been discharged from the hospital and is on the road to recovery — though she had already spent nearly $200 on treatments.
And it looks like Soup Restaurant is turning the incident into a learning opportunity. They apologized to Jinnie on her Facebook page, adding that they are revisiting safety protocols at all their locations, and reminding their staff how serious food allergies can be in order to prevent future misfortunes.
The restaurant has also written a sincere letter of regret over the incident, promising to do better across all outlets.
Jinnie is not alone. Shellfish allergies affect between 1 and 5 percent of children under 16, according to a 2014 study in the Singapore Medical Journal. The same study found that, while food allergies, in general, are not as common in Singapore as they are in Western nations, shellfish allergies are the exception.
That means that any restaurant, where a person can come into contact with a wide variety of foods, can be dangerous places for much of the affected population.
Severe allergies can cause anaphylactic shock, a potentially deadly condition where the throat swells shut, cutting off the airway. Allergy sufferers like Huijin Jinnie have learned to become extra vigilant, but her recent experience shows that even that does not always prevent a mistake.
The travel blogger, Rambling Feet recommends choosing vegan restaurants if you want to be absolutely sure to avoid seafood.
And according to her post, Jinnie wants to increase awareness about among food vendors about the seriousness of food allergies.
“One careless mistake can be life-threatening,” she said.
