About Us

Why FoodAllergyInfo.com? And why me?

Just before his second birthday, we nearly lost our younger son to a gulp of milk. I remember the jumble of feelings quite clearly: the fear, the loneliness, the paranoia and an utter lack of knowledge. What is anaphylaxis? How do we know the food we feed him does not have milk in it? How can non-dairy foods have milk protein? The answers were not at our fingertips.Hours and hours of researching, asking questions, reading still fill my weeks. Fortunately, we found the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) and I belong to an online support group, Parents of Food Allergic Kids (POFAK — everything seems to be an acronym, doesn’t it?). Both have provided information we need to keep our son safe and to teach him how to do the job himself — since he’s almost 12 years old now.

Along the way, I have gained a better understanding of what people who have other food allergies face. We all know that learning about and living with food allergies is time-consuming, as well as physically and emotionally exhausting. It changes our lives.

Yet, we have other activities, jobs, family members, friends and more to fill our lives. Who has the time and energy to look for information? Well, now I do…since our younger son is heading into junior high and our older one is starting his sophomore year of college.

My husband set up this web site and weblog (being the computer wiz that he is) so I can put my long-dormant reporter skills to good use. I hope to provide the information and links you need to educate yourselves, your families, your children and their caregivers….whomever you think needs to learn more about food allergies.

If you have suggestions that would make FoodAllergyInfo.com more helpful to you, feel free to email me! And if you want to share your own food allergy experiences or tips, please do. That’s why this Weblog is here, and that’s why I’m doing it.

– Rose Boccio

Rose Boccio is a MidWest-based free-lance journalist with an abundance of personal and professional knowledge about food allergies. She is a former parenting columnist and reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, whose work was distributed nationally by the KRT news wire; a former contributor to South Florida Parenting magazine; and has been a free-lance writer for the Chicago Tribune.