Having a child who suffers from several life threatening food allergies I have become somewhat obsessive about reading the ingredients labels of everything we buy. It makes supermarket shopping tedious and time consuming but has become a necessary part of our lives.

I would never have thought

At 17 months of age we decided we were ready to wean our son off his prescription formula onto soy milk. It was a very gradual process beginning with 1ml of soy milk on the first day and increasing it over the course of the next three months until we were confident that he could tolerate soy without any adverse reaction.

This was so exciting as it opened up a whole new world of variety for his diet. Now he could have milk based casseroles, soy yoghurt, baby cinos (without the marshmallow), etc.

I also searched high and low through 4 or 5 supermarkets to find soy cheese and managed to find an Imitation Cheese Product made with Soya Bean.

I gave my son a piece of this earlier this week and was horrified to watch as his lips and eyes puffed up, hives appeared over one side of his face and a thick mucus discharge ran from his nose and throat. After checking the packaging I discovered soy cheese actually contains DAIRY!!

Fortunately I was able to administer antihistamine immediately and get him to an emergency department for medical attention.

The following day I also contacted the company that imports the cheese and suggested that they might need to rethink the labels on their packaging. The guy I spoke to was a bit non-commital so I plan to follow this up with a letter. Everyone I have spoken to - doctors and nursing staff at the emergency room, maternal and child health nurse, paediatrician, childcare workers, friends and family all made the same asummption I did - soy cheese is dairy free.

Basically my advice is to ALWAYS READ THE LABELS of food products. I was lucky this time that I only had to deal with a moderate allergic reaction. It could have been much worse.