On its surface, my recommendation for peanut oil may sound paradoxically paranoid — most peanut oil is safe, but avoid all peanut oil. Let me clarify that recommendation:

Highly purified peanut oil is safe. A heat-processed peanut oil is typically completely or nearly completely free of the peanut proteins that trigger reactions. Studies show that these highly purified oils do not cause reactions even in people with severe peanut allergy.

Cold-pressed peanut oil is dangerous. Because the oil is not heated during processing, it’s raw oil that always contains large amounts of peanut protein.

Almost all peanut oil is suspect, even peanut oil that’s advertised as peanut-free. In your daily life, you can rarely be sure of the purity of a peanut oil used in preparing your food. To be safe, strictly avoid all forms of peanut oil.

If the world were perfect, discerning which peanut oil is safe and which one is not would be a simple matter of reading the label or talking to the cook. The reality though is that when you look at your bag of potato chips, you’re likely to see peanut oil listed, void of any useful details concerning the purity of that oil.

A few years ago, I ran into a series of peanut oil induced reactions, when a local restaurant chain started serving potato chips fried in cold-pressed peanut oil. Many of the people who reported reactions knew about the peanut oil but had been reassured by the fact that most peanut oils are indeed safe. They ate the chips thinking that the chips would be okay . . . they weren’t. In my patients I see peanut oil related reactions, including scenarios such as this one, at least once a month.

The relative purity of peanut oil makes my rule about avoiding it absolute —avoid all peanut oil. Follow these tips to remain peanut oil free:

Carefully read labels and avoid any food that contains peanut oil. Not all peanut oils are created equal.

Assume that all peanut oil, no matter how it’s processed, contains peanut protein. You just can’t tell how peanut-protein-free any peanut oil is.

Ask the restaurant manager and cook if peanut oil is used. In most cases, the restaurant manager or cook replies that the restaurant uses “only vegetable oil.” Peanut is a vegetable, so find out the specific ingredients in that vegetable oil.

Don’t panic unnecessarily if your waiter comes out after you have eaten your French fries and says she made a terrible mistake — your fries were really cooked in peanut oil. The risk of any given peanut oil exposure is truly very low. Discuss with your allergist on what to do if such an incident occurs.

Related posts:

1. Peanut Allergy : Choosing a peanut-lite restaurant
2. Peanut Allergy : Discovering peanuts in your chili bowl and other unsuspecting places
3. Peanut Allergy : Deconstructing cookies
4. Peanut Allergy : Other baked goods
5. Peanut Allergy : Steering Clear of the Other Nuts