HuffPost Greatest Person Of The Day: Mireille Schwartz Helps Families Tackle Food Allergies

Mireille Schwartz says she has a different relationship with food than most people.

The founder of the Bay Area Allergy Advisory Board has a seafood allergy that she's lived with her entire life. Her daughter is allergic to peanuts.

"There's an intrepid way that people who don't have food allergies just embrace a meal," she said. "We can never relax to that extent. We have a different relationship with food. I would love to sink my teeth into a sardine just to know what it tastes like, but I'll never have the experience. You miss out."

Schwartz wants to give people like her and her daughter reassurance and help them live more comfortably with food allergies.

Since 2007, the BAAAB has provided medication and medical resources to people with severe food allergies throughout the Bay Area. Nobody is turned away. Schwartz and a small group of funders cover the cost if clients can't pay for treatment.

Schwartz is also working with two board members who she said are searching for a cure for food allergies.

"Within my lifetime, there will be a cure or a really good strategic solution to food allergies," Schwartz said.

Until then, Schwartz said she's committed to making life more manageable for her clients.

"I know I've done my job when I don't hear from them again," Schwartz said. "We really provide such excellent strategies that these folks get up and go. They have the tools and they live their lives."

For Schwartz, it's all about providing "can-do" experiences, in which her clients know that what they're eating is safe and delicious.

"It's the joy, the satisfaction, the nourishment, the easy, happy feeling of just munching on something that you love," she said. "It's comforting and gratifying. It's the best."

Being able to have those experiences, and helping others do the same, is part of what makes Schwartz almost glad to have been born with food allergies. They've given her a cause and a purpose.

"The thing about it for me is, if I could flip a switch and not be food allergic, I would not do that," she said. "I'm doing what I need to be doing."

Schwartz would like to see her organization branch out from the Bay Area to the entire country.

"My plan would be to make it a national organization where, in towns and cities all over, there are other people providing this comfort and research," she said. "The more people that can be helping one another the better."

To find out more about the BAAAB, visit its website.

Comments

[fightfoodallergies]

10:17 AM on 07/24/2011

Wow, simply beautiful!

[drkbrinkerhoff]

01:49 PM on 07/22/2011

Please look at allergyeasy.com. This can be helpful with allergies.

[livelongandprosper]

08:37 AM on 07/22/2011

Allergies stink. My 13yo daughter has a RAST level 6 peanut allergy. Going to school is like navigating a mine field every minute she is there. I don't think we should ban peanuts in schools, but I wish others would be more understanding...on any given day, maybe 1 in 3 students have something that could kill her in their backpack. It gets on their hands, they touch doors and water fountains, etc.

[aaronsrx]

06:04 AM on 07/22/2011

Thanks to HuffPost for putting up pictures with attractive women on articles I have no desire reading...I think I learned something today about...uh...what was the article about again?!?!

[JohninFL]

05:28 AM on 07/22/2011

I think it is ironic that in an article about a woman with a daughter with a peanut allergy, there are snickers ads all around it.

[NikitaAhn]

02:12 AM on 07/22/2011

I get so frustrated with people claiming that food allergies are nothing more than the hysterical posturing of neurotic mothers and hypochondriacs. Yes, I'm sure there are hypochondriacs who falsely claim to be allergic to everything. But REAL food allergies are common and deadly. People jump all over a mother for asking them not to bring nuts in foods to a school bake sale, for instance, acting as though she's just being neurotic and demanding and "spoiling the fun for everyone." Well, she's asking them to give up walnuts in brownies for ONE EVENT, and they're asking her to literally risk her child's life by having him around nuts. To the mother of a child with food allergies, bringing peanut butter cookies to a school lunch is like bringing cookies full of arsenic to school. The only difference is that only HER kid would be hurt, but if it were YOUR kid wouldn't you do everything to protect them? Can you imagine having a kid who could be KILLED simply by being NEAR a common, everyday substance? Cut them some slack, for goodness sake.

[ABACADABRA RABBIT]

05:26 AM on 07/22/2011

they are indeed real.

additionally, there are doctors and "specialists" that pray on gullible parents and people in general.

Also, with all the chemicals agriculture and food companies use to preserve food and kill bugs and all the genetically altered and modified junk, there is sometimes a great difficulty in discerning what is the culprit causing the allergy.

There was a case a few years ago where the taco bell brand taco shells you buy at the store were GMO and the plant base had peanut DNA and caused an allergic reaction in a child who was not allergic to the corn but to the Proteins in the corn produced by peanut DNA that was introduced genetically to the corn/product.

[Holder Gunrunner]

11:24 PM on 07/21/2011

Is that a picture of Mireille Schwartz? Pretty hot.

[Tbone002]

10:50 PM on 07/21/2011

Celiac disease sucks. I understand food allergies can be challenging, but wheat, barley, rye and some oats!? I can't eat anything! Not to mention bye-bye beer. Worst news of my life.

[Philament]

01:22 AM on 07/22/2011

Your diagnosis means that for a time you have to plan more carefully about nutrition and changing habits that were formed under the influence of a mainstream diet that overemphasizes wheat. We all eat to much of this stuff. But you have to think about all of the foods (and drinks) you have yet to discover. There are WAY more delicious foods out there that you can eat than those that you can't. Best wishes as you recover your health.

[robin michelle]

09:31 PM on 07/21/2011

Our son is allergic to peanuts. He's only 3 now, but I am very worried about how things will go when he gets to school, has birthday parties, etc. It is a very different life for us since we discovered his allergy.

It's wonderful what Ms. Schwartz is doing, and I'm sure it is very appreciated by the families that she helps.

[peegan]

10:30 PM on 07/21/2011

I feel for people whose kids have peanut allergies. It wasn't until a friend's child was diagnosed with this allergy that i came to realize peanuts and their byproducts are in everything. You look at the ingredient label of what one would assume to be a safe product and there it is, peanut flour. And anything labeled with vegetable oil is out, because that too could have peanut oil in it. Anything listing natural flavoring, out. I guess the only good thing is you child won't be raised on a diet of processed food. 

Fortunately, many schools are becoming peanut allergy savvy. Around here you can not bring peanut products to school and the administration is trained to treat a severe food allergy attack. My friend's son has Epi pens kept in the school office and if the worst should happen, any of the teachers can administer one (it is now part of the teachers training).

[TexasPatriot1776]

08:44 PM on 07/21/2011

do people in the third world have food allergies?

[mayslc]

09:11 PM on 07/21/2011

They're allergic to not having ENOUGH food..

[TexasPatriot1776]

09:12 PM on 07/21/2011

I think most allergies are b0gus.

[Kevin30215]

10:11 PM on 07/21/2011

Only the dead ones, redneck!