Question - nuts vs pine nuts and chestnuts

[Swifty]

My kids are allergic to a variety of nuts (each are allergic to 3, but not the same 3).  So of course we simply avoid ALL tree nuts.  My question is - are pine nuts in the nut family?  What about chestnuts?  Horse chestnuts?

Our allergist says he'll include pine nuts and chestnuts in our next round of testing (he repeats it every 5 years), but he says he really doesn't know.

What do you all think?

[nutless]

I thought pine nuts were like coconuts or nutmeg (or maybe even a seed), it's called a "nut" but is it? I'm not sure.  We don't give pine nuts to DS but it isn't a food that we worry about if it is on the menu at a restuarant.

[GoingNuts]

Pine nuts and chestnuts are both nuts.  I've never heard of a horse chestnut, so I don't know.  Water chestnuts however, are not nuts.

[CMdeux]

Pretty sure that pine nuts are actually seeds-- from a very particular species of pine, in fact.

At any rate, what matters more than whether or not something is technically a nut is what it seems to be most highly correlated with.

Some nuts correlate with allergenicity among a handful of them (pecans, walnuts) and some not (walnuts, cashews).


Sometimes those groupings make sense on the basis of biological relatives (like in my example) and sometimes not.

For example, there is NO reason why so many people with peanut allergies should be also egg allergic.  Or, for that matter, tree-but allergic.  After all, in the one case this is a legume seed protein, and in the other...  a protein that isn't even concievably related biologically because the two organisms are so far from one another.  It's very puzzling.

But there's a very high correlation.  More children with PA are actually *egg* allergic than are treenut allergic, apparently.  Odd, I know.

I offered that preface to say:

I would probably be VERY wary if you have two kids who are allergic to such a wide variety of tree nuts.  The liklihood of sensitization with exposure seems VERY high in your particular circumstances in light of that.  Much more risk than someone who is only PA, or only allergic to, say, a single treenut.

[Macabre]

We have had DS tested for pine nuts (Duke had to send the blood to Mayo for that one alone) and DS is negative. I haven't found pine nuts yet that I knoware not cross contaminated with peanuts. The vast majority of pine nuts eaten in the US come from Russia and China. Two countries we  don't buy food from. There are American makers, but pine nuts are seasonal, and none of the US growers have goten back with me yet.

[GoingNuts]

Interesting.  Botanically they seem to be seeds, but are often included on the "nut" panel for testing.  Maybe because of high rates of comorbidity?

[catelyn]

My friend's bro is ana to pine nuts and ONLY pine nuts.

[twinturbo]

The divide is between medically, legally and botanically. Medically they're probably further "out there" in cross-reactivity yet enough to be 1) of concern to anyone nut allergic 2) considered a tree nut under FALCPA. Thus, legally a tree nut and medically a risk even though botanically it's rather off the map.

[GoingNuts]

Makes sense Twinturbo. 

[twinturbo]

Also bear in mind that this might be coming to a school near you. Relevant to those with 504s stating a nut free room and/or curriculum, I think recently there must have been some sort of suggestion in a major magazine because just last month our school was asking me about this. So head's up if you need to be concerned with pine nuts in your child's classroom. I stayed out of the school's decision because I don't really stress over pine nuts. Vile though I personally find them.