2.22.2009

Can smelling peanut butter make you have an allergic reaction?


While sitting in lecture and taking notes, I smell the tangy odor of someone peeling an orange. I looked across the aisle and I was amazed that I could smell that orange so strongly. After the person consumed the orange, a jar of peanut butter was brought out. As a banana coated with peanut butter was eaten, it just blew my mind that I could smell the peanut butter from so far away!

Then I started to wonder whether smelling peanut butter, or any peanut containing product could be fatal or at least very uncomfortable for someone with a peanut allergy. In order to smell something, some particles must enter your body... Could this not irritate a person's immune system and cause an allergic reaction?

According to MayoClinic.com, it is possible for an allergy to be caused by inhalation of a peanut containing product. I suppose that merely smelling the the peanut smell means that the peanut particles entering your body are minimal, or at least in too low a concentration to cause a reaction. That's pretty lucky.