Hi there! My name is Emily, and I’m a 23-year-old young adult who has lived with severe food allergies my whole life. I was born and raised in Pleasanton, CA and call the San Francisco Bay Area home. I recently graduated from Scripps College in Claremont, a suburb of Los Angeles, where I played collegiate water polo and majored in Public Policy and Economics. I’m currently working my first corporate job and live in sunny Pacific Heights in San Francisco. In my free time, I love to explore the San Francisco food scene, run half marathons, swim, and spend time at the beach and in the outdoors. I also run Em’s Nut-Free Eats part time and can always be found at the nearest allergy-friendly bakery or testing new dessert recipes in my apartment!

I was born with severe food allergies to peanuts and most tree nuts. Growing up, I never felt like my food allergies were a significant part of my life. Despite having multiple anaphylactic reactions during my childhood, I was fearless with food and rarely let my allergies hold me back. However, after starting high school, I began experiencing stomach pain and chronic fatigue almost daily. After months of what seemed like countless elimination diets and doctors visits, I was diagnosed with a severe gluten intolerance and told to remove gluten from my diet entirely. While I was relieved that eating gluten-free alleviated my symptoms, I was frustrated at how difficult it was to find gluten-free recommendations that were also free of nuts. Dining out guides on popular gluten-free blogs featured restaurants with many nuts, and what seemed like every certified gluten-free product had a may contain nuts warning label.

Then, right before my 18th birthday, I suffered a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction to peanuts at a restaurant with my friends that left me feeling perpetually cautious around food. Leaving for college made things worse, as I abruptly had to learn how to navigate the dining hall, find new restaurants, and communicate my food allergies to a new set of friends. Throughout my first semester, I struggled managing anxiety around food that morphed into a pattern of disordered eating and led me to pursue professional help. (You can read more about my experience with anxiety and therapy in Allergic Living Magazine here!) After several months of intensive EMDR therapy that helped significantly improve my anxiety levels, the idea for Em’s Nut-Free Eats was born. I wanted a place where I could share my experiences dining out at restaurants, traveling, and cooking with my food allergies, as well as continue encouraging myself to try new foods and heal my disorded eating. I first launched my Instagram page @emsnutfreeeats in January 2020, and my blog has grown from there!