There are only a few reports on allergen-free lunch box menus provided by hospitals. It is important to provide meals without causative foods for hospitalized children with food allergies. We prepared routine allergen-free menus for food-allergic children, and compared the number of adverse events that occurred before (April to October 2010) and after the implementation of the routine allergen-free menu (November 2010 to February 2011). The routine lunch box menu was implemented for 1 week, from which 10 food items (hen's egg, cow's milk, wheat, peanut, soybean, shrimp, crab, yam, and sesame) were eliminated beforehand. The average age of the patients was 4.6±3.3 years and the number of eliminated foods was 2.4±2.2 items.
After preparing routine allergen-free menus, the number of allergy-related adverse events reduced significantly from 8 cases from 366 meals to 1 case from 350 meals (p=0.038). We believe that routine allergen-free menus might reduce the number of adverse events that occur from consuming the meals provided in the children's lunch boxes, and may also decrease the risk of accidents that occur during meal time.