One morning before school, Rex, aged nine, ate a hot cross bun. Minutes later, he was struggling to breathe and went into anaphylactic shock.
Rex is allergic is to peas and lentils - ingredients you would not commonly expect to find in a hot cross bun. However, when Rex's mum looked at the packaging, it turned out the glazing used on the bun contained pea protein - causing Rex's allergic reaction.
Pea is not one of the 14 allergens required by law to be listed on food labels but earlier this week, experts said it – among others – should be.
Rex's father, Tom, says it "feels like a lot of these things are booby-trapped".
"We couldn't understand why," he says. "It wasn't a vegan recipe. What is pea protein doing in a hot cross bun?"
