Food Allergies in China: Getting the Kitchen to Act on It

The Label Rule Arrives in March 2027

From 16 March 2027, packaged food sold in China must print its allergens. Until that date the labels on the shelf are voluntary, which means a biscuit with no warning is not a biscuit without peanut.

The rule behind the change is GB 7718-2025, issued in March 2025 and replacing the 2011 version. Eight categories move from recommended to mandatory: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, fish, eggs, peanuts, soybeans, milk including lactose, and tree nuts. When one of them is used as an ingredient it has to be picked out in bold, underlined, boxed, or gathered in a note under the ingredient list. Sesame, coconut and mango stay voluntary.

For a visitor this winter, that dates the calendar precisely. Packaged snacks bought in a convenience store are weak evidence. A label that says nothing is telling you what the old standard required it to say, which is nothing.

Restaurant food sits outside the standard altogether, because it covers prepackaged products, not kitchens. No menu in China owes you an allergen line. The work shifts from reading to asking, and asking is the part that depends on how you phrase it.

Oil, Stock and the Wok That Never Rests

A Chinese kitchen is efficient in a way that is hostile to exceptions. One wok, one stock pot, one ladle, and a short list of seasonings used across every dish on the page.

Start with the oil. Peanut and rapeseed are the two common cooking oils, and in much of the south peanut oil is the default for stir-frying and for the oil that goes into a chilli dressing. Soy sauce is brewed with wheat, so it carries gluten. Oyster sauce carries shellfish. Sesame oil is usually drizzled at the end rather than cooked, which means it lands on a dish that was otherwise safe. Fermented bean paste brings broad beans and wheat flour.

Then the wok itself. High heat and a seasoned surface are the point of the technique; a wok is rinsed between dishes, not sterilised. Cross-contact is not negligence here, it is the method.

Two details catch people out. Sichuan pepper, the numbing huajiao, is the husk of a shrub in the citrus family and has nothing to do with black pepper, so a pepper allergy does not automatically cover it. And a hot pot table is the hardest setting in the country: one broth, one set of tongs, and a sesame dip that in northern restaurants is often cut with peanut. If the plan includes hot pot, ask for an individual pot before you sit down.

Regional cooking decides which risk dominates. Coastal Guangdong and Fujian lean on dried shrimp and fish sauce. Yunnan uses wild mushrooms and tree nuts. The further north and west you go, the more wheat appears as noodles, dumplings and flatbread. A map of the eight regional traditions is worth reading for this reason alone.

The Sentence a Kitchen Acts On

There is one sentence that does most of the work, and it is short: wo dui huasheng guomin — I am allergic to peanuts. Swap the noun for whatever applies: jianguo for tree nuts, zhima for sesame, jidan for egg, niunai for milk, haixian for seafood.

What matters is the word guomin, allergy. "Please don't add" and "I don't eat this" are read as preferences, and a preference can be overruled by a garnish or a spoon of stock. Guomin is not a preference. Follow it with a consequence and a limit: hen yanzhong, hui xiuke — it is severe, it can cause shock — and yidian dian ye bu xing, not even a little.

Say it to the person holding the pen, then ask that it reaches the kitchen. In a large restaurant that means the floor manager, not the runner who brings tea. In a small family place it means the owner, who is often the cook.

Then hand over something written. A card with the allergen named in characters, the sentence, and the consequence does two things speech cannot: it survives a noisy room, and it can be carried into the kitchen and shown to the person at the wok. Print two and leave one on the table.

Do not lean on an English menu. Translation strips ingredients first — "dry-fried green beans" does not mention the minced pork, and "cold noodles" does not mention the sesame paste. Ordering food in China without Chinese covers the mechanics of getting a dish on the table; the allergy conversation runs on top of it.

Hosts, Banquets and the Taste That Is Offered

A hosted meal is where a manageable allergy becomes a social problem. The host orders for the table, dishes arrive to be shared, and the person who refuses a plate is refusing the host.

The word that carries here is jikou, a dietary restriction. It is an ordinary, respectable category in Chinese dining, the thing a host asks about before booking. An allergy sits inside it. Framing the requirement as jikou rather than as a medical emergency keeps the table calm and still gets the dish changed.

Expect the offer of a taste. Hospitality pushes food toward the guest, and "just a little" is meant kindly. Refuse once, early, with the reason attached, and the table settles. Refuse repeatedly and it becomes a topic. The worst version of the evening is the guest who accepts a small spoonful to be polite.

Two settings deserve their own plan. A banquet menu is partly dressed in advance — cold plates with sesame oil and vinegar, sauces mixed before service — so ask which dishes can be plated separately rather than which can be altered. A buffet is a shared-tongs problem, and the practical answer is to ask the chef for a plate assembled in the kitchen.

If the trip is being arranged by someone else, the requirement belongs in the booking file, not in the conversation at the table. Halal, dietary and accessibility requirements sets out what a supplier can confirm in writing and what it cannot.

Medicine You Bring and the Numbers to Call

Carry the medicine you need. Adrenaline auto-injectors are not sold in mainland China; a small number of hospitals import them under special arrangements for use inside the building, and they do not leave it. If one is prescribed to you, it arrives in your luggage.

Chinese customs works on two ideas: self-use and reasonable quantity. Prescription medicine should travel with the original prescription, and the name on it should match the passport. For a short trip, a supply of about a week is the ordinary reading. Controlled medicines are stricter, need a medical certificate, and are capped at a single prescription's worth. Keep everything in its original box.

Know the numbers before you need them. 120 calls an ambulance, 110 the police, 119 the fire service. At a hospital, jizhen is the emergency department and stays open around the clock; menzhen, the outpatient side, closes in the evening and reopens in the morning.

Bring the passport, since registration runs on it in place of a Chinese identity card, and keep the Chinese name of your medicine on your phone. If you get sick in China walks through the payment sequence at a public hospital, which is the part that takes the time.

None of this is exotic. It is the same preparation as anywhere else, with one difference: in China the burden of proof sits with the guest, because no menu is obliged to carry the information for you. That is why we put the requirement into the booking file before a single meal is chosen, so the kitchen can answer while there is still time to change the plan — the way semi-self-guided trips are built.

Frequently Asked Questions