ALEX Kapranos, lead singer of Franz Ferdinand, yesterday revealed how his intolerance to peanuts caused him a "most horrific night" of severe illness this week.
After recovering, he said he was dismayed by the "irresponsible" actions of food firms that do not label the ingredients of their products in sufficient detail. Kapranos, who is recording a second album with his award-winning Glasgowbased band, was sick until he "retched bile and blood" after accidentally ingesting peanuts.
The singer and songwriter does not suffer from anaphylactic shock, the most extreme form of intolerance.
However, the attackwas bad enough for him to a criticise, on his band's website, the "irresponsible" companies that do not provide enough information on ingredients. The incident happened after Kapranos's friend made him some baklava, a type of sweet, using hazelnuts from a packet which was labelled: "Made in a factory that processes other nuts - may contain traces of peanut."
Kapranos said: "I had the most horrific night. I was up until 5.30, retching, then retching again until it was just blood and bile coming up . . . Just suppose there was a hypothetical factory which produced chocolate bars or sliced bread.
They also processed arsenic. In fact they used the same machines to process the arsenic that they used to process sweets and bread . . . they just put a little notice on the back by the ingredients saying, 'Warning: May Contain Traces Of Arsenic'."
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