Did you know that many food allergies can be prevented? Early introduction of potentially allergenic foods, such as peanuts, can actually prevent the development of food allergies. Awesome, right?
But how exactly are you supposed to feed a baby peanuts? You aren't - peanuts themselves absolutely are a choking hazard, so you have to use a developmentally appropriate form of a peanut-containing food.
That's where it gets tricky.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan, board-certified pediatric and adult allergist, had the same concerns, so she and her team invented Ready, Set, Food! It's a series of food powders that allows food proteins to be introduced to babies right through their bottles.
On this episode, Dr. Hoyt interviews Dr. Marks-Cogan, and these two allergists/moms discuss early allergen introduction and the Shark Tank-awarded and allergist-approved food product that is helping moms and dads get these foods into babies' diets early and often.
Note: Dr. Hoyt is NOT a paid spokesperson for Ready, Set, Food! and received no financial compensation for this interview.
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Does your kiddo's school need help with medical emergency response planning? Check out the non-profit Code Ana.
This podcast is the official podcast of the Hoyt Institute of Food Allergy. Information on, within, and associated with this site and Food Allergy and Your Kiddo is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.
Did you know that many food allergies can be prevented? Early introduction of potentially allergenic foods, such as peanuts, can actually prevent the development of food allergies. Awesome, right?
But how exactly are you supposed to feed a baby peanuts? You aren't - peanuts themselves absolutely are a choking hazard, so you have to use a developmentally appropriate form of a peanut-containing food.
That's where it gets tricky.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan, board-certified pediatric and adult allergist, had the same concerns, so she and her team invented Ready, Set, Food! It's a series of food powders that allows food proteins to be introduced to babies right through their bottles.
On this episode, Dr. Hoyt interviews Dr. Marks-Cogan, and these two allergists/moms discuss early allergen introduction and the Shark Tank-awarded and allergist-approved food product that is helping moms and dads get these foods into babies' diets early and often.
Note: Dr. Hoyt is NOT a paid spokesperson for Ready, Set, Food! and received no financial compensation for this interview.
What's your food allergy question? Subscribe to our newsletter to ask your questions!
Looking for one-on-one time with a food allergist to finally get your food allergy questions answered? Sign up for Food Allergy Office Hours for Parents!
Engage with us on Instagram!
Are you in need of an allergist in your area?
AAAAI Allergist Finder
ACAAI Allergist Finder
OIT Allergist Finder
Would like to become a patient? Reach out to the Institute!
Does your kiddo's school need help with medical emergency response planning? Check out the non-profit Code Ana.
This podcast is the official podcast of the Hoyt Institute of Food Allergy. Information on, within, and associated with this site and Food Allergy and Your Kiddo is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.
You hear me talk about early introduction of foods all the time to help prevent food allergies. Well, I'm super excited to have on the podcast today Dr Katie Marks Cogan, co-creator of Ready Set Food, which, yes, was on Shark Tank. I am not paid to endorse this product. I have encouraged some of my patient families to use this product as a way to get food allergens into the diet sooner rather than later, because, hey, four months, that sneaks up on us right? Enjoy this episode.
Announcer:Welcome to.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Food.
Announcer:Allergy and your Kiddo with Dr Alice Hoyt. The podcast about demystifying food allergies, diminishing allergy anxiety and taking back control. Let's navigate this challenge together with evidence-based information, scientific research and tried-improven practices. And now here's your host board-certified allergist and immunologist specializing in food allergy, dr Alice Hoyt.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Hello and welcome to the Food Allergy and your Kiddo podcast. I am your host, Dr Alice Hoyt, Joined today by an amazing lady, an amazing allergist and an amazing entrepreneur. I am going to let her introduce herself, and I'm so happy to have you on the podcast today. Katie, I should call you doctor. We're both doctors.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Welcome. Thank you, alice. It's so nice to be here. Congrats on this amazing podcast. I think it's wonderful to be educating the world about food allergies. Thank you for having me. Just to introduce myself. I am a pediatric and adult board-certified allergist. I have my own clinic in private practice in Los Angeles and I am a mom of two. I have a five-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son. I'm also the chief allergist and co-creator of a product called Ready Set Food, which I know we'll be talking a lot about today. Absolutely, and it's a product to make early allergen introduction easier for families.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:So I want to start by asking what really made you want to be an allergist? What was your road to get to get to allergy?
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yes, good question. I knew that I always wanted to specialize, because I'm kind of one of those people I like to know a lot about a little bit right Versus, like an internist has to know a little bit about a lot. So I knew I wanted to do something. I did my internal medicine residency at Northwestern and during my second year I had thought I wanted to do critical care and pulmonary medicine. But I sort of changed and my priorities changed and I wanted to do something more with a diverse group of patients. I wanted to do more outpatient. I just enjoyed all of that and we happened to have a very good allergy program there. Northwestern has an amazing allergy fellowship. So I got exposed as a resident to the whole program and I fell in love. I felt like as an allergist. You get to be a detective on a daily basis. You get to work with all ages and you get to do everything Diagnosis, treatment, prevention. I loved it. I had an amazing experience and that's what led me to pursue fellowship.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Oh, that's amazing. Was it there at Northwestern where you started having a lot of food allergy exposure?
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:I imagine. So yeah, absolutely. I mean I think it's a very robust program, to say the least. Yes, exactly, they're amazing and in residency.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Even in med school at the time we didn't know, as much as we do now about food allergies, so we didn't get that much education about it. So everything I was learning was new. I love the immune system it's so interesting, so fun to learn about. So I got that exposure and then I did my fellowship at University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania and that's where I got a lot more of my pediatric exposure and food allergy exposure. I worked with Jonathan Spurgle, who's the head of the allergy program there, who's amazing, such a good mentor, and I learned a lot and loved it.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:That's awesome. And where are you now, ma'am?
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:I am in Los Angeles, in downtown Culver City, and my husband is from Los Angeles, so that's how I got over here and it's great I opened my practice about. This has been almost five years and I see all ages, probably 50, 50, adult kids. I love it. It's so rewarding, it's really fun.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Yeah, and the allergy is. It's just an amazing field because some of our listeners might not know, but when you become an allergist immunologist you might come from an internal medicine or adult medicine background or pediatric background, but as an allergy immunology fellow you're required to learn about everybody and that just makes practice, I feel, just so fun, because you can really take care of people of all ages with a range of allergic disorders and immune deficiencies. It's a spectacular field. I love it. I want to dive into Ready Set Food and I would love for you to tell us you know what led you to create this product. Sure.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:And tell us what it is, of course.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Sure. So Ready Set Food is an infant supplement and it's basically organic food that is placed into little mixin packets that can be used with breast milk or formula, and it's a way to get allergens into babies early, because we know now that the science is telling us, and all the guidelines are telling us, that we should be starting early allergen introduction very much earlier on than we thought, right, so around four to six months. So we know that at that age a lot of babies are not eating solids yet, and even if they are, they're not eating them consistently. And so with early allergen introduction you also have to have sustained exposure, meaning you have to eat the foods consistently. You can't just introduce once and then forget about it for months, right, right?
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Let me take a break right here about something, because this is something that I talk about with my families a lot my patient families, as you know I have. I see all food allergy patients these days at the White Institute of Food Allergy and so many times families think, oh, I need to introduce the food early to make sure they're not allergic, as if they're introducing it to kind of test them for allergy, which is not the case. I think we as allergists have not done a good job at marketing. What early introduction is? To a point where, if a marketing firm were working with us, I don't think they'd even want to call it early introduction, but early incorporation, because that's really what it is. It's incorporating foods into the diet at an earlier age than what we thought, because back in the early 2000s that recommendation was made of like oh, let's avoid some of these more allergenic foods until the immune system is ready.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:And we know based on evidence that that was the wrong recommendation. And now we have great evidence that shows it's not just that early introduction as you're talking about, but the early incorporation of these potentially allergenic foods into the diet to grow the tolerance to those foods.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:And so I just feel like it. The whole concept of early introduction has kind of, in a way, backfired in some families because they think, oh, early introduction is to make sure they're not allergic. Well, what if they are allergic and there's going to be a problem? That's really not the concept. The concept is let's introduce and incorporate the foods early to help grow the tolerance to the food, as opposed to waiting. Tolerance doesn't develop and then you have the allergy. Yeah.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yes, I talk about that a lot in all of my podcasts and interviews and been preaching that since we first got together. We like to call it early and sustained exposure. Nice, right, because it is early exposure, earlier than we thought in the past, but then you need to sustain it, so you need to keep it in there. Like you said incorporate. Yes, back in 2000, with the American Academy of Pediatrics actually recommending no milk till a year, no eggs till two, no peanut and tree nuts till three years of age, and that's what the guidelines had been. Then, in 2008, they actually reversed those guidelines, but it wasn't really publicized and so I think a lot of physicians, pediatricians in particular, weren't necessarily aware. And then when the new guidelines came out in 2017, because of the leap trial in 2015, again, those weren't publicized as much either. So it is our jobs as allergists to help spread awareness, and two other allergists to the rest of the medical community, two families, to let them know that it's completely 180. We know now the safest time to introduce is actually infancy, because during infancy, if a baby is going to have a food allergic reaction, it is generally going to be mild. That's what we see in all of the studies the food challenge studies, the early allergen studies. It's going to be a mild reaction and as they get older, the reaction can become more severe. So it's better to get in early. We also have this ability to mold our immune system towards tolerance and away from allergy. So if we can get the gut to see large amounts of the allergen, the protein, then we have a better chance of creating tolerance, reducing the risk of food allergy. So that's the idea.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:So I had tried early allergen introduction with my son Actually, he was born in May of 2015 and the LEAP trial which is the one that made Bomba famous for all those listeners that came out in February, and so I said I'm going to do early introduction. I tried to plan it all out and it was. I'm a working mom and, as every working mom, or even mom, knows, that's really hard to do. And then, a couple of years later, my good friend, andy Lightner, who's one of the other co-creators, I've already said food called me after his second child was diagnosed with multiple food allergies at about seven months. And Andy is a really smart guy and he sort of knew about all the science that was out there about early allergen introduction and started reading and started just thinking like what could I have done. Is there anything I could have done to help prevent this in my child? Could we have put allergens in something Because his son wasn't eating? He really, I think, like a lot of kids, they're just not ready to eat yet, right, right.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Yeah, so I have a five-month-old. That's exactly right, oh you do, that's right, oh my gosh, congrats. So you know it's at five months. Right, they're not a five-month-old and a three-month-old who are a three-year-old Sorry, a three-year-old, a month old. Neither of them want to eat what I give them. No, I just say three listen.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:That's a whole other topic which we can talk about, and that's my self.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:My five-month-old does, does like to nurse, but okay, you see the issue. So it's not just a you know taking a bottle, but also our nursing moms, like Some babies, don't want to stop nursing and that's all they want to do. And really the nutrition that comes from breast milk is Fantastic and, yes, any other foods really are more supplement to, to enjoy food, the textures, all the good stuff that comes along with that. But you're hitting the nail on the head that there are challenges that come with Incorporating foods early into the diet.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yeah, and so this is.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:This is also great for breastfeeding moms because, as we know from the studies doing that, the early allergen Introduction and sustaining the exposure in the diet actually had no effect on Breastfeeding in all of the hundreds of babies and moms that were studied.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:So it won't affect the baby's willingness to breastfeed.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:But it will give you an option, if you pump, as a breastfeeding mom, even one bottle a day, to mix the packets in and Introduce and keep milk, egg and peanut, which are the most important childhood food allergens, and that's why we start with those in the in the stage one of ready-set food.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:You we introduced them one at a time, in a gradual manner. So a small amount and then a larger amount and we use all the amounts that were used in the clinical trials and it gives you an option to just dissolve it in one bottle a day, feed that to the baby and not have to worry that you're not necessarily feeding enough, for the baby doesn't want to eat enough because you know you're getting those in early. And then, as you continue on with maintenance daily maintenance of the packets, and the baby does start eating more, then we expand on to other top allergens like the trena and sesame, etc. And we have other products now that help with keeping those foods in the diet, and you know we have packets and oatmeal and bars and we're coming out with puffs. We're trying to think about what is the easiest way for parents to keep these allergens in the diet, and you know what makes life just a little less crazy, and so these things can help.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:We know, you know it's safe, we know we know it's the right allergens and so let's go to the allergens, katie, that you said, tell us about the system, the first part of the system, and then the other Allergen in the second part of this. So Absolutely.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Stage one is about 12 days long and the first four days are milk, starting with a small dose of milk going to a larger dose and it's a powder and it's in the packet and the packet it's very powder.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yes, it's a powder, it's a mix in and little packets and it's literally just food. It is just organic egg powder, organic milk powder and and organic peanut powder. There are no Additives, there's no sugar, there's no stabilizers. It is literally just the powders, and in the exact amounts that we Know are the right amounts to be introducing and how do you?
Dr. Alice Hoyt:I'm gonna interrupt you so many times, I don't mind that I think our listeners are are wondering how do you, are you good? Okay, yeah, how do you maintain the quality? You're saying that you make sure that's the right amount of these organic products. How do you make sure that that's that? What a mom is opening up in that packet is what's in that packet.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, one thing is, as parents ourselves, we have used these products.
Announcer:So not only you know it's.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:It's important for us because we can relate. So the health and wellness of the babies is the most important thing. We have a very Good third-party Post-production that we use to ensure that all the products have the required amount of allergen that we want. And it's specifically that when we say allergen, for the listeners that that's protein right, because the allergen is actually a protein. So we're measuring the amounts of protein and we want to make sure that the levels are consistent with with the you know the dosage levels that we want. So, yes, so we that's. That's a big part of what we do.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:That's wonderful, and so you were listing before I so rudely interrupted you, that's right.
Announcer:You're.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Listing the allergens and describing the system.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yeah. So stage one is again we do sequential Introduction, so milk and then egg and then peanut, so four days of each that get added on. So the first four days are milk, the next four days are egg plus the milk that's already there, and then the last four days are peanut plus the egg and milk.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:So if there is a reaction, you know exactly which allergen it's to and does the mom have to or dad have to, open in separate packets or all that when the allergens they're mixed together in that that no each packet is.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Each packet is numbered. So it is really like Very, very easy. Day one and two. You see there's a small dose of milk. We even have pictures and then, as the days go on, you'll have. You'll see, the milk is full, the egg, the peanut, it has all the days here. These are the packets, very easy to travel with. Rip it off, pour it in the bottle. You shake the bottle, it dissolves. You give it to baby. So, easy, don't have to think about it, we talk a lot about less stress and more joy.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:That's definitely easy. Oh, I love that this this will help.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:I use this on my daughter, so those are my two kids. They were so Back then and didn't talk back to me as much. But anyway, I'm just kidding, I'm totally kidding, they're still cute. So he was the one I tried to do it with and thank God he doesn't have any food allergies, but it was really hard. So I had we had this product when she was born so I was able to use it. I know what it's like also to use it. So anyway that continues on and then when they're eating Consistently, like any kind of purees or other foods depending on if they're do baby led weaning etc Then they can move on and expand into the other allergens. So then you can get packets that look just like that with tree nuts, specifically almond, cashew, walnut, sesame, wheat, soy, and then peanut, egg and milk also. So everything but fish and shellfish, which we decided that it would be too difficult and sort of change the flavor and the babies might not wanna eat it.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Right, right, so tasting like salmon, a packet like this might not taste so good. Yeah, they don't really have much flavor, but you can taste maybe a little bit of peanut.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:So we're asking yeah, I want you to talk us through, if you don't mind, why you chose the tree nuts that you chose, sure.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:So a lot of people don't know what tree nuts are. Right, tree nuts are the nuts, whereas peanut is a legume. Even though it has nut in it. So when we talk about nuts, we mean specifically almond, cashew and pistachio, walnut, pecan, hazelnut, brazil nut, which are the ones everyone usually avoids.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:The big fun ones that I try to-. What do my patient call them? Toenuts? Oh, they do. They look like little toes.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:They do look like toes, they have a lot of selenium, which is good for you, so I try to eat one a day, anyway. And then macadamia nuts, pine nuts are sort of in between a nut and a seed, but those are the main ones. And then, when we think about the ones that people are most likely to be allergic to, cashew and pistachio, which are sort of go hand in hand, because if you're allergic to one, much likely, very likely, to be allergic to the other. So that's one right. So then pecan and walnut is another pair that we diagnose commonly, unfortunately, and so those are really important. Almond we don't see as many allergies to almond, but we do see them, and it's a very important tree nut because it's in everything, so exposure to those is very important. And then obviously the other one, sesame, is very important. We're seeing a lot more sesame allergy, unfortunately, which is why the FASTER Act came out, so that companies have to label whether or not they have sesame in their products.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Right, we've talked a little bit about that, but y'all's products came out before the FASTER Act. So talk a little bit about that, about why you decided to include sesame, because of course we as allergists have been seeing sesame allergies. Hence the advocacy for the FASTER Act back in 2021. But talk us through sort of that decision.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yeah, I think a lot of our decision making is literally. I mean, well, at first it was us sitting on Daniel's couch he's the other co-founder with a whiteboard writing down all the trials and all the ideas that we had. Now we do it in a somewhat more professional manner, but a lot of it is us sort of brainstorming and me, as a community allergist, talking a lot about what I see and what I hear that parents want.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:We also. When we started the product, we wanted it to be very science and evidence-based and having a science team and a really good professional team to oversee us and give us advice. And so that's when Jonathan Spurgle came to help us and Gary Rachel Lapsky, who's one of the amazing past presidents of the Aquati Eye, a great allergist that was here in Los Angeles, and others we asked to be there to help guide us. And so when we would get together and brainstorm I mean obviously sesame, as you mentioned as allergists we know so that would come up a lot because it's such a hard allergen to avoid.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:There is sesame in so many things and I don't think people know that if they don't have to worry about it, because it's not just like the little sesame seeds on the big map right, it's the sesame flour that is in so many things now.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yes, sesame, flour, oil, all of these things, and it's actually probably is even harder than some of the tree nuts and peanut. So anyway, we, because of that and seeing it and knowing about that, we had that had to be included and so, yeah, and so, and then again the other main allergens, and then those can be given in. So we have Stage 3. We have Stage 3 packets you can put in food. We have an oatmeal that is delicious and it has all of those Stage 3 allergens and it tells you how much you should eat every day to get the right amount and you just feed the oatmeal with the allergens. We also have bars now, as the kids get older, that you can. You know little snack bars. Everybody loves bars. Who doesn't love a bar? Bars are all the rage, they are. And then you don't have to be thinking, oh, did I give cashew butter this week, or did I give tahini, or you know all these things that it just takes. It takes that worry and that extra stress out of it and it's just great ways and they're really healthy.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:That's the other thing. We didn't want to make them too sugary and too additives, right, so we made all the snacks are healthy. The oatmeal is the puffs we're going to be making. Are we actually? Dimension is so funny. We have a new partnership with Daniel Tiger, because he has a peach allergy, yes, and he does a very good job at educating the you know, the children and their parents about many things, and so one of them was food allergies, and so we have a partnership with them, with you know, daniel and his friends, and you know they're on our boxes and we use it as a way, another way to spread awareness. I mean, a lot of what we do is trying to spread awareness.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Right, because you want kids to grow up and not have food allergies, but you also want families of kids who don't have food allergies to be aware of the challenges that our families with food allergies do struggle with. You know I mean you and I talk about this with our patients all of the time about some of the stressors that can come along with, especially back to school time right now. If you're listening to this episode now, when it's first coming out, then it's back to school time and that can be such a stressful time for kiddos and for their parents. So a product like this not only helps introduce and incorporate these allergens early to help grow tolerance, but it also raises awareness of food allergy, which, in general, is just so helpful to people like us and to the families that we serve.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Absolutely. That's such a good point. It's not just to food allergy families, but to everyone, and I want to ask.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:I want to ask how do you guys because it's not claiming to prevent a disease, and earlier on, a couple years back I believe, there was some discussion with FDA about how to really navigate this type of it really is sort of a new product, the whole concept of early incorporation and here is an age appropriate way to incorporate these potential allergens. Talk us through sort of how y'all navigate that.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Sure, it really is a new space. It's a new product, but the whole space is new, right, this whole allergen introduction and incorporation and sustaining, etc. So a lot of things we're learning along the way.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:And to clarify, the FDA doesn't like when products make claims about disease treatment or prevention without going through the FDA process and in a food, which is what the product is, that's not going to necessarily go through that type of process, exactly. So talk us through that.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yeah, this is an infant supplement, or you know, that's what it's categorized, but it's an infant food, right and on our minds. And these types of things do not need to go through the FDA. They do not have to be FDA approved, right? So they don't have to go through a clinical trial like a drug has to. So, as you mentioned, the FDA does not appreciate any company touting claims that their product, you know, will prevent something. And we don't do that and we never have. What. The reason we created the product is to help families, to make it easier to find a way to actually get those allergens in. When you Google the NIH guidelines for food introduction, they will tell you to try to introduce allergens within the first year of life, starting as early as four years of age, right Four months, all the in four months.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Oh sorry, four months.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Thank you, I know what you meant but just to clarify you know what I meant Four months of age and all the international guidelines say the same thing, but then parents look at each other. Great, how are we supposed to do that? We know the science is there, we know that early introduction and exposure will reduce the risk of food allergies. But it's how to do it and how to make it easy and busy lives, and that's what we claim our product does. We say our product makes it easier, safe, all of these things, and with the product it comes a lot of education. And you know our goal is to change public health and I think we're on the right track. But we know it's safe, we know it's easy, convenient, etc. And so that's how we got around all of that. Nothing about prevention claims. I mean there's still going to be babies that develop a food allergy, right?
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Well, and that's what the LEAP study showed that unfortunately, even early introduction, sustained incorporation, exposure, some kids it still happens, which is unfortunate to start with but also just really highlights that we don't have all the answers yet and also really underscores the importance of seeing a board-certified allergist if you have a food allergy. I know so many families who have come to see me, come to see some of my colleagues who their kiddo has had a food allergy for years but they had never been referred to an allergist and that's just so heartbreaking to me because it's not just every year. Okay, here's your epinephrinol autoinjective prescription. We have treatments for food allergies now.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:So many times in my practice I have a kiddo undergoing oral immunotherapy and then mom is pregnant and mom has another baby and mom's wondering okay, how do we make sure that baby number two doesn't have the same challenges with foods that baby number one is having, similar in a way to your experience of not having the food allergies but with baby number one? Okay, I want to do this. How am I going to do this Like this? There's no easy way to do this. And then I mean God bless you. Y'all made a way to make it easier for families, an option, a way to help families introduce this, which is amazing.
Announcer:And you were on Shark.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Tank I don't know.
Announcer:I'm sure that comes up in every interview.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:It does you got supported in Shark Tank, so we did.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:It was. Thank you it was. That was an amazing, amazing experience. We're so thankful to them and especially to Mark, who has been with us, you know, since then the whole way, still very supportive and excited about what we're doing, and it's just amazing to have, you know, support like that and to just feel validated that what we're doing is is the right thing. So that's been excited, exciting. But thank you for saying that, you know, with with. Another good thing about ready to set food is a lot of families that have one kid that has a food allergy are afraid to bring the food into the house, right, because they're afraid they're going to get it. But when you have these packets, it's much less likely that a child is going to get into the packet.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Rip it open eat it you know things like that, so you pour it in the bottle. The other kid gets the bottle. You rinse it off, you let you you know it's easier, I think, for those food allergy families.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:I agree, I agree, and you know we're coming up to the end of of our interview and I mean I can really like talk to you for hours. We've talked before this Because I definitely before I was going to be okay with any of my families trying a product I definitely wanted to talk to to the creator of it and it is absolutely reassuring when these products are created by a board certified allergist who she herself has gone through how, how am I going to do this? And it's one of the beautiful things about entrepreneurship in this country is like you see a problem and you use your expertise and grit and, I'm sure, blood, sweat and tears to make it really become a reality, serving not just your family but serving other families.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:Yeah, yeah, that's very well said. It is, it is. It is blood, sweat and tears, but it's so worth it. You know we are. I think we're in a special field, which is why I mean I could never imagine like not seeing patients. You know as much as we do, because it's so special. We see sort of the immediate right, the immediate consequences or or the issues when we help and treat. We can see it like the next visit, right. So we, we are satisfied. It's very satisfying to know how much we can help a family, a patient, you know, with all the other things we do too. You know allergy shots and asthma and by a lot, all the things we do and immune screening and everything but specifically food allergies. Right, that's what we're, that's what that's, that's the the major thing right now in the allergy world and we're going to keep learning so much more and we've already learned a crazy amount. I always say you're going to be diagnosed with a food allergy. Now's the best time.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:I literally took the words out of my mouth 10 years ago, never, never good but if you're going to have one yes Now is it, Even compared to last year, compared to five years ago. It's just, it's a whole different ball game. It's a whole different ball game, In part thanks to people like you.
Announcer:So thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:We'll have to have you back.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:I would love to anytime, anytime. Thanks so much for doing what you do.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:Oh, thank you.
Dr. Katie Marks-Cogan:I'll talk to you soon.
Dr. Alice Hoyt:That's the episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. Of course I'm an allergist, but I'm not your allergist. So talk with your allergist about what you learned on this episode and visit us at foodallergyandyourkiddocom, where you can submit your family's questions. God bless you and God bless your family.