This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)

For most of us, food is a source of pleasure and community. But if you have food allergies, it's more complicated.

"Food is such a shared communal experience," says Colleen, a Sporkful listener in California. "For me, [my allergies] make me feel like a bit of an outsider."

This week on The Sporkful, we continue our special mini-series, May Contain Nuts, exploring how food allergies change our relationship with food and people.

In Part 2, we talk to listeners about their experiences living with food allergies. (If you missed Part 1, check it out! It's a collaboration with our friends at Radiolab -- part thriller, part science exploration, and it's also pretty funny.)

For Lydia Dong in LA (above with her daughter Ellie and husband Tim), having a child with life-threatening food allergies changed her own relationship with food. She and Tim can't eat some of their favorite dishes around Ellie, so they take turns sneaking out to restaurants alone.

"Every time we’re outside home, we always have to be on alert," Lydia says. "It just feels like we are walking in a minefield...food is everywhere."

Even when allergies aren't THAT serious, they can still have a huge effect on your life.

Samantha Sedivy in Richmond, Virginia (above, center, with her family), was diagnosed with food allergies as an adult. Since then, she's struggled to stop eating the foods that make her sick.

"I just remember feeling so depressed that I wasn’t really going to be able to drink beer anymore," she says. "Sometimes I’ll be bad and I’ll have one [beer], and I’ll have to take the consequences."

Listen in to the full episode to hear how Lydia copes with her daughter's severely limited diet. And Samantha tells us how she decides which foods she's allergic to are still worth eating.

This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)

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Interstitial music in this episode by Black Label Music:

- "Quiet Horizon" by Daniel Jensen

- "Broken Castle" by Bijou Basil

- "Summertime Delight" by Cullen Fitzpatrick

- "Gravel and Dirt" by Kenneth J. Brahmstedt

Photos: Courtesy of Colleen Thomas, FlickrCC/Dan4th Nicholas; FlickrCC/Greg Friese; FlickrCC/Leigh Harries