You'll have a positive reaction to his tunes

Musician Kyle Dine, 28, knows what it's like to live with life-threatening food allergies. He has been dealing with severe allergies to eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish and mustard since he was 2.

As a child, he recalls, food allergies were rare in his native Canada. He often felt embarrassed and alone.

"I just felt 100 percent uncomfortable about it, and it wasn't something that I was vocal about," he says.

Fast-forward 20 years, and Dine is in good company. For reasons that aren't quite clear, food allergies are on the rise. An estimated 600,000 Canadians are at risk for anaphylactic (aka life-threatening) reactions to food allergens. Just this week, a study in the journal Pediatrics estimated that nearly 1 in 8, or 5.9 million, children in the United States have food allergies.

Dine, who lives in Toronto and is billed as the world's first dedicated "allergy musician," speaks from experience when he says the need for awareness and education is great.

When he was 21, he almost died after eating a nut-laced dessert that he had been assured was safe. "It really did make me re-evaluate how I handled my allergies," he says. "There needs to be more education and awareness of the condition and what people can do to stay safe."

Frustrated, Dine picked up his guitar and started writing songs about his experiences with allergies. He released his first CD, "You Must Be Nuts," in 2007. "Food Allergies Rock" followed in 2010.

He'll take his message to Cary Presbyterian Church during a free concert Saturday sponsored by the support group NC FACES (Food Allergic Children Excelling Safely).

With nearly 300 NC FACES families in the Triangle, Dine has a ready-made audience.

Berta Hammerstein will be taking her 7-year-old grandson, Nicholas, to the show. He's allergic to gluten, the dairy protein casein and eggs, and he often feels alone. "It will be so good for him to have the opportunity to see and hear Kyle in person, singing songs about how he lives with that very thing!" Hammerstein wrote in email to NC FACES coordinators.

It's stories like this that led Dine to parlay his interest in allergy advocacy into a full-time job as youth program coordinator for Anaphylaxis Canada. He has performed at dozens of schools and venues across Canada and the United States. His goal, he says, is "not to focus on the doom and gloom, but about the positive side of allergies."

Dine will perform an interactive set of songs from his CDs at the concerts. The songs - which range from "rootsy" and folksy to rock and reggae - have an upbeat, child-friendly, foot-stomping and hand-clapping bent to them, and they are designed to get kids to speak up.

His performances also include creative takes on pop tunes. For example, Justin Bieber's "Baby, Baby, Baby" refrain becomes "Epi, Epi, Epi," referring to the EpiPen, an emergency injector used to treat allergic reactions.

Sense of normalcy

With games and catchy, original tunes such as "Never Keep a Reaction a Secret" (which lays out the symptoms of an allergic reaction), "My Epineph-Friend," "Gluten-free Blues" and "Stop, Please Don't Feed Me," there's something for everyone.

There will also be an interactive puppet show featuring Dine's characters, Smellephant the Allergic Elephant and Epi-Man and Epi-Man Jr., superheroes for the allergic set.

"We're really excited to see him," says Andria Youngberg, an NC FACES coordinator and mother of 11-year-old Tyler, who has life-threatening allergies to peanut and milk. "He has food allergies, so he truly understands that you can still have fun and enjoy life. Yes, food allergies can be a challenge, but they're just a small part of who each person is."

Anne Saputo, a Cary mom whose 4-year-old son, Blake, is allergic to wheat, eggs, milk, nuts, poultry and corn, agrees. She's also excited that the concert is a food-free event where she doesn't have to constantly worry about tantalizing treats that are a danger to her son.

"I'm hoping it just brings a positive, fun message and a sense of normalcy," she says, recounting the time a neighbor remarked that Blake "looks like a normal, typical kid."

"I was like: 'He is a normal boy,'" she said. "It's just that when it comes to food, he just can't eat what other kids can eat."