Looking back to the days of his childhood, Grant Peters remembers claiming he was allergic to vegetables when, in reality, he secretly hated their texture or taste.

"If I was at school and people said, ‘Why aren't you eating that?' I'd say, ‘Oh, I'm allergic to it,'" said Peters, freshman in history. "I couldn't do it with my parents because they'd make me eat it anyway, but I'd say I was allergic when I was around my friends.

"I think they kind of believed me, kind of didn't."

While claiming to have allergies as a child might result in nothing more than a queasy stomach from a mouthful of lies, the confusion between actual food allergies and less-serious intolerances can lead to medical problems.

A study recently published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology found most Americans do not know the difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance.

Most people think they are suffering from a food allergy if they have any adverse symptoms, but only 4 percent of adults have a true food allergy, said Diana Schalles, health educator and registered dietician at Lafene Health Center.

The ability to recognize the difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance is essential. Food intolerance usually causes temporary digestive discomfort, like cramps, gas and mild rashes. Food allergies, on the other hand, can be extremely serious and even life-threatening, according to an article on MSNBC.com.

Beyond the dichotomy between food allergies and food intolerances, there exists a breakdown within each category.

According to the study by the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, about 40 percent of people think allergies do not go away as kids get older. However, allergies can disappear with age.

Milk allergies, for example, can exist from birth and then disappear at almost any age throughout life, according to the article.

Also, some people have more than one allergy, which leads to even more confusion when they do not know which substance is causing the allergic reaction.

For example, Mary Meck Higgins, research assistant and associate professor of human nutrition, said her brother, Robert Meck, is allergic to both shellfish and cats. This double allergy caused an unforgettable fiasco when Meck went to "meet the parents" of his wife, who was his girlfriend at the time.

Meck, his girlfriend and her parents were eating spaghetti when Meck felt his throat start to close up. He kept asking his girlfriend's parents if they were sure they did not own cats, but her parents said there were no cats in the house.

It turned out his girlfriend's mother had put shrimp in the spaghetti, but it did not occur to him that shrimp might be in spaghetti, so he did not even think to ask, Higgins said.

"It's funny because he ended up marrying this young woman, and the first time [her mother] met him, she almost killed him," she said. "He ended up having to go to the emergency room because he is so allergic to shellfish."

In contrast to true food allergies, which are often made obvious during childhood, food intolerances are less serious and are therefore discovered later in life — during the college years, for example.

Some intolerances, like lactose intolerance, can be treated by pills that produce enzymes the person is missing but needs to process the food. Other intolerances, like celiac disease — a condition in which people cannot digest foods containing wheat gluten — must be dealt with by avoiding foods that have gluten and, instead, eating gluten-free foods, which can be found at health food stores.

For people faced with the challenge of living with celiac disease, Higgins said it takes a lot of discipline.

"People think, ‘I don't want to do that, because the food tastes so good, it's satisfying right away, everybody else is eating it, and I want to have it too,'" Higgins said.

Higgins said she recommends people with food intolerances should make a plan for what they can eat instead, so they do not lose out on the socialization eating often brings.

Schalles said she encourages any students who think they might have a food allergy or a food intolerance to make an appointment with their primary care physician or with a specialist at Lafene Health Center.

"There's a lot of misinformation out there, so it's totally understandable why people would be confused," she said. "A lot of people do jump to conclusions, but we are available to help them sort through all that confusion, and get it diagnosed as soon as possible."