Japanese card for a crab allergy
Hand a Japanese waiter a card that names crab as かに and asks which dishes are safe for you.
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This tool only prints what you type. It gives no medical advice, makes no diagnosis and guarantees no translation of anything you write yourself.
Where crab hides in Japanese food
Crab appears in surimi crab sticks, hot-pot stock and seafood curry. Crab sticks often contain real crab extract even when the English menu just says "seafood".
What the card actually says
The Japanese side opens with 私は【かに】のアレルギーがあります — "I am allergic to crab" — and then, if you say the allergy is severe, adds that even a trace can cause anaphylaxis. Two optional sentences warn that Japanese stock is usually made from fish and that shared fryer oil transfers traces. It closes by asking which dishes contain none of it.
Labelling rules in Japan
Japanese law requires this ingredient to be declared on packaged food, so a label will always name it — but a restaurant menu is under no such obligation. That gap is exactly what the card is for: it moves the question from the packet to the person cooking your meal.
Printing and carrying it
The default is the Japanese business-card size, 91 by 55 millimetres, and ten of them fit on one A4 sheet with cut lines. Print at 100 percent scaling, not "fit to page". A convenience-store copier will print the PDF from a USB stick for 10 to 50 yen. Nothing you tick or type is uploaded — the PDF is assembled by JavaScript inside your own browser tab.
Limits of this card
This page gives no medical advice: the generator prints exactly what you tick and nothing is checked, diagnosed or professionally translated on your behalf.
Frequently asked questions
How do you write "crab allergy" in Japanese?
かにアレルギー. On the card it appears in a full sentence — 私は【かに】のアレルギーがあります — because a bare noun phrase is easy to misread as a preference rather than a medical allergy.
Will a Japanese restaurant take a crab allergy seriously?
Usually yes. Staff commonly carry an allergy card into the kitchen and come back with a list of safe dishes, and chain restaurants often keep a printed allergen chart behind the counter. Small independent places may simply say they cannot guarantee it, which is an honest answer worth having.
Can I add other allergens to the same card?
Yes. Open the full dietary card, tick crab together with anything else, and all of it goes onto one card. Beyond about nine sentences the type starts to shrink, so the tool warns you and suggests an A6 card instead.
Is my allergy information sent anywhere?
Nothing you tick or type is uploaded — the PDF is assembled by JavaScript inside your own browser tab.