myrmepropagandistFeb 25

I hate how my allergies make me seem like a republican.

Can't eat sunflowers so people think I hate "seed oils" (the other ones are fine, it's just the sunflowers they are deadly)

Can't eat most vegan meats because these people always want to put sunflowers 'n nuts and chickpeas in them.

Generally suspicious of vegan food because of the whole nut issue, even though I really like it when there are no nuts.

Show threadmyrmepropagandistFeb 25

What makes this worse is restaurants who can't tell you their ingredients lists. I just give up and get the most basic foods.

Then there are the things that no one believes: like the "shelled peanut problem"

I can eat peanuts, love them! but not if they have been shelled in a "facility" because whatever they do it gets some kind of other nut dust on them and down i go! Toss me the epipen it's gonna be a long night.

Allergies are so odd. Obscure but serious ones are annoying.

Show threadMx. Aria StewartFeb 25
@futurebird SERIOUSLY. The human immune systems are _so weird_.
Show threadmyrmepropagandist

@aredridel

I really want to know if I was born this way or if it is caused by what foods I ate when I was young?

My husband can't tolerate apple peels. Just the peels, the inside is fine. I wonder what the strangest food allergy must be?

Feb 25 at 1:36amWeb
Show threadMx. Aria StewartFeb 25

@futurebird So just the peels: probably oral allergy syndrome; there's a lot of pollen proteins on the surface.

In general pollen exposure at formative moments seems to have a huge impact.

It's regional too: peanut allergies are way more common in the US than in Europe. Sesame allergies are vanishingly rare the US, but common in MENA.

And then I think a hidden component is a general sensitivity in the form of subclinical MCAS, and new immune learning caused by stressors and viral illnesses. Suddenly new allergies pop up, either real ones (due to inappropriately large IgE production in response to something) or MCAS-like ones (where normal-high amounts of IgE inappropriately trigger mast cells.)

Show threadMx. Aria StewartFeb 25
@futurebird I've got friends with corn allergies and that one fuckin' sucks. It's in everything in the US. And nobody knows how to read labels for it. And one had to move out of Arizona because the pollen was so bad.
Show threadCatFeb 25
@aredridel @futurebird corn is one of my food sensitivities and it's not one of the big 8/12 so I have to read the fine print. Weirdly I don't get noticeable symptoms with every kind of corn ingredient but corn syrup is a no go. Solved the mystery of the terrible gastric distress I got after drinking soda at 8 years old ... but no problem slamming diet coke in college
Show threadMx. Aria StewartFeb 25
@catmisgivings Yup! Seems that starch and syrup are the two biggies, but lots of other corn derivatives are less likely to do it.
Show threadaburka 🫣Feb 25
@aredridel @futurebird I thought the peanut allergy thing was largely caused by a misguided pediatrician who said let's keep infants away from peanuts so they don't develop allergies, and it became a recommendation but it turned out to be totally wrong and the opposite is true
Show threadMx. Aria StewartFeb 25
@aburka @futurebird Made worse, but the actual reality is complex and we're still learning all the situations that can lead to sensitization, and how to desensitize. We're getting there but it's definitely not a simple single factor thing.
Show threadΨ*ΨFeb 25
@futurebird @aredridel birch pollen, maybe? Are cooked apples safe?
Show threadgbsillsFeb 25
@futurebird My oldest kid has the apple peal problem. They made her mouth itch.
Show threadWharrrrrrgarblFeb 25
@futurebird @aredridel it's both. Immune development is a contingent process that involves genes you're born with, random modification of those genes to generate cells which produce a variety of immunoglobulins, and then selection of those cells based on a balance of self-reactivity and environmental reactivity to determine what exactly makes the adaptive immune system you face the world with. Lots of places it can go wrong, or at least inconvenient.
Show threadPiers CawleyFeb 25
@futurebird A friend is allergic to alliums *and* anything from the nightshade family. So no onions, potatoes, tomatoes and a bunch of other less obvious stuff. And she keeps kosher. Finding somewhere to eat out is a challenge for her.
Show threadLeelooFeb 25

@futurebird @aredridel
Has he ever tried an Apple straight from a tree in the garden?

Just wondering if it's actually the peel or some of the bug killers or preserving agents farm grown and store bought apples are covered in.

A former colleague left a home grown and an imported apple next to each other on the window sil. It only took a day or two for the home grown apple to shrivel in and start rotting, where as a few weeks later the imported one still looked fresh. Though when he cut it in half, the inside felt like cardboard. His conclusion, the imported one was so covered in chemicals that even bacteria refuse to eat it.

Show threadMx. Aria StewartFeb 25
@leeloo That's not how decomposition works, that's not how pesticides work, that's not how any of this works.