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Whatever Wednesday – Page 2 – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)

Tag: Whatever Wednesday

  • WW Kitchen Stories: Denise’s KitchenAid Mixer

    Denise's KitchenAid Mixer
    Denise’s KitchenAid Mixer

    So in Mary Kate’s inaugural kitchen story post she asked what the workhorse pieces in your kitchen are and if they had a history. My workhorse piece is my KitchenAid mixer. And it does have a bit of a story.

    When I was a kid (there’s some debate over the exact age, I thought it was around 15, but my mother claims it was before that, maybe 12 or 13), my father decided to buy a KitchenAid mixer for my mother for Christmas. Now, this was mostly because my dad’s friend had bought one for his wife, and my father was a “Keep up with the Joneses” kind of guy. Keep in mind that my mother was working 10 or 12 hours a day, she wasn’t all that interested in cooking anyway, and I was basically responsible for getting dinner on the table at that age already. To complete the picture, my mom has often said that she made a pie once before I was born, just to say that she could do it, and that was enough. So a KitchenAid mixer wasn’t an appropriate gift for my mom in any stretch of the imagination.

    I tried to explain this to my father while we were shopping. He didn’t listen, because that was not his thing anyway, and I have to admit that I didn’t try as hard as I could have to convince him that it was a stupid gift for my mother because. . . it was a KitchenAid mixer! (Cue heavenly chorus.) I knew that the use of the said KitchenAid mixer would default to me, as the main cook in the family. So sue me, I let appliance lust sway me from the straight and narrow path of insisting that my father pick a Christmas gift that my mom would actually like.

    The KitchenAid mixer was purchased, and as predicted by me, my mother wanted nothing to do with it. So I used it during the years before I left for college. I didn’t take it with me because there really wasn’t a place you could stash a KitchenAid mixer in the dorm rooms at Wellesley, although I did have a food processor for making strawberry daiquiris. During my second year of law school, my mother finally decided to get a divorce. Let’s just say it was not a shock to anyone, and it was certainly about freaking time. When she told me she was moving out of the house, I told her that she needed to take the KitchenAid mixer. She was puzzled and said that she didn’t want it. I said, “I know you don’t, but I do.” She took the KitchenAid mixer, and since I was living in an apartment at that time, the KitchenAid mixer and I have been happily together since. I’m now 42 and my relationship with the KitchenAid mixer since its purchase has lasted either 27 or 30 years depending on who’s memory is accurate (maybe my sister will weigh in for a tie-breaker).

    Last year I noticed that the KitchenAid mixer had developed an oil leak. I was devastated, but I did my Google-Fu and figured out what was probably wrong with it. And then I found out that the nearest service center was in another state and I might have to mail it. I couldn’t imagine mailing it, let alone the cost of mailing it, and the cost of the repair seemed excessive. So I did my Google-Fu again and found a video that showed you how to repair what was most likely the problem. I decided to take the risk. If I killed it, it’d had a good long run, and if I didn’t, I’d put the money I didn’t spend on the repair towards a new one. (They have purple ones now, just saying.)

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eKHVvNX5eY&w=560&h=315]

    So I ordered the materials and waited for them to arrive. When they did, I spread newspaper out on my kitchen floor, and got my Kindle Fire out so I could watch the video over and over again as I did the repair. It took me about an hour, just because I was working so carefully and slow to make sure I did it right, and I wanted to remove as much of the decades old grease as I could. When I got it back together, it worked like a charm. No leaks, no drips, no nothing. To celebrate, and to make up for contemplating replacing it for a younger, hotter, and purple model, I got it a purple dragon decal (go here on etsy, but she’s on vacation until July 5) to match my dragon tattoo. Here’s hoping for another thirty or so happy years!

    Pretty purple dragon decal on Denise's KitchenAid Mixer
    Pretty purple dragon decal on Denise’s KitchenAid Mixer

     

  • WW Guest Post: Ann Winslow, Chef, on food allergies

    Food Allergies by A. Winslow
    Attack of the Killer Bread by Ann Winslow, 2014

    Note from Mary Kate: Ann is a good friend of mine from college (during which, no, no one including me used my first name) who who is an artist and chef. In one of our conversations, she mentioned that food allergies were a hot topic in the restaurant world. Of course — that makes complete sense. But rather than hostility, she expressed that accommodation was part of her job as a chef, in the hospitality industry. I invited her to write us a guest post, as I thought it might be useful for those of us with food allergies to hear from the kitchen directly. Ann writes at Winslow’s Bread Shop in her “spare” time, and I know she’s been working on a gluten-free pizza crust. The picture at the top is Ann’s work.

     

    Pending approval, this post will appear both at Winslow’s Bread Shop and at Surviving the Food Allergy Apocalypse, which is the website of Kate, my college friend from Agnes Scott, and her friend Denise. Thanks, Kate, for inviting me to be your guest blogger of the hour!

    To give a little context to readers of Kate’s & Denise’s blog, I am a chef at a well-known international luxury hotel chain. My experience comes not so much from culinary school as it comes from almost ten years of gut crushing, mind blowing, maddeningly awesome work. Food allergies were mentioned in school as a reason to avoid cross contaminating foods, but ten years ago, it was not nearly as big a deal in my work as it is now. Cheerfully being able to accommodate food allergies has now become par with knowing how to make hollandaise without a recipe or measuring tools.

    I’ll admit that it’s easy for me to be irritable about the food allergy epidemic because I have been blessed for my entire life with only one food allergy: fuji apples make my lips itch. Recently I discovered that I can eat fuji apples if I peel them. Heck, maybe I’m not even allergic to them any more. Minor as it is, the fuji apple allergy was a simple and direct conclusion. My mouth only itches when I eat fuji apples, so I eat other kinds, and I also try to avoid eating things like poison ivy. That worked well until one day at work when I was hungry, and the only available food was a half case of fuji apples. Really. (We had just reopened the hotel after ski season, and that case of apples, 2 weeks old, was all the food we had.) How, then, do people come up with complicated food allergies, which require months of trials and eliminations and multiple doctor visits? I mean I have seen some things that seem downright made-up in comparison with something obvious, such as lactose intolerance, hives or passing out dead on the floor from a severe shellfish allergy. I understand that those who do make up ailments make those with genuine ailments look bad. I just don’t have the ability to decide who is fibbing, nor do I feel like risking my entire career by taking that chance.

    Just for kicks I’ll invite you to consider food phobia fanatics as a rising minority among the allergic crowd. As an example, I’ll mention the pregnant lady who called the operator to ask her to call me to ask if our sliced turkey was cooked in our ovens or if it was prepackaged, i.e. full of chemicals. News flash: turkeys nowadays are born full of chemicals, antibiotics and gmos (genetically modified organisms/feed)…at least the ones that hotels like the one where I work are able to buy more than one bird at a time. Furthermore, those daily prenatal vitamins, whose ingredient panels are probably more than four words long, if in English, may be more harmful to an unborn child than a few slices of deli turkey at one meal. We do, in fact, roast turkeys for sandwiches and other preparations. We also have “extra chemicals” turkeys, just in case an emergency strikes the ovens, or there is a turkey sandwich convention for which we are unable to roast turkeys fast enough. If we had been unable to meet that guest’s requirements in the turkey department, I would have asked her personally what she would like as an alternative because that’s the kind of service we provide. I would have been more than happy to put all other important projects aside to make sure that one person is satisfied. Lesser organizations probably would not have been as accommodating.

    By now I’m sure you may be choking on my sarcasm, and I apologize. I do not view any segment of society as the source of my difficulties in life, and I do not wish to alienate anyone. The purpose of this blurb is not to spout my frustrations in a new outlet. To the contrary, I actually experience much less frustration than I used to about life in general and people with food allergies in particular. You might say I have turned over a new leaf and adopted the asi es attitude of the friendly Mexican workers of the stewarding department, which supports me every day. It’s the way it is, and I find that suffering abates dramatically if I surrender. After all my hearty constitution seems to be a rarity in today’s world. I might go so far as to call myself an endangered animal in a rapidly changing species. Here’s why:

    I work in a specialized department called the club lounge. Some of you already know what that is. For those who don’t spend much time staying in hotels, the club lounge is basically a room, usually in the middle or upper floor of a hotel, where guests of that entire floor pay a premium rate to have exclusive access to their own concierge as well as private meals prepared by a chef who cooks only for them and nobody else in the hotel. This means that nobody in the rest of the hotel gets to eat what the club guests eat. When the chef is very good, this is truly a special experience worth extra money. These guests also get a free bar, tv, computers and big, fluffy chairs.

    From week-to-week, I get a report about what’s going on with guests in the club lounge. This list often has super V.I.P. guests, including the owners of the hotel, company employees at the top of the food chain, other various persons whose toes I do not want to step on and, yes, guests with food allergies. I can’t remember the last time I had a report that did not have or was not updated to add guests with food allergies. Some are boring food allergies. Most are gluten or nut allergies. Occasionally there will be an entire family.

    If you are a reader with a food allergy, I beg you to make your allergy known each time you dine in public. Earlier this year we almost lost a guest who had not spoken up and ate something fatal to him. Miraculously he was saved, though I still don’t know exactly how, since the incident occurred when I was not there. I came in the next day to a memo asking us to exclude indefinitely the offensive ingredient from all future preparations. This is one very extreme and very scary example of the way in which the food allergy epidemic is transforming the food and beverage/hospitality industry. Reputable chefs will change entire menus if that’s what’s needed to avoid this kind of thing happening.

    Believe me, folks, you have got real power. Nobody, at least nobody in my company, is interested in messing around to find out whether or not you’re just pulling our chain. This is why Kate and people like her are right to avoid chain restaurants and places of mediocre quality. (Could the dining experience be in for a global upgrade?) Sure some of us chefs may grumble, some of us may even get genuinely angry about having to change a menu that is very special and dear to us into a menu that doesn’t make much culinary sense. But when it comes down to risking a life or causing some medical trauma or even being the source of an unpleasant experience, we don’t have the guts to stand our ground forever. That’s just silly, and it’s bad business. I hope that the chefs who refuse to budge will gracefully find work in metallurgy or concrete, where being hard is valued.

    As a passionate member of culinary society, I say “yes!” to evolution, whatever that means. May the fittest survive in this insanely rapidly changing environment, and may the food industry grow ever better for everyone.

     

  • WW Kitchen Stories: Mary Kate's Kettle

    Hey, we sort of hit a wall writing about living with food allergies, just like we hit a wall before that writing about personal care products we make, and home cleaning products we make. It turns out, sometimes there are only so many things to say about any given topic. At least for now. We haven’t officially retired any of our series; we’re just letting them hang out until we’ve got more to say. We’re also going to go back through and make sure the posts are all properly categorized in case you ever want to find them again. As always, we’re a work in progress. Isn’t that life, with or without allergies of any sort?

    Mary Kate's Kettle
    Mary Kate’s Kettle

    So for a lighter topic, I’m happy to introduce to you today our Kitchen Stories. The first post kind of explains it all. I was looking at my tea kettle over the weekend as I was making tea and realized it was just one of many of my kitchen tools that have a story.

    My first kitchen was a harvest gold masterpiece (there were flecks of metallic gold in the counter top (formica)! It was, as my roommate and I would have described it at the time, “Klassy with a capital ‘K’.”) It was this so-awful-it-makes-a-great-story 1970s cinderblock masterpiece, with no insulation and radiant ceiling heat. We could grow mold on the walls, and every fixture in the bathroom and kitchen was apparently leaking into the ceiling of the apartment beneath us. But my roommate and I were thrilled beyond measure to be in an “adult” apartment where we had to figure out how to feed ourselves on a daily basis.

    We had a full block of knives (my birthday gift from my parents that summer) and a decent number of kitchen utensils we’d bought or scavenged from our parents’ kitchens before moving out. But we were woefully low on actually useful cooking things. There was a Goodwill a few miles from our apartment that was a source for most of the rest of what we needed, and my first good score was the Revereware kettle that I still use today. I’d had a fancier kettle in college, a red one that I think my mom bought because it was a nifty color, but it was dropped once and the paint started flaking off, inside and out. I want to say that I splurged on this kettle — I think I paid $5, and I did buy some SOS pads at the grocery store to shine it up.

    That was in 1999. Last century. That kettle has made thousands of cups of tea — nothing else gets you through a damp Oregon winter, or a well-below-zero North Dakota winter, or just a plain fun northeastern New Hampshire winter. It served me through the Cup-O-Noodles phase that happened between grad school and finding a real job. Mostly, it’s made tea. And some coffee. But tea. A literal ocean of tea. I was raised Irish, and therefore firmly believe that tea will likely solve any problem. Or, if not solve it, soothe it or give you a break from it. Tea is magical. As such, the ever-important kettle is rarely ever put away. It is always on the stovetop, ready to serve (and likely full of the leftover water from the last round of tea).

    This kettle is the workhorse of my kitchen, and sometimes, using it reminds me of the first kitchen that was “mine.” It’s been with me for the 6 subsequent kitchens, as well.

    What are the workhorse pieces in your kitchen? Do they have history?

  • WW: Living with Food Allergies — Trust and "The Man."

    Name Tag MKFull disclosure: Denise and I both work for government. So, yes, sometimes, we’re “the man.” And, yes, we understand the jokes (we really are here to help), and we fully understand the limitations of working within institutional guidelines. I like to think we inspire trust through competence and, at least in my case, admitting that I don’t know things and will need to look them up.

    There are a lot of trust issues that come with having food allergies. You have a lot to learn, and a lot to remember, and a lot to cover in your own advocacy for yourself. You have to place your trust in other people — your friends, family, and co-workers — to help keep you safe, to learn along with you, and to put themselves out to help keep you safe. You have to trust your doctors and other healthcare professionals. You have to trust waitstaff and kitchen staff every time you decide to eat out. In these situations, you are face-to-face with at least some of the people you’re placing your trust in.

    But we also have to place trust in nameless, faceless corporations, who aren’t really people, and who we don’t see. We can call them or e-mail or tweet in their general directions, but the amount of faith it takes to trust that entity to be honest on their labels and not to have screwed up? Or to know anything about allergies? Or to, honestly, care? It’s epic. And there is not a lot that builds faith and trust in corporate care for our personal health.

    I’m guessing that most of our readers who are also allergic (I know some of you just come for the recipes!) are already receiving FARE recall notices. This is an e-mail service that will alert you of all the voluntary recalls for mislabeled or cross-contaminated or otherwise potentially deadly food products for people who have allergies. This is a really amazing service, as there is no other central place to find out if your favorite chicken and rice soup has accidentally been replaced with chicken noodle soup, but labeled chicken and rice, so you might need an alternate plan for lunch. Great as it is to know these things, it’s also scary to see how often these glitches happen.

    Why? Why do they happen? Sometimes there is a mix up with labeling machines. Sometimes certain allergens are left off the label accidentally, or a recipe is changed and the label isn’t, or a line was improperly cleaned, or an allergen was accidentally added to a product, or the product got labeled with another product’s label entirely. If you don’t have allergies, this would be, at worst, kind of annoying. When you do have allergies, it’s more than a little scary to see how often our industrial food systems fail us. All these provisions for labeling, for allergy labeling, for cross-contamination prevention best practices? They fail sometimes.

    And there is the fact that what needs to be labeled isn’t as comprehensive as we’d like — a topic which we’re planning to tackle, but has involved more research than either Denise or I thought. Allergen labeling is partly mandatory, partly voluntary, and just generally inconsistent. It doesn’t cover anything involved in “processing,” doesn’t cover allergens that are considered to be denatured by the removal of the protein (e.g. soybean oil need not necessarily be called out as “soy”) and other things that, if you’re lucky enough to not have allergies, you have never needed to know.

    You very likely occasionally need medication, produced by massive pharmaceutical companies who use all sorts of random and wonky “inactive” ingredients. Want to experience frustration? Try finding out what is in your drugs. Then try finding drugs that do not contain your allergens — even the pharmacists do not know. They can likely tell you what is IN your drugs, but not give you other options that do not contain your allergens. There is no database for this, and inactive ingredients can change at any time.

    Other times, it’s a failure of knowledge. It’s a small place that bakes gluten-containing and gluten-free breads in the same kitchen, using the same mixers and tools and pans. It’s the local cafe that doesn’t understand that toasting the gluten-free bun in the same toaster as the gluten-containing buns in the same toaster equals cross-contamination. It’s the doughnut shop that uses the same tongs for the nut-covered doughnuts as for the plain doughnuts. Some of these things you can see happening, some you can’t, and can you remember to ask all those questions each time? As I think we’ve said before about restaurants — if you can honestly tell me you cannot safely feed me, I respect that. That’s why I’ve usually got a snack in my bag.

    Maybe you think you can avoid it and just never buy any prepared foods anywhere, or any kind. You can eat entirely raw or vegetables only or become a fruititarian. And maybe those are options for a few of us. Frankly, my list of allergens makes it hard enough to feed myself without any other restrictions I’d choose to impose upon my diet; my rule is “if I can eat it, and I want to eat it, I eat it.”

    And anyway, that won’t necessarily protect you. We all buy ingredients. When there was a story last year about some of Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flours in Canada having been cross-contaminated with gluten, I was frankly terrified. If you buy gluten-free flours, you’ve bought Bob’s, as they are the only company who sells single-ingredient gluten-free flours (not just blends) at most major grocery chains. If we can’t trust them, can we trust anyone or anything?

    It isn’t that these companies are bad. In fact, many of them have great, socially responsible business practices, and many of them seek to do right by their customers as well as their employees. But safety for food allergens sometimes goes far beyond basic good food safety. Finding the balance comes differently to each company.

    Trust is a really difficult issue for people with allergies. It is definitely more difficult when you aren’t able to see your food produced, know the people who produce it, or trust the companies who make it and the agencies that are supposed to monitor them.

    Name Tag DeniseI’m just going to be upfront and say that a combination of my life and work experiences (having experienced a fairly dysfunctional childhood and having previously spent ten years as a divorce lawyer) have resulted in me having a pretty pessimistic view of humanity as a whole. I thought I was suspicious, hardened cynic before the food allergy apocalypse hit. Now I’ve hit new heights of paranoia and contempt for corporations (especially those in the food industry), some regulatory agencies particularly those regulating food and the environment, our political institutions, and our medical institutions, that I didn’t think were possible. Yay me, way to overachieve! I’ve always been a bit Type-A. 

    Trust. With what I’ve been dealing with on the corn issue, I don’t have any left. Using Bob’s Red Mill as an example since Mary Kate brought it up, their products are rife with corn cross-contamination because corn is run on the same lines. So I could be fine with one package and not fine with another package, which means I’m going to avoid Bob’s Red Mill products because it’s like playing Russian Roulette. Bob’s Red Mill isn’t doing anything wrong because corn is not a top 8 allergen so they are not required to label it, it’s just for me cross contamination can cause a major problem. There’s nothing on the label to tell me there might a problem, and without someone contacting the company, I wouldn’t have had enough information to make an informed decision about whether or not to use the product. I’m bummed about the whole thing because I really liked their products before the whole corn thing went down. 

    One of the people in the Corn Allergy & Intolerance Group on Facebook tells a story about how her mom found some English muffins that didn’t have corn on the ingredient list, and when she opened them, there was corn meal all over the bottom of them. When she called to complain, she was told that was just part of the manufacturing process and they weren’t required to label it. 

    The other thing that cracks me up are the companies that state their product is corn free, and then it turns out that half the ingredients are derived or grown on corn, but allegedly “all the protein” is processed out of it. I am no longer an adherent to the “protein processed out of it” theory. Because there’s a whole crap ton of corn ingredients that should be “safe” for me, and they aren’t. I’m pretty damn sure that I can’t make myself get psychosomatic blisters all over one foot from an exposure, or make my face and body blow up like a balloon, or get cystic acne. Of course, those are just the symptoms that I’m pretty sure the medical community couldn’t blame on a hysterical or emotional response, not counting the other nasty digestive and insomnia reactions. 

    Now on to the FDA and labeling. Basically, I’m screwed. Even if I assume that a product has not been contaminated in the “manufacturing process”, there are currently 336 items that I have to look for to make sure I’m avoiding all my allergens. Because corn is not a top 8 allergen, that means I have to speifically look for the 185 corn derivatives. I have a spreadsheet on Google Docs that I can get to with my phone, but practically speaking this means that any food product with more than two or three ingredients doesn’t make it into my shopping cart. If I don’t recognize it and can’t search for it on my phone, I don’t buy it. Even meat and fresh fruits and vegetables are corn contaminated with the cleansers and the waxes and polishes they put on them. And if I buy organic fruits and vegetables, that just means the waxes and polishes are made with organic corn. Even if you contact some of the companies, the people that work there don’t really know how stuff is made and you have to exchange a bunch of emails to find out that you probably shouldn’t eat it anyway, or be told that they can’t give you the information because it’s “proprietary.” You know what? I think I should have a right to know what’s in my food and personal care products. Period. No matter what it is, no matter how it gets there, whether it’s just part of the “manufacturing process”, whether it’s “proprietary”, or whether it’s a GMO or not. But I’m pretty sure that the lobbyists will make sure that that doesn’t happen, because when you’re really forced to take a long hard look at what’s actually in your food, you stop buying a lot of processed stuff because you (a) can’t and/or (b) get sort of grossed out. This means that the processed food put out by really large corporations have a lot of market share to lose, and won’t make as many campaign contributions, so the system doesn’t work to help those of us eating the products. And given human nature, unless you’re really forced to deal with this because of your health, most of us take the path of least resistance and just throw stuff in our carts that looks like it tastes good. 

    Although I was not terribly trusting of the medical establishment before the food allergy apocalypse hit, now I just don’t trust the system at all. If you do not fit into the mold of the “normal” patient with “normal” illnesses, you can pretty much forget having your medical professionals look for anything outside their comfort zones. I’ll go, but I have little faith now that they will actually figure out what the problem is and know how to treat it, if it’s anything outside the norm. I’m now prepared for doctors to discount or dismiss my symptoms if they can’t make it fit into what they think they know about food allergies. And if you need specially compounded medicine, your health insurer will make it really expensive and difficult to get because they don’t want to pay for it. You are pretty much on your own to do your own research because you can’t trust a poor primary care physician or nurse practitioner to find time to research patient issues when they have to see as many patients as they can to make the organization they work for as much money as possible. 

    So after that thoroughly depressing elucidation of my lack of trust in everything, what’s the point of it all other than getting to whine about it in a blog post to you guys? The point is you have to take control and do your own homework and do what makes you healthy. Because you can’t trust anyone else to do it for you. I’m not sure if this is an empowerment pep talk, or just the cold hard reality. 

     

    What are your experiences in contacting companies to ask questions about your personal health needs? Does anyone have good news to share? Anyone got a favorite company they deal with or buy from?

  • WW: Living with Food Allergies – Getting Sick while Getting Well

    We don't want to end up as exhibits ourselves...
    We don’t want to end up as exhibits ourselves…

    One of the surprising things about having food allergies is the fear of getting sick and whether the process of getting well will make you sicker. It’s much more complicated than you might imagine.

    Name Tag DeniseIn January, I managed to get either bronchitis or pneumonia, which affected my asthma to the point that my nurse practitioner considered admitting me to the hospital because they couldn’t get a peak (air) flow at first. I did a nebulizer treatment in the office and then talked them out of admitting me. Why did I talk them out of admitting me? Well, yeah I hate the hospital, who doesn’t? But my first reaction, was “what would I eat? There’s no way they could serve me corn-free food, let alone deal with the other 12 allergies.” My second reaction was “I’ll get a rash from the sheets; there’s coconut in their detergent.” And although I’ve saved the Corn Allergy Girl’s Emergency Room Safety Doc to my phone, I was there by myself and wasn’t sure I had the air to self-advocate for what I would need at the hospital.

    I didn’t have the money to pay for compounded medication, as our insurance doesn’t cover it and I didn’t know how long it would take to get it compounded. I ended up choosing the lesser of two evils and taking three regular medications, all of which had corn. Although it did help me breathe and get over the bronchitis or pneumonia, it also caused me to have a corn reaction the entire time I was on the medication. So I swelled up like I had gained 20 pounds, broke out in cystic acne, broke out in blisters on my foot so that the bottom of my foot had open wounds in a 2 inch square area, had terrible brain fog, and had insomnia during the whole time. And it took me weeks to get clear of the corn reaction, once my lungs had cleared and I could breathe again, and for my foot to heal. 

    This raises the question of what will happen when I really have to be admitted to the hospital. I’ve known that I really need to have a plan in place, but I still haven’t gotten myself together. I would need safely-laundered sheets, pillow cases, and bed clothes; safe toiletries; a list of the foods and derivatives to which I’m allergic; and actual safe food and drink. I keep putting it off, but one of these days I’m going to need it and then I’m going to be sorry that I didn’t get around to doing it. 

    One of the things I find most disturbing about seeking medical care is that the medical profession just doesn’t seem to know what’s in the stuff they prescribe. I love my nurse practitioner, but when I needed an antibiotic, she asked me which one was corn-free. I had some testing done at the time of my annual physical and I turned out to be low in Vitamin D and magnesium. The nurse called to tell me the results and to tell me to get a supplement. I laughed and said I wouldn’t be able to find one that was corn and coconut-free. The nurse, in an attempt to be helpful, called back later and left a message with several suggestions. Then I had to call her back and tell her that half of the ingredients in the ones she had suggested were corn and coconut derived. 

    I went to the optometrist in December. She said my eyes looked irritated and I needed drops. I said that I was allergic to milk, corn and coconut (these are the most prevalent of my allergens in medications). She handed me three sets of drops so I could look at the ingredients. None them were safe. I tried to seek alternative care through a naturopath, and she wanted me to go on supplements, and I again laughed. And sure enough, all of the ones she wanted me to take had corn and/or coconut derivatives. I got such a bad vibe from her lack of knowledge and insistence that it was a good company making the supplements that I never went back.

    Before I was diagnosed with the corn allergy, I was having a lot of trouble with brain fog to the point that I was literally concerned that I was getting a brain tumor or that I had early dementia. I was forgetting the names of people I saw every day and the names for every day objects, or saying the incorrect word for an object. Some days it happened 25-30 times by noon. I went to a neurologist, an audiologist and did a sleep study. Then, being severely unhappy with the neurologist who didn’t listen to me, went to another one, and got sent to have a dementia evaluation. During this time I was told that it was sleep debt from my insomnia and mild sleep apnea. I was prescribed 3-4 different insomnia medications, none of which had the slightest effect. So I decided to discontinue treatment. Guess what? When I went off the corn, the brain fog went away, one of my two types of my insomnia went away, and I’m willing to bet if I ever went through the excruciating process of a sleep study ever again (unlikely in the extreme) that my sleep apnea will have diminished as well. I’ve dropped about 20 pounds or so, and gone down three sizes, without trying to since going off the corn, wheat and chicken after the last round of testing. Since then, every time I’ve been exposed to corn accidentally, I get insomnia that night, and for the next couple of days I lose my words. Sounds like a causal relationship to me. 

    The problem with all this, and which will be discussed in greater depth in a future post, is that I cannot depend on my medical professionals to know whether medical issues I’m having are related or not related to food allergies. If they are not related, I cannot depend on them to know how to treat the problem given my food allergies, what’s available under my insurance plan, and what pharmaceutical companies actually make. And with the amount of self-advocating and figuring it out myself I do now, what happens when I really get dementia or can’t communicate, and have to go to the nursing home?  Skydiving, cliff diving or eating fugu in my old age sounds better all the time.

    Name Tag MKNow, my allergies aren’t quite as severe as Denise’s, and I’m not allergic to corn or coconut, which are in everything. In some respects, this is great, because I also have ongoing idiopathic (the technical term for “we have no idea why”) vitamin and mineral absorption issues, and the supplements I take are part of what keep me functioning. All the ones Denise and I have looked at together contain corn. ALL of them.

    This past winter, one of my doctors did a full vitamin and mineral evaluation, and we discovered some really random deficiencies. It took three tries before we found a B-complex I could take — the first one that she recommended had an ingredient I was allergic to in it — and she’s the one who did that round of testing. I took the second one and got a cold. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like — one of those colds where, you feel fine, and then, sort of suddenly, your head is stuffed, your nose is running, your eyes are glassy and teary. That was a Thursday afternoon, and I called in sick the next day. Weirdly, though, around 5 pm, I started to feel fine. I guess there are 24-hour stomach viruses, so why not a 30-hour cold? Felt fine all weekend: I’d left the supplement on my desk. When I remembered taking it again, it was Tuesday. Same pattern, exactly, except this time I had to leave a meeting because my head was filling with snot. 30 hours later? Fine. To me, it was absolutely an easy call — allergy reaction — and one I had to convince my doctor of. We tried a third B supplement, and this one is fine, but you can bet I read the label about 200 times before taking it.

    Our insurance company switched prescription providers this year, and of the three medicines I take, all of which are available in generic forms, this new company provides different generics, and at least one of the three contains milk or a milk-derivative, which is causing minor issues. Again, for clarity’s sake — I do not (probably) have a milk allergy, just severe lactose intolerance. I’ve been taking this drug for three months anyway, because being off of it causes more issues than being on it with milk, and I couldn’t get in to see my doctor until April anyway, to see if there is a way to ask for a generic without milk without getting a DAW (dispense as written) prescription for the non-generic drug which could cost me 70 times more. Yeah, that’s not a typo — it’s the difference between paying $1 and $70.

    Milk and wheat are the basis for a lot of fillers used in pharmaceuticals, and there is no requirement that these be clearly labeled, anywhere, nor that pharmacists, prescribing doctors, or nurses have any knowledge of the allergens that may be present in the drugs they prescribe. So even if you think you are safe because your doctor is aware of your allergies, you are not. You need to ask the doctor to check potential allergens (if your doctor won’t or can’t or doesn’t know how, that’s really not great). Then ask the pharmacist again. And go online and check. If you’re on a name-brand drug, checking isn’t too bad; with generics, it can be kind of awful, and worse if the generics can be switched up any time the pharmacy company chooses.

    Frankly the vigilance is tiring, and it’s tempting to castigate yourself for every slip. I try to remember how unhelpful that is, but stock it up as a reminder that no one else will advocate for my health the way that I do, partly because no one else has to deal with it when I get sick.

  • WW: Living with Food Allergies — Diagnosis

    Try to put together the pieces is hard when you're not sure what goes with what.
    Try to put together the pieces is hard when you’re not sure what goes with what.

    How were your food allergies diagnosed?

    Name Tag MKDenise and I have both posted our diagnosis stories in our blog bios. The medical tests recommended for each of us were different — her allergist recommended skin scratch tests, and my doctor had referred me to a naturopathic doctor because she couldn’t help, and my naturopath was the one who brought up food allergies. She recommended blood testing.

    There is no standard testing protocol that everyone agrees on, it seems, but FARE identifies four paths of testing. After the medical tests, we both did elimination diets followed by food challenge testing. Our elimination diets varied in length — Denise’s lasted three months or so, mine was more than 6 months. The food challenges were … well, they were time-consuming and depressing, as most of the time, those foods identified as “potential” allergens made each of us sick. Yipee, real allergy identified. [sarcasm]

    Treatment: Avoid trigger food. Forever. This diagnosis is secured, right?

    (If you’re lucky enough not to know, a food challenge usually involves waiting until you feel well, and then eating several servings of a food that has been identified as likely to make you sick. And then wait three days, and record all symptoms. If you get really sick, never do that again. If you feel just kind of unwell, maybe try it again, or try different iterations of the food — eggs, egg whites, mayonnaise, for example — and see what happens. Depending on the severity of the expected reaction, you may need to do this under medical supervision. Please don’t read any of this as recommended medical procedure, though.)

    This post on Gluten Dude really resonated with me, as I’m in a similar boat. I wasn’t tested for celiac until after I’d been told to cut gluten from my diet (it popped as an allergen on my blood test). So after cutting gluten (and a bunch of other things), I was told to go back on gluten and get the blood test, but it came back negative — did it come back negative because of the on and off, or because I don’t have celiac? The GI, years later, said he found no evidence — not really listening to the fact that I’d been gluten-free for a year and a half at that point. Genetic testing is complicated, as insurance won’t cover it for me easily because I “have no family history of celiac,” but I don’t have a full family medical history — I’m adopted. One of those catch-22 situations. 

    My final decision is to never again eat gluten, as the last time I was accidentally exposed it knocked me down for two days. I’m okay with that decision, overall, as I’d rather be healthy than eat bread. But unlike “plain” food allergies, it would be nice to know if I have an autoimmune disease, instead of saying “severe intolerance to gluten with some of the hallmarks of celiac.”

    I think that teasing out what you’re allergic or even sensitive to can be next to impossible, whether you’re talking about food allergies or environmental allergies. When do you eat just one food in a day? Or in a meal? Or when are you in a room with only one thing that you could be allergic to — dander, dust mites, pollen? How do you narrow it all down? How often do people even consider that allergies might be the cause of their health issues? My doctors didn’t for years.

    See, I think diagnosis might be key in starting this journey, but it’s not the end of it. Knowing exactly why something makes you sick is sometimes helpful, but not as helpful as avoiding the food or trigger. The problem seems to be that the list of allergies can grow, change, expand, and so does the world. We can hope that medicine will catch up, too, but I’m not personally holding my breath.

    What it seems to boil down to is using the tools your doctor or medical team can offer, and then doing a boatload (frankly, an ark-load) of research on your own. Read up. Use the magic of the internet. Get really good at trying to tease out the good sources from the questionable sources that may have some good information from the crackpot theories that somewhere in them have a product to sell to fix you. Ask lots of questions. Find other people online going through weird stuff and read what they’ve found out. Use the doctors again, if you can. And most of all, pay attention to yourself, and get to know what’s going on, both when you feel sick and when you feel well. It’s a lot of work, but generally no one else is going to do it for you.

    Name Tag Denise

    One of the things I find so aggravating about diagnosis is that my ball appears to keep moving. And that I had a lot of problems for a lot of years that maybe wouldn’t have been problems if my food allergies had been properly diagnosed. Mark Kate is correct in that I have had scratch testing, and you can read about it at the link above. But I’ve also have two allergies that I just had big enough reactions to the food that I don’t need to be tested, I know I’m allergic. And in the last two weeks, I just hit another food that might be a problem. I had a reaction, hives and facial swelling, which faded when I took Benedryl, and I had a milder reaction to another form of the food a week later when I ate it by accident because I wasn’t paying attention (again, I’m an idiot, don’t follow my example). I’d like to do another formal food challenge, but I need to be clear of things and get my body back to normal, before I’m willing to confirm that it’s food allergy #14. 

    At this point, I find allergy testing technology to be so unreliable, that it’s hard to deal. In the last round of scratch testing, I tested positive for seven new allergies, I got a 2+ for lobster and 1+’s for wheat, corn, potato, chicken, celery and onion. For the 1+ results, the allergist said this result meant I had approximately at 25% chance of having a true allergy for these reactions. Only three of the positive results were confirmed by subsequent food challenges, although one of the ones I’m calling a pass at the moment might be iffy. (I noticed some minute things, but it’s lobster, and I could have been otherwise exposed the last time I challenged it, so I’m calling it a pass. It’s lobster.) Of the three that were challenge confirmed, corn, wheat, and chicken, all of which were a 1+’s, the corn is fourth for severity of reaction out of all 13-14 food allergies. Crab which is my worst reaction in severity, is a 2+. I can eat picked blue Atlantic crab with no apparent reaction, but if I eat soft shell crab my throat closes and I throw up. Sunflower is my second worst reaction. I’ve had no medical testing to verify it, but the reaction was so bad, I won’t do a food challenge to confirm it. I don’t want to have to use my epi pen. Dairy which is my third worst reaction in severity is a 3+. Does any of this make sense? Nope. 

    At the beginning, diagnosis seems like a life line, because you have some hope that things will get better and you’ll feel better once you know what to avoid. But there are false positives, and there are false negatives, and to verify you have to do food challenges. And there are people out there who don’t test positive to the serums at the allergist’s office, but have a documented reaction to the actual food. But for me, as time has progressed, I’ve realized that I have to pay attention to what’s going on with my body and watch what I’m eating, because testing isn’t as reliable as my observations and my actual reactions. 

  • WW: Living with Food Allergies — Identity

    Photo from the DC Comics website
    Yes, this is how I see myself sometimes. Photo from dccomics.com

    “You are what you eat.”

    Right. So what are you when you can’t eat half the foods that you used to love? Or any of the family recipes you grew up with? Or your favorite dish of your best friends, or the perfect brownie recipe you spent two years perfecting?

    What are you? Lost and frustrated. And others — your friends and family — are lost with you.

    Our food culture today is a bizarre landscape that includes mega-star cooks, entire networks dedicated watching people cook food you will never make, “food deserts,” corporate organics, farmers’ markets, some shady corporate political maneuvering, and an entire populace generally both obsessed with and confused by food.

    This article has nothing to do with food allergies; it’s about making small changes to your diet to eliminate “non-real” food additives. I think this is the kind of article that expresses our collective cultural confusion about food. A diagnosis of food allergy or intolerance means you start reading all labels and learning things you maybe wish you did not need to know about how our food is produced. While I’m all in favor of people figuring out what makes them healthy or well, the seemingly random declaration of some foods as “real” and morally superior or “good” and others “fake” and “bad” doesn’t seem to serve a greater purpose, but it does start to explain the comments that those of us who “insist” upon bringing our own food to social events hear so often —

    • “Oh, you’re so good to eat that way!”
    • “You’re so healthy!”
    • “That must be how you stay so skinny!” or “You must be losing so much weight on that diet.”
    • “I’m so bad for eating this cookie!”

    As we talked about last week, it’s a different health-based reason than most people think, but allergies often seem to get lumped with diet choices and food fads, undermining their seriousness and the toll they can take on your life. A food allergy diet is not a choice. It’s not a moral statement. It’s food that doesn’t kill you.

    I read a maybe more pertinent essay last year that really got into food and what it means to us, individually and as a culture. This open letter to Paula Deen from culinary historian Michael W. Twitty is really worth reading, as I’ve been thinking about it since last summer. Part of what Twitty was saying is that the conversation around food has been somewhat divorced from both its history and meaning. At its base, food is energy. We consume so that we continue; it is fuel for our bodies. But food is a much larger social construct. Food is identity, it is connection, it is love. What we eat defines us, not in the childhood mantra of “you are what you eat,” but in our connections to the world.

    Culinary traditions bind families and communities together, even through migrations as Twitty describes in the large mid-20th century movement of African-American communities from the rural south to the urban north. Think about your family’s traditions. Was there a special food for birthdays, or celebrations? A Sunday meal? A holiday treat? I think I could tell the story of my life through foods, from Cookie Monster birthday cakes, that one cookie recipe my grandmother made, through my mother’s stir-fry phase, through the successes and failures in the harvest gold kitchen of my first apartment, and through that absolutely magical brownie recipe.

    This is one of the very reasons that adult-onset food allergies are so difficult. When the foods that define your family and traditions are now forbidden to you — when going to a family gathering means enduring the many queries about why you are no longer participating in the sharing of history-laden sustenance, or why you brought your own food, or explaining again that, no, you cannot “just have a bite” of that — you have to work around to finding that identity again. All of the old comforts are gone, and seeking the new, while potentially exciting, is rarely comforting.

    When my forbidden foods list extended just to dairy, I found that food traditions other than Midwestern American — or anything North American — were easier and therefore worth exploring. Dairy is rarely used in traditional (even “Americanized traditional”) Asian cuisines. Chinese was safe, sushi was awesome, and even Indian was navigable. Vegan cookbooks taught me to bake without dairy and without eggs, as well as how to focus on vegetables and really use the depths of my spice cabinet.

    As the list of forbidden foods has expanded, the ease of eating out has decreased. I didn’t realize for the first year or so how much I had let fear of getting sick circumscribe my life. Giving up control of my plate meant the potential for getting sick — not likely anaphylaxis (or not so far), but every time I get sick I have to re-face and re-conquer the fear of eating out after I’ve gotten back to being well. I was turning down social opportunities, packing my own food, afraid of the consequences. And I was missing out, not necessarily on opportunities to get sick, but on opportunities to socialize, make and build connections, and to learn how to be a good advocate for myself in restaurants. Not that the latter always works, but it is a skill that you need to learn and practice.

    The other skill is learning to balance — my need to find and take advantage of safe social situations, my ability to create food-free or not food-centered social opportunities, and my own health. The trials of learning this balance are now part of who I am, as are my food allergies, and this outlet Denise and I created online. One of the reasons we started this blog was that we both needed a positive outlet for the frustration of needing to recreate the entirety of our foodscapes. The blog — well, our editorial calendar, which changes, but gives us structure — helps keep us focused on working out recipes for foods we want to eat again. Sharing them out via the internet, and the feedback we get from our readers encourages us to keep working on new things rather than getting stuck in our own ruts.

    Beyond the food, the many conversations we have about our own frustrations and triumphs and failures has lead to this series of essays as we’re starting to feel more like the food allergy online world is a community that we want to participate in beyond our recipes. We’re glad you’re here, and thanks for reading.

  • WW: Living with Food Allergies — Socializing

    Food allergies shouldn't make you feel like you're as strange as this plant looks.
    Food allergies shouldn’t make you feel like you’re as strange as this plant looks.

    We’ve touched on this topic in a peripheral way in our posts on Relationships and Food Free Entertainment, but we wanted to give this topic its own post because of the prevalence of food with socializing in our society, and the complications that can cause if you have food allergies.

    Name Tag Denise

    When you develop a food allergy in adulthood, and then have to re-learn how to eat and how to cook, you suddenly realize how much of your social life revolves around food. Looking back at the last six months or so, and at the events I have coming up, most had/or have something to do with food:

    • Family wedding
    • Meeting my mother’s new friends at a restaurant
    • Work holiday party at a Chinese restaurant
    • Family holiday celebration
    • Going out to eat for birthday dinners
    • Gatherings at friends’ homes, where people all bring food

    Even if the event itself doesn’t revolve around food, I have to figure out how to get safely fed while attending the event:

    • Conventions
    • Vacations
    • My college reunion 

    For me, corn is nearly impossible to deal with. If I go out to eat, I am probably going to be exposed and have a reaction. Unless I can cook for myself with safe stuff, I am going to have a reaction. This can be minor, and it can be more serious, so the people around me have to know how to use an epi-pen. The last convention I attended with a friend, we ate out some meals (I was lucky and had minor reactions, yes, I know, dumb), I brought safe food and snacks with me, and we may or may not have smuggled in a hot plate into our hotel room and warmed up some foods. This was also before I really got good with my pressure canner, and didn’t have anything canned other than pickles that I could bring. Next time will be different and I won’t take so many stupid chances. I’ll still go out with my friends, but I’ll eat at the hotel.

    My college reunion is in June. I’ve been in contact with the college to determine whether they have fridges and microwaves or not, and since I’m driving, I’ll bring in food I pressure canned with me that I can warm up in the microwaves. I’ve paid for all the meals so that I have a seat and can sit with my friends, but I won’t be able to eat anything at those meals.

    As I stated before in our Relationships post, for most events, I will bring my own food, or eat before or after, but that can pose some interesting questions and reactions from others. Some reactions are sympathetic, and some, not so much. I’ve witnessed reactions that clearly communicate that people don’t believe I have a problem and must be making it up, and reactions which are intended to be sympathetic but are possibly passive aggressive. Here are some things not to say or do to a person with food allergies:

    • “If I had to do that, I’d kill myself.” – I’ve heard this on multiple occasions and have always wanted to respond with, “Oh, should I nip off and slit my wrists now then?” but it’s not yet been said in a situation that I could get away with it.
    • “Oh, I’m sure it only has a little, it won’t bother you.” This is where I want to stab them myself with the epi-pen.
    • “You really can’t eat anything here? Not even a salad?”  No, I freaking can’t. If I’ve determined there’s no safe food there, there is no safe food there. Don’t harass me to eat something just because you think it looks weird that I’m not eating anything. Let me drink my glass of water or wine in peace. 
    • “Isn’t there a pill you can take?” – No, there isn’t. I wish there were. Whoever develops one will make a billion dollars, but until that time, I’ll just not eat the food and continue to be healthy, thanks.
    • “I would just eat x[food] anyway.” – Besides the whole potential for death thing, let’s talk about some of my reactions and see how you feel about spending multiple hours near a toilet, with the contents of your stomach exiting both ways. 
    • “If I had that many food allergies, I would only eat one thing.” – I don’t even know how to respond to that. Boredom? Malnutrition? Eating one thing is better than learning new ways to cook?
    • Playing the “can you eat x[food] game?” – Seriously, I don’t want to play that game. First, it’s depressing, and second, last time I checked I wasn’t a circus freak and I just want to hang out and have a normal conversation. 
    • “Oh, how come you get to have x [whatever safe food I’m having]?  What are you, special?” said as I pull out my own safe food to eat. Really?  When you get to eat everything at a store whenever you feel like it? Really? Again, I want to stab them with my epi-pen. 
    • People who take offense because I won’t take just one little bite of this special thing they made – Apparently they would prefer to show off how great the thing they made is, instead of keeping me healthy and letting me decline gracefully. Thanks.  
    • People who tell me to eat local/organic/non-gmo, and I’ll be cured – While all of those things are good things, if I’m allergic to it, it doesn’t matter whether it’s local, organic or non-gmo. I’ll just have a reaction to a more expensive version of my allergen. 
    • People who insist they are going to have safe food for me at an event and then don’t – While annoying, I’ve learned my lesson on this one. First, they are not going to have the knowledge that you do, and will likely make a mistake even if they do have the food. Second, don’t depend on others, just bring your own safe food. Less chance of a problem that way, and no questioning whether you should have eaten something or not while your stomach churns. 

    It’s just food, people. It shouldn’t be a capital offense if I’m not eating what you’re eating at a social event. I’m lucky that I’m not airborne sensitive, so I don’t have to ask people to change what they are eating or serving, so I wouldn’t expect to get as much aggravation as I end up getting. And I’m lucky that my husband, and a lot of my close friends and family members are supportive. That being said, I’m also lucky that I have the kind of personality that if you try to “peer pressure” me or “guilt me” or tell me I can’t do something because it’s not done or because you’re worried about how it will “look,” I’m likely to tell you to shove it and where to go, and do whatever I’m going to do anyway. Sometimes, I’ll have to be more diplomatic with the message than others, but keeping myself safe is more important that whether it is socially awkward for other people or not. And if those people can’t get it, they aren’t worth the time and aggravation anyway. 

    Name Tag MKI’m going to start out by saying that I’m not nearly as restricted as Denise. While soy and gluten are in a lot of prepared foods, they aren’t nearly as pervasive as corn, and I so far don’t react to soy lecithin. I can, if I’m careful, eat out sometimes.

    When I’m in charge of making plans, or when I am with a smaller group and can ask for some level of accommodation by suggesting places I know I can eat. But the thing is, with friends and family, we often find other work-arounds, and have learned to make plans that do not revolve around food.

    And to me, that is a big key to life with food allergies — learn to make plans that do not revolve around food. The food-orientation of socializing is inculcated early — read this post on Gluten Dude for what parents of kids with food allergies deal with daily. (Full disclosure — I did read the original essay. I did not read most of the comments. Not enough sanity points in my day.) Those attitudes — why should I have to change my behavior when you have the problem? — are pervasive and problematic. If parents are teaching their children that their own desire for something is more important than someone else’s health, even if just by modeling that behavior, then despite food allergies being more prevalent among the younger generation, things won’t get much better as far as attitudes go.

    Even if my allergies are most likely to just make me sick rather than kill me, I take my own health more seriously than I take anyone else’s feelings. For the most part, I’ve not experienced the peer pressure stuff Denise has — people generally have not encouraged me to eat something I said no to anyway. But the questions can be kind of intrusive and can derail or take over the social experience. So maybe some general advice for anyone who doesn’t have food allergies but knows someone who does — or may meet someone who does:

    • When I say “no” to the pizza at a meeting, don’t point out that there is salad, or crackers, or cookies, or anything. Just accept the no. There is nothing I can eat. I am okay with it, and I will be more okay if you stop pointing out that I’m the only person not eating.
    • When you tell me the ingredients in your dish at the potluck or party, and I smile and say thanks and then skip it anyway, please don’t take it personally or as an indictment. I don’t want to ask about your kitchen practices, about the potential for cross-contamination, or try to explain the list of what I can’t eat.
    • When I bring my own lunch to an event, where lunch is provided, I’d really love it if you just don’t ask me about it. I know people aren’t being rude, really, but let’s just talk about something other than food. Maybe let’s not talk about “how healthy” my lunch looks or how that must be the reason I stay so skinny. Discussing my health and digestion with strangers isn’t high on my list of fun topics.
    • When I decline an offer of food with an explanation — “No, thanks, I can’t. I have food allergies.” — and then change the subject — “So how long have you been involved in [this project or conference]?” Please take the hint and let’s move on.

    I don’t feel obliged to explain. When I want to, I do, when I don’t want to, I don’t. And overall, I’m not angry at people who ask questions; I just don’t always want to play ambassador for the “alternative eaters,” especially not when I’m in my professional role.Unless you’re at a gourmet restaurant, you generally don’t need to talk about the food you’re eating, do you?

    There are people I trust enough to cook for me, but I’m always aware that I am the only one who has to live through any mistakes I eat. If I really have concerns, I’ll skip it. Whatever “it” is.

    I think our cultural obsession with food, as well as our very odd relationship with it, as a culture, both play into these questions and these interactions — but, hey, that’s a whole other post. Until next week, I’ll just say that events that don’t revolve around food, even if food is there, are much appreciated by all of us with allergies.

    What about you — what’s the worst thing you’ve heard or been asked? What’s been the best response you’ve ever gotten? Have any of your social groups changed how they get together to focus less on food?