Oh my God.

[Sliceanddice]

Sofar- some scienetis believe the increasing occurence of allergies is kind of a good thing. An allergic reaction is an immune system reaction to something. Some sciencetist think that the increase in allergies means the human immune system is evolving so that we can better fight off disease. So yeah it is more common now and days to have more and more people allergic to stuff. Thats why these resturants who aren't willing to adjust or warn about allergians are just waiting for a law suit. Because some days some kid, who warned the wait staff of an allergy is going to eat at these resturants and wind up dead because they ingnored them and/or didnt tell them that there was no way to make sure the allergine wasn't in their food. And their parents are going to sue sue sue

[tollbaby]

Roe is made from male sex organs???? I thought roe was fish eggs. errr... Wiki agrees with me. Male sex organs? .... prairie oysters maybe :P

Fish sauce is also a predominant ingredient in a lot of asian cooking. Any allergies to fish would be triggered by that. I've recounded my bell pepper horror story elsewhere so I won't repeat it here.

The increase in severe allergies is mostly due to the ridiculous amount of chemical exposure people now have (pollution, smog, preservatives, pesticides, herbicides, off-gassing, etc.). We're surrounded by nasty stuff, and most people don't even realize it. Unless you're a whole-foods type person, you're eating all kinds of preservatives in your food and unless you're buying organic, you get pesticides and growth hormones as an added bonus. Drinking grocery store milk? The stuff in plastic jugs gets chemically altered by the light it's exposed to and loses most of its nutrients before you can even get it home. The furniture in our homes, our garbage, our CLOTHES in some cases, produce off-gassing which releases potentially harmful chemicals into our home environments.

All this chemical exposure combines to confuse our immune systems as to what's a threat and what was simply ingested in the natural course of feeding ourselves. Our systems become confused to the point of overload sometimes, and allergies (or oversensitivities) are produced. I'm allergic to... ORANGE FOOD DYE of all things. I can't eat Kraft Dinner (not that THAT's a big loss), or cheezies (again, big deal) or orange soda, or orange CHEESE (cheddar cheese doesn't naturally come that color, folks). I can, however, eat carrots, oranges, sweet potatoes, etc. because I'm allergic to the dye, not the naturally-occurring carotene.

I've never read a single study or article that suggested that allergies were a good thing because our immune systems are stronger. In fact, the contrary is usually touted by medical journals, etc. Our immune systems are weakened and confused by continual exposure to things we should NOT have in our bodies, and allergies are the result.

[Sofar]

Because some days some kid, who warned the wait staff of an allergy is going to eat at these resturants and wind up dead because they ingnored them and/or didnt tell them that there was no way to make sure the allergine wasn't in their food. And their parents are going to sue sue sue

I'm beginning think though, that there's a point at which it's no longer safe for you to eat out.

[wagegoth]

I'm beginning think though, that there's a point at which it's no longer safe for you to eat out.

I have to agree with this. A responsible restaurant, if they agree to serve someone who has an allergy this severe, has to use separate, clean utensils specifically for that meal, clean and disinfect any preparation area, and have the prep workers change their aprons, gloves, anything that possibly has come into contact with any other food. Many restaurants are not going to bother, putting the customer at risk.

As much as I enjoy eating out, I would think twice if it came down to my life or health.

[Erin]

I have to agree with this. A responsible restaurant, if they agree to serve someone who has an allergy this severe, has to use separate, clean utensils specifically for that meal, clean and disinfect any preparation area, and have the prep workers change their aprons, gloves, anything that possibly has come into contact with any other food. Many restaurants are not going to bother, putting the customer at risk.

When I worked for McD's, and someone made a special request, like a hambuger with no bun, (some sort of wheat allergy apparently) I would check to make sure the guys in the grill werent just taking a piece of meat out of the holding bin (where the meat sits on a hamburger bun) and putting it in a box. If the lazy butts in the grill tried that (and they usually did), I'd go back and make a fresh piece of meat for the customer myself.

We had separate fryers for the fish, but we still had idiotic coworkers who would put the chicken patties and nuggets in the fish fryer because the chicken fryer was already in use.

This was back before my allergies all started appearing, so I wasnt as knowledgable as I am now, but if a customer specified how the food should be prepared, I'd at least try to keep their food from getting anywhere near the allergens that these people were allergic to.

[Andara Bledin]

Okay, it seems to me that we haven't always been this allergic. I'm getting six or seven people a day allergic to something, (and five outta seven are allergic to something we actually serve.) They don't serve peanuts on aeroplanes anymore, we have to keep seperate frialators, one for things that may have gluten or wheat products in them and one for things that don't, I had someone last week tell me he was allergic to rapeseed oil, and we have to keep a seperate milkshake spindle for peanut-butter milkshakes because sanitizing doesn't eliminate the allergen.

Is there something in the air?

It's processed food. It's all bad for us. We (as an entire race) didn't really have cancer or tooth decay before we started industrializing our food sources. Some antrhopologist doing studies on dental decay around the late 1800's found that indigenous people who still adhered to their original dietary systems had none of the medical issues that plagued more "civilized" peoples. But as soon as the food source was tampered with, so were all the related health problems.

I hope your friend who lost his eyesight to the criminally stupid waitstaff is doing better.

Actually, he is. A couple of years back he did a ninja routine and went to Europe on the sly to have some fancy surgery done. He's got back most of the vision he lost from the mushrooms and part of the vision lost from the accident. He came back and we all laughed that he had no idea who anybody was any more because he didn't actually know what any of us looked like.

^-.-^

[Sofar]

It's processed food. It's all bad for us. We (as an entire race) didn't really have cancer or tooth decay before we started industrializing our food sources. Some antrhopologist doing studies on dental decay around the late 1800's found that indigenous people who still adhered to their original dietary systems had none of the medical issues that plagued more "civilized" peoples. But as soon as the food source was tampered with, so were all the related health problems.

Buh, wha? Did you just say there was no such thing as tooth decay before processed food? Who was this anthropologist, anyway?

I have to agree with this. A responsible restaurant, if they agree to serve someone who has an allergy this severe, has to use separate, clean utensils specifically for that meal, clean and disinfect any preparation area, and have the prep workers change their aprons, gloves, anything that possibly has come into contact with any other food. Many restaurants are not going to bother, putting the customer at risk.

That's another thing, is there a point at which you can no longer reasonably expect a normal restaurant to be equipped to meet your hypoallergenic needs? I can't do all that stuff during the lunch rush.

[symposes]

Its been proven, in studies not funded by the government, that processed food is bad for you.
Look at obesity rates. You want to know why it can be so hard to lose weight? Well do you eat meat you dont raise and slaughter yourself? hello, growth hormones and steroids are fed to those animals. howelse could they get so big so fast.
Ever see a skinny 12 year old girl with big tits? Ill bet you she eats fast food a little too often.

Hell Geneticly Modified food, is literally the worst thing you could eat.

[myswtghst]

Chiming in on the posts about not eating out if you're allergic.

I tend to think that if your allergy is life-threatening, by eating out, you're taking a risk. Even if you warn the waitstaff, and even if they try to be responsible, they may just be unaware or dumb, and cause a mistake, and I would (personally, at least) hate to have my death on someone's conscience just because they didn't know a utensil they used had touched my allergen, or that the sauce that they are given pre-made included something I was allergic to.

It sucks that things can happen out of ignorance, and it sucks even more that it can happen if the waitstaff at a restaurant doesn't take a customer seriously, but I also feel that by eating out, you're taking a risk.

Another one of my biggest pet peeves is people who (and this has been encouraged by dieting magazines) claim a food allergy to get their food specially prepared at a restaurant. Thanks to this trend, IMO, servers are taking people claiming allergies less seriously, knowing that some people lie to get their way. Personally, I hate mushrooms, but I would never claim an allergy--I can pick em out myself, or order something else.

[Sliceanddice]

I've never read a single study or article that suggested that allergies were a good thing because our immune systems are stronger. In fact, the contrary is usually touted by medical journals, etc. Our immune systems are weakened and confused by continual exposure to things we should NOT have in our bodies, and allergies are the result.

Im just convaying info i was told by a biologist. Sorry.

[Andara Bledin]

Buh, wha? Did you just say there was no such thing as tooth decay before processed food? Who was this anthropologist, anyway?

Quick answer: Yes.

Tooth decay is a civilized problem.

A quick Google bruoght me to this page and this one.

There is a current trend towards what is referred to as the paleolithic diet. It's the latest fad, but there is a lot of basis in historical fact as compared to other fad diets.

The person I had mentioned was actually a dentist named Weston A Price. He practiced during the 1930's (rather a bit later than I had recalled). Alarmed by the increase in dental decay and birth issues and other degenerative conditions, he set out to travel the world to see how the rest of the world fared and why those in his city were in physical decline.

What he found was that indigenous groups had wildly varying diets, primarily dependant upon their resources. Most of what they ate was fresh or only lightly prepared and, of course, there were no chemicals such as pesticides, hormones, or drugs given to livestock or put on plants.

However, once a people started adopting the dietary situation of "civilized" man, they introduced an alarming number of maladies upon themselves and their children.

Most ADD is actually an allergic reaction to certain foods (wheat and milk are common problems), we suffer from low iron content because we don't get enough copper to use the iron we get, we get too much calcium but not enough of the Vitamin D to properly utilize calcium, and most of us (especially men) need more potassium. Multivitamins are counterproductive, cow's milk is what makes cows huge (and it has a similar effet on humans), and cooking often destroys much of the nutritional value in the foods we eat.

..... can you tell that nutrition is something of a hobby for me?

^-.-^

[Rapscallion]

Hell Geneticly Modified food, is literally the worst thing you could eat.

Hmm - can you back that up?

The main thing as far as I know about GM foods is the unknown. There are four or five basic foods, and if we foul one up (cross contamination by the terminator gene, for example), the world goes hungry. I don't think there's any proof - yet- that GM foods are dangerous to consume. I write from the office of a company opposed to all forms of GM foods, so I do have some exposure to the topic. I wasn't aware of any specific peer-reviewed research that proved this.

Rapscallion

[Andara Bledin]

Hell Geneticly Modified food, is literally the worst thing you could eat.

I missed this comment earlier. And, as Raps said, the jury is still out on the good, bad, and ugly of gm'd food.

One of the absolute worst common foodstuffs you can put in your body is actually white sugar. And you find it in nearly everything.

^-.-^

[AnqeiicDemise]

Yes, the spring roll was supposed to be there. there was one in each of the bowls of soup me and my parents got. I even asked the waitress and she says that it's always served with those in the soup, she's just apparently clueless as to what those rolls were made of. They actually bring the empty bowls to your table and serve you the soup from a big pot. I didnt see the spring rolls in the soup as she was serving it, otherwise I would have questioned what it was before I ate it.

I also just found out that a weird sauce that was served with my entree that night also had seafood based stuff in it. I had gotten some teryaki steak thing, because I figured that it would be safe to eat. Well, I was looking at the menu at the link I gave in the last post, and it said that the meal came with asparagus and something called "roe". I couldnt figure out what it was. I'd never heard of it before.

So I googled it.

I am so glad that I didnt eat this roe stuff (it looked like mayo or ranch dressing, both of which I hate) Roe is apparently made from the sex organs of male fish. (Ewwww!) I was telling my parents about this tonight, and my mom knew what it was and kept going on about how wonderful roe is. (she's Southern and loves anything seafood)



So, now I really want to yell at the owners of this restaurant. They really need to inform their wait staff about what foods have seafood in it. Even if I hadnt eaten the soup, I still would have gotten contaminated with something I'm allergic to if I'd actually eaten the roe. I also got the feeling that the chef would have been offended if I had asked the food to be made without the seafoodish stuff in it. The chef at this place is fairly well known as getting easily offended if someone doesnt like something he makes. (I think I'll stop going to the fancy restaurants with my parents from now on and stick to Burger King and McDonalds.)

I just want to figure out how to write this hypothetical letter without sounding like the most sucky customer on the planet. I want to be polite, and non-sucky. I dont think it's possible for me to do that.

A chef, if he's got an ounce of professionalism in him, would not be offended at the fact that you cannot eat seafood if you're allergic to it as it is not you being picky.

I had to shove this thought down my old chef's throat: I'm allergic to crustaceans and if I keep eating other shellfish, I'll develop an allergy to it, so I just have it very rarely.

He didn't believe me and almost forced me to eat a tiny bit of shrimp-- another chef walked by and stopped him.

"Nori, you don't mess with seafood allergies. They're too dangerous."

Well, he finally understood when he gave me curry made from curry paste and I ended up with a swollen lip, numb tongue and itchy body. Now he takes food allergies seriously and if someone says "I can't have such and such or I'll die." he doesn't get offended.

FYI: curry paste has shrimp paste in it for seasoning. When going to thai restaurants, always ask what their curry base is.

[Broomjockey]

One of the absolute worst common foodstuffs you can put in your body is actually white sugar. And you find it in nearly everything.

^-.-^

Scary fact I learned awhile ago: white sugar doesn't rot or decay unless you get it wet. That alone tells me it can't be good for me.