Hello and good day to you marvelous readers. I hope you are having lovely summer vacations, because I am not. No, my life has been forever challenged and changed by my food allergies, so my life has become severely complicated, not unlike many others all around the world.
But Jordan, why not just not eat soy or bananas?
Gosh, fine netizen, I wish it were so easy to avoid the things that could kill me, but it's not.
In fact, I would like to discuss today the dangers of food that exists literally everywhere, not just in America. It will help broaden your current knowledge of both food allergies, GMO products, and the food industry as a whole.
Just the other day, I had my wonderful graduation party in Kenosha, Wisconsin, my hometown. Unfortunately, a guest got a little inebriated and could not quite hold a conversation at the level I believe she would normally be capable of. She complained about her kids' food allergies and blamed the fact that her kids couldn't eat bread from a store the way they could eat bread she made at home with organic flour. Well, I don't believe she could understand my argument, but my points still remain true. Sometimes, we have to step back and look at different potential sources of problems rather than just blame someone that many people enjoy picking on.
Well duh, I thought, of course the bread you made from scratch was safe! She made it!
Her kids have a soy allergy, just like me, among others. I told her a little secret. If she had made the bread from scratch with normal, non-organically branded bread flour, her kids still would have been safe. The secret does not lie in the wheat, dear Watson, but the manufacturers of the bread! She told me that she is super careful about reading labels on what her kids eat, but she never asked about any of the food at the party, and in fact gave her kids s'mores later with Hershey's chocolate as well as other store bought things! She didn't even glance at them!
I have a pretty sensitive soy allergy, myself, so I had special s'mores supplies, which I will be using very soon again, as we are about to have a bonfire momentarily. Even though nearly everything at my party was soy-free, as per my demands, her kids suffer from other allergies, but she just gave them whatever they wanted. And people, that is NO way to treat food allergies.
So let's talk about why avoidance is so hard in this day and age.
I, for one, blame product labeling.
I mean, is it SO HARD to put real ingredient names on packaging? I would like to know why a loaf of bread has to have nearly forty ingredients, when it can be made, very easily I might add, with just a few when I make it. I understand the need to preserve things, but the complexity of food levels never stops amazing me. For example, here are a list of ingredients:
But Jordan, why not just not eat soy or bananas?
Gosh, fine netizen, I wish it were so easy to avoid the things that could kill me, but it's not.
In fact, I would like to discuss today the dangers of food that exists literally everywhere, not just in America. It will help broaden your current knowledge of both food allergies, GMO products, and the food industry as a whole.
Just the other day, I had my wonderful graduation party in Kenosha, Wisconsin, my hometown. Unfortunately, a guest got a little inebriated and could not quite hold a conversation at the level I believe she would normally be capable of. She complained about her kids' food allergies and blamed the fact that her kids couldn't eat bread from a store the way they could eat bread she made at home with organic flour. Well, I don't believe she could understand my argument, but my points still remain true. Sometimes, we have to step back and look at different potential sources of problems rather than just blame someone that many people enjoy picking on.
Well duh, I thought, of course the bread you made from scratch was safe! She made it!
Her kids have a soy allergy, just like me, among others. I told her a little secret. If she had made the bread from scratch with normal, non-organically branded bread flour, her kids still would have been safe. The secret does not lie in the wheat, dear Watson, but the manufacturers of the bread! She told me that she is super careful about reading labels on what her kids eat, but she never asked about any of the food at the party, and in fact gave her kids s'mores later with Hershey's chocolate as well as other store bought things! She didn't even glance at them!
I have a pretty sensitive soy allergy, myself, so I had special s'mores supplies, which I will be using very soon again, as we are about to have a bonfire momentarily. Even though nearly everything at my party was soy-free, as per my demands, her kids suffer from other allergies, but she just gave them whatever they wanted. And people, that is NO way to treat food allergies.
So let's talk about why avoidance is so hard in this day and age.
I, for one, blame product labeling.
I mean, is it SO HARD to put real ingredient names on packaging? I would like to know why a loaf of bread has to have nearly forty ingredients, when it can be made, very easily I might add, with just a few when I make it. I understand the need to preserve things, but the complexity of food levels never stops amazing me. For example, here are a list of ingredients:
- Edamame
- Kinnoko flour
- Miso
- Okara
- Yuba
- MSG
- Tamari
You know what they have in common? They are all different words for SOY. And that's not all. You can search it yourself, but here is a site that might help you learn more. At the bottom, it talks about how soy oil and vegetable oil can be safe for most allergic patients. Well, what do you mean, most? Aren't they all the same?
Well, no. I actually do have a sensitivity to soybean oil and any vegetable oil containing it. Soy flour, soy milk, soy sauce...all potential killers. But if you are a parent and your kid has an allergy, it is SO important to know all the different names, or your child could wind up in a hospital, or worse, dead. I remember the day I finally realized I could no longer stand to eat bananas. I was sitting in my calculus class, hungry, so I decided to have a banana. Pretty soon I felt a familiar itch in my mouth, and immediately took a benedryl. However, my throat quickly swelled and I could not breath. I wrote a note to my teacher, which he signed, and I went to the nurse. She gave me a hot compress to relax my chest, because she was unable to give me any medicine and had to wait for it to pass. Eventually the swelling went down, and I was okay. To this day though, I can't eat it and it makes me sad. Even worse, no one knew what had happened to me until I returned and told them. No one could tell that I was slowly, potentially dying, right in the midst of class. It was actually really scary, but I knew I had to be more careful about what I was eating. I had had bananas before, but they only made my mouth itch, not caused my throat to collapse and my chest to have dull, aching pains.
Well, no. I actually do have a sensitivity to soybean oil and any vegetable oil containing it. Soy flour, soy milk, soy sauce...all potential killers. But if you are a parent and your kid has an allergy, it is SO important to know all the different names, or your child could wind up in a hospital, or worse, dead. I remember the day I finally realized I could no longer stand to eat bananas. I was sitting in my calculus class, hungry, so I decided to have a banana. Pretty soon I felt a familiar itch in my mouth, and immediately took a benedryl. However, my throat quickly swelled and I could not breath. I wrote a note to my teacher, which he signed, and I went to the nurse. She gave me a hot compress to relax my chest, because she was unable to give me any medicine and had to wait for it to pass. Eventually the swelling went down, and I was okay. To this day though, I can't eat it and it makes me sad. Even worse, no one knew what had happened to me until I returned and told them. No one could tell that I was slowly, potentially dying, right in the midst of class. It was actually really scary, but I knew I had to be more careful about what I was eating. I had had bananas before, but they only made my mouth itch, not caused my throat to collapse and my chest to have dull, aching pains.
Anyways, I know for a fact that this is not just a problem here, in the United States. My friend Kate, from the Czech Republic often gave me candy from her country. Candy that was also similar to some from Mexico, that my friend Val gave me. Each, in their own language, saying soy in the label, but not mentioning that in an extra line titled Allergy Information: that labels are supposed to have. And this is because not all products are regulated by the FDA, so they do not have to clearly state that they contain soy, and others are allowed to have a certain standard amount before it has to be on the label, for general safety reasons.
If you didn't already read my other post about GM plants, please refer to it immediately to understand why you can't just blame them for all of your problems when the real dangers lie in the negligence of the food industry. But please, don't just take my word for it. Some quick research will soon show you these same things. All the information is out there, all you need do is look for it.
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