As anyone who knows me past a Facebook page and a profile picture face, knows that I have severe allergies. If you are an even closer acquaintance, you know that my allergies are unconventional; I am allergic to all chemicals and dyes. This means all chemicals and dyes in food, beauty products, cleaning products, laundry detergent, you name it. If it wasn’t from a leaf or the ground, I’m allergic too it.
Now, I know this sounds like a made up allergy like gluten (before you get your pitch forks, be real with me, 95% just don’t want to eat it for societal reasons). But I assure you my allergy is completely real.
Let me set the scene. It was 7 years ago and all we wanted was some delicious Pad Thai from a well known restaurant, that for the sake of this story I shall call, Ladle & Paring Knife. Although we had eaten there many times before, something was different about these little black take out boxes. Maybe it was the foreshadowing “Enjoy your meal” commentary from the waiter or the note on the box that said “DON”T EAT ME”, but alas, I will never know.
But, I digress. I enjoyed my black box of death to every last morsel and that’s when it began. The most excruciating pain I had ever felt, as if the Samurai’s themselves had hidden behind a bok choy to only reveal themselves when it was too late. Crippled with pain, the fetal position was the only way I could manage. If I had the information that someone was trying to torture out of me, they would have gotten it 10 minutes prior.
Scientifically, there was an overdose of MSG in the Pad Thai that night. Some people are more susceptible to the effects of MSG than others; some blame their headaches or slight stomach discomfort on the poor choice of food rather than the chemicals that cause them. I on the other hand, have always felt the effects of chemicals since I was little but never knew it until I was forced too. Every time I drank Crystal Light as a kid, I would get a migraine. I never knew why, or even questioned it for that matter. I just knew that I would only drink Crystal Light whenever I could slot time aside to have a killer headache-because that seems normal. The amount of MSG that was in that noodle-y goodness essentially shut down my digestive system, for one month I was only able to stomach plain white rice and water. For breakfast, lunch and dinner it was the same thing; I called it my Survivor Diet. The moment any other kind of food hit my stomach, the searing pain would return. These attacks wouldn’t last for minutes mind you; the longest one lasted for 7 hours. 7 hours of excruciating pain is a very, very long time. Gradually I was able to introduce foods back into my diet but I would quickly figure out which foods had chemicals and dyes in them (RIP Skittles).
Naturally we made appointments with allergists only to find out that, yes this allergy does in fact exist but the test to diagnose the severity of it is illegal in Canada. Pardon me? Illegal in Canada? Yes you heard right. Of course, I could spend $7,000 in the US to “officially” diagnose something that I already knew, or we could start to play detective; naturally we chose the latter and so began our mission to test every food known to man.
I became a lab rat. Eating foods that I once loved and cautiously waiting for the pain to jump me. Trail and error is how I have been living my life for years. Part of me is nervous to eat at new places because I know I will have a reaction, it’s just the severity of it that is the grey area. Often when I am out with friends or with anyone for the first time, I opt not to eat. Most people don’t understand this but let me ask you this: if you had the choice between 1) Definitely having an allergic reaction but the severity is unknown and it could last for a couple minutes or debilitated you for hours or 2) You will be hungry until you can eat again in a couple hours, but you will feel fine. I assure you, after choosing #1 too many times; #2 is the best option every single time.
In a way I look at this newfound allergy as a blessing. It forces me to eat better at the cost of my misery if I don’t, but it has also educated me. Since being diagnosed I have researched and educated myself in what they put in food, in beauty products and in cleaning products. Trust me, it is terrifying once you research what those weird names on the ingredient list actual are. It has shocked me to learn that they inject oranges with dyes so they appear more orange (which I only learned after having an extreme allergic reaction after eating a Sunkist orange), that “Tartrazine” which makes some of your beautiful foods more yellow, is actually make out of coal tar and here are only a few side effects of MSG:
Headache.
Flushing.
Sweating.
Facial pressure or tightness.
Numbness, tingling or burning in the face, neck and other areas.
Rapid, fluttering heartbeats (heart palpitations)
Chest pain.
Nausea.
Bon Appetite? Honestly, if this list was posted right next to the ingredients list on every product, would you really eat it? It is so important to educate ourselves because the companies of these products are most definitely not going to advertise that they are putting poison into our food. Just because it is on the shelf doesn’t mean it is safe to eat-just like if there is a velour jumpsuit on the shelves that you should wear it.
But here is where my rant comes in; there are three types of people that I have encountered when I have told them about my allergy. The first type, “Wow! You must not be able to eat anything”, the second type, “You are so lucky, you must be really healthy” and wild card number three simply lists foods rapid fire asking if I can eat them or not (hunker down if you are a #3 kind of person because the list is miles long). Now let me shine a light as to why these irritate me. The first statement reminds me that, no, in fact it is very hard for me to eat anything reaction free. 99% of the time I have a reaction every single day one way or another. The second statement I find ignorant. Yes it may be true, but it is not by choice. It is like being locked in a cellar by a kidnapper but only fed quinoa, “wow, that’s awful you were kidnapped, but you must have lost so much weight since you were eating so healthy!” Yes I am eating mostly organic food that yes, in the long run will probably make me live to 150, but I would at least like the option to stagger drunk to the nearest McDonalds and eat my feelings in the form of chicken nuggets like everyone else. Every time I eat I have the inner battle of, ‘I really want that…but it’s going to kill me…” usually it ends with, “I’ll just eat it fast”. Of course I have the willpower of a 2 year old in Toys R Us so I do consciously eat foods that I know I am allergic too, but I pay for it after. Although, that being said, I know my limits. I know to never touch anything with: sulphites, nitrates, MSG, any dyes with numbers and Tartrazine. I could have that list go on forever but those are my main culprits that I look for when I scan a label in the store.
My rule of thumb for anyone not wanting to put poison into their bodies, read the labels. If you can’t pronounce the ingredient- don’t eat it. Do research! Pick out an ingredient that you don’t recognize on a label and look it up, don’t just aimlessly put things into your body without truly knowing what it is. I’ve always hated the saying ‘your body is a temple’, but it is true. This is the only thing you have to pull you through life so don’t have it break down before you even make it halfway.
Just be conscious, there was a time where people couldn’t fathom the idea that smoking was harmful; food is our generations’ cigarettes.
FIGHT THE FOOD,
Brianna
