Food Vibes: Allergies & Sensitivities (Patreon)

Pineapples on pizza? Not for me 😅 But not because I think it's gross; it just might kill me 🫣

Most of you from Twitch know already that I have quite a few allergies, particularly to fruit for some reason, and that I'm lactose intolerant. Well this is a (mostly) extensive list of all the food-related allergies and sensitivities/intolerances I had, in order of severity...ten years ago. To my knowledge, these are all still a problem for me, but some of them (namely mangoes) have moved up the list and I've noticed some other may need to be added 😅🙃 Mayhaps I should get the test done again... but I probably won't. I don't need that kind of negativity in my life 😂

I got tested for food allergies back at the beginning of 2013, a few months after I started having trouble with my gallbladder. In my final year of highschool, I started experiencing extreme pain in my upper abdomen. The doctors were pretty sure it was my gallbladder causing the problem, but 1. The pain was nearly constant; only intermittent enough to startle me...every time, but not constrained to when I ate fatty/greasy foods, and 2. I don't have any of the common characteristics of someone who's at higher risk of needing their gallbladder out, and they couldn't find any stones 🙃

I was in and out of hospitals and specialist offices for 8.5 months in total, with no concrete idea of what was wrong, before I finally called the surgeon and told him "I understand the risks, but I am out of options. Please take it out." One of the tests I had to do was extensive food allergy testing. And that's where this list came from. The thought was that my problem must be caused by eating foods that my body didn't agree with. And honestly, when I got this huge list I thought they might actually be onto something 😅😬

So I started avoiding absolutely everything on the list. Yup. Everything. And the "superheated vegetable fat"? That meant I couldn't have anything fried/cooked in any kind of vegetable oil. NOTHING FRIED?! Growing up and living in North America, that feels like a sin. Especially at 17. These are prime "eat whatever you want" years! Avoiding everything on this list and everything that those things might be in was brutal... and very difficult 🙈 like, come on, yeast?? Albumin (a protein primarily found in animal meat)?? 🙃 Yay for rice/quinoa and broccoli... 👍

Ultimately, I went back to eating like I normally would because after three months on this incredibly restrictive diet, nothing had changed. And thank goodness for that, because now I can continue to eat the things I don't have a noticeable reaction to and just live in fantasy land 😅😇 Unfortunately, the fruits and red dye are anaphylactic responses 🙄 The lactose...it's hit or miss. We test our luck #challengeaccepted 😎