Try addressing the whole point and not just the part you think you can refute. How about cooked cannot be fresh? Or, can you come up with an example of a fresh frozen veggie or fruit that isn’t cooked prior to being eaten?
Sheesh. It never ceases to amaze me how some people here can jump on one word in a post and make a federal case out of it.
OK, if they weren’t cooked prior to being frozen, then score one for you. I didn’t know that strawberries were available frozen. However, it is also entirely possible that I could eat uncooked strawberries that had been previously frozen, since I don’t know if that changes the part I am allergic to. All I know is I was told to avoid fresh (uncooked) fruits and veggies.
I have OAS, mostly for raw apples and cherries. It developed only within the last few years (I’m 33 years old), starting with raw apples. My mouth and ears get itchy and numb if I eat more than a slice of apple or a couple cherries. I have read that often the allergy expands over time to include more different types of fruit/veg. I’m hoping that mine won’t get any worse, but there’s no way to know.
I’m not sure that freezing would get rid of the reaction. OAS is an allergic reaction to proteins in some raw fruit/veg/nuts; the proteins are denatured by cooking, but I don’t know if freezing would have any effect. My WAG is that it wouldn’t, but people rarely eat frozen apple or cherries, so I haven’t tested this myself.
Forgot to mention that frozen cherries are another of my don’t-bother-thawing foods. Dee-licious. However, I don’t have OAS so I can’t tell you if frozen cherries trigger it.
I went off and Googled a bit to try to find out about how freezing fruit/veg affects OAS, and found conflicting information.
I found a lot of informal sites that said that freezing will denature the proteins enough to prevent an allergic reaction, but none of the ones I found had a cite to back this up.
I did find this cite (pdf) which describes research findings that show that skin prick testing for OAS can be done with either fresh fruit or frozen fruit. So this would suggest to me that frozen fruit could still produce the same allergic response as fresh.
Mmmm… I love cherries so much and I miss them. I think when cherries are in season this summer I will have to do a little experimentation. My OAS is really annoying, but it has never affected my breathing. So if I try a small amount of frozen cherries it should be fine. I do it in the name of Science!
Actually it isn’t “supposed to follow this up by eating some protein and fat”. You are supposed to follow up with something that stabilises the flow of sugar. This may be protein or fat, but can also be a wealth of other things. Diabetes UK writes this on the matter:
Regarding sugar tablets, if you are insulin dependent and are caught without them then I am sorry but you are an idiot. There is no other word for it. If you have been diabetic “for many, many years” and been to classes you should know by now that you keep those things on you at ALL times. No exceptions. Hell, I put a pack in my pocket when going to the store to buy food, which is a whole two minutes from my apartment.
Start thinking and acting like a diabetic and people might take your views on diabetes a bit more seriously.
That is what a diabetic’s bag should be like. That’s seven packets, you know, just to be sure. That bag pretty much goes with me everywhere and if I need to go somewhere without it I slip a packet into my pocket.
This is what you should be doing instead of getting caught without sugar. This is “one of the first things I was taught in diabetes education classes” and I’m damn sure you were too.
Curlcoat: Oh ferchrissakes, you really are reaching here. Fresh=raw.
fumster: No it doesn’t.
Dodgson:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that’s all.”
I’m going to back up curlcoat. I’m allergic to several fruits and veggies - kiwi fruit and eggplant to name two. They are indeed “OAS” - I mean, I’m under an allergist’s care and getting allergy shots and have been since about February.
I didn’t know the name of it though! I mean, now if we don’t know the names of things we don’t have them? I also have a shellfish allergy and I bet there’s a fancy-dancy name for that I don’t know either. And don’t really care. All I know is to avoid shrimp.
As for the mildness, pah. I can eat 2-3 kiwis in a sitting. I get tingly feelings and swelling around my lips. I know it’s not a deadly allergy like shrimp can be (it can be, but it’s VERY rare) so I will once or twice a year go ahead and eat them. Doesn’t mean I’m not still allergic though!
Ah, I missed the line wherein it said “unprocessed foods and veggies”. But my point still stands, as a matter of fact is strengthened. My point was “Just because we don’t know every last detail about our allergies doesn’t mean we don’t have them.”
Are allergy shots supposed to enable you to eventually eat these foods again? I have a friend whose allergies are pretty limited and she said that taking Claritin usually allows her to eat the foods that affect her without having a reaction.
I wasn’t always allergic to strawberries and stone fruits, so I know exactly what I’m missing. I would really love to be able to eat them again!
Not really…allergy shots aren’t really for food allergies. They’re for environmental allergies, like insect bites, pollens, dust mites, mold, pet dander, and grasses. I am insanely allergic to dust mites so I am predominantly getting the shots for them. When they measured me, they sent me a little report on my allergies. On it the scale goes from 1 to 100. Shrimp was at, say, 3. Beef, 0.8. Grasses, 1.3.
Dust mites were at 50.6. And I can only go so far in avoidance - they’re ALWAYS there.
Food allergies - pretty much if they’re life-threatening you avoid them. I’ve just stopped eating shrimp completely.