You sure about that? My sources say
10+% is not what I’d call very low. Granted, about twice as many folks think they have an allergy as actually do, but 1 in 10 is common. Even if this study is not accurate, in the past estimates of food allergies ranged in the 4-6% range, still common.
I know this isn’t great debates, but it would be nice if people didn’t just shoot out random unsubstantiated stuff. Thanks for the reality check Q.
You, for one, are helping perpetuate the board’s motto.
Yes, I was thinking of the previous estimates in the 4-6% range. I don’t see how that would be considered common. YMMV.
I don’t consider Italy to be an authority on pizza. For me, New York City is the capital of all things pizza. And bagels.
It’s the water that does it.
In other words, it’s about as common as being left-handed, more or less.
Funny, we don’t say left-handed people don’t exist, or that most people claiming their left-handed just think they’re left-handed but they’re really right-handed and just fooling themselves/delusional/seeking attention.
That’s because people don’t mistakenly think they are left handed. If Qadgop’s numbers are real, half of all people who think they have food allergies are mistaken.
As always, it depends. A really, really ripe Camembert will announce itself across the room. Likewise some fish products, especially the Asian ones. Never tried it, but that Swedish surströmming (fermented herring) is supposed to have an odor that can clear the room. Durian also, but the only time I tried fresh durian in Thailand it had hardly any smell, and not much taste either, more like a slightly sweetish avocado. I’m told it develops its power as it gets older, which is a few hours in the tropics.
Just curious about the* Vache qui rit* cheese, but is it the same as that sold in France? My understanding is that the USA requires the milk to be pasteurized first.
Other countries, the customs. Milk products in Japan were bland. A local producer (probably Meiji) offered a French-style cheese, can’t remember if they called it Camembert or Brie, but it tasted like a very young and very mild Brie.
Most people dislike a certain food. Food allergies are pretty common, too. They’re funny things. But they are also hard to measure, if you are allergic to sulphites and get a mild rash after drinking certain wines, dried fruit, shrimp and thuringer - it may never get diagnosed. And who knows how much sulphite is in anything?
However, if you go into the ER list twelve unrelated foods when asked for your allergies, it may well be taken (rightly or not) as a sign of anxiety.
And Montreal bagels are way better than others.
Evidently there are people who experience major angst over styles of spaghetti-eating that they find abhorrent. Typical these folks are twirl-the-spag-on-a-fork or coil-using-a-spoon enthusiasts. Lower-class types like me that slice up a bowl into convenient lengths are to be mocked or pitied.*
For me it’s about efficiency. I don’t mind alternate styles that preserve The True Noodle, as long as I don’t get splashed with sauce by the twirlers.
*thankfully, a psychologist has determined the personalities that go along with various spaghetti-eating styles.
Some may not be allergic but still have some sort of adverse reaction to a particular food. The whole allergy/intolerance thing is very misunderstood. Some may have been allergic as children and outgrown it, but did not know that. And, of course, some people just don’t like a food and say they’re allergic so they won’t have to eat it - in which case they aren’t mistaken, they’re simply lying for a particular purpose.
It is certainly the same company. Near as I can tell, it tastes the same in the US as in France (I’ve had it both places) but I’d be the first to admit my palate is far from highly trained.
And it’s pasteurized in both countries. Pasteurization is used in processed cheeses to stop the ripening process.
Au contraire, mon ami - unpasteurized cheese is perfectly legal in the US so long as it has been aged a minimum of 60 days before sale.
In medicine, a condition or disease that affects 3-4% of people is considered an incredibly common phenomenon.
You clearly understand why people are more skeptical of food allergies than being left handed, as this quote right here says it all. Were you being disingenuous a few posts up lamenting how food allergies are as common as left-handedness but nobody doubts left-handedness like they do allergies?
Yeah, I think of it as at 5%, on average, you’d expect one 5%-er kid in every single classroom in America. That’s pretty darn common.
Not that it’s right, but I suspect some people do so because they get hassled about it a lot by friends and relatives, so they just start claiming to have an allergy so people will back off. Blame the assholes we’re talking about in the OP.
Either that, or people grow out of them. And not everyone has the same kind of reactions – some are mild, some are severe. I had a cousin who was allergic to chocolate as a kid, and it just made her face break out in a strange rash. (She’d still try and sneak it, though)
I knew this guy who really promoted himself as some kind of gourmet/gourmand/food expert, like it was really central to his identity. He was highly intelligent, but kind of uncultured. I was having breakfast with him and his girlfriend (I introduced them to each other) and he took a little carton of yogurt with fruit on the bottom and turbo-stirred it, which both his girlfriend and I chided him for. He whined that he was the one who was going to eat it and we shouldn’t gang up on him in an exercise in “class snobbery.” I told him that for a self-described gourmet to do that to a cup of yogurt was on par with telling me that he’s an engineer, and that pi equals three. He wasn’t happy, but I like to think I saved him from future embarrassment.
Regarding something like steak, I don’t really care if someone likes it well done, just don’t ask me to cook it that way. I’d refuse, but then point them towards the grill where they’d be free to cook it as they like it.
Wow, skipped entirely over the bit about people who have problems with specific foods due to conditions other than allergies and focused right in on the liars.
You see, that is why I really hate and despise people who haven’t the honesty to say “I don’t like this” and instead have to make up stories about a medical condition they don’t have - it makes life very difficult, even dangerous, for those of us who DO have medical conditions that make certain foods dangerous, even life-threatening. The focus then becomes the liars, and then the assumption becomes EVERYONE who says they are allergic are liars.
There was a time, not that long ago, when left-handed children were forced to be right-handed. Sometimes even to the extent of tying up their left arm/hand to force them to use their right, then they’d be scolded and punished for clumsiness. Granted it’s not quite the same thing, but my mother told me about being punished for “stubbornly” refusing to use her “correct” hand to do things when she was a child. Being left handed was regarded as something she did out of rebellion, not because of how her nervous system was wired.
Nowadays we let the left-handed be left-handed and don’t force them into being right handed.
I would like to see a day when no one who has a food allergy had to go through some of the things I did - being mocked, teased, having people try to sneak things I’m allergic to into my food to “prove” I was delusional or lying, or try to force me to eat things because people can be cruel bastards and bullies. I would like to be able to discuss my multiple allergies with a new doctor without worrying he’ll think I’m mentally ill rather than having an immune system dysfunction because that just might be a matter of life or death one day. I’ve twice landed in the ER from allergic reactions, it’s a horrible thing to have your own body slowly suffocate you, your eyes swell shut, lose control over your various bodily functions, listen to paramedics discussing that they might have cut into your arm or leg to get to a vein to give you an IV because they’re having so much trouble finding one from the outside… it is PAINFUL and there’s this ITCH that is so bad that clawing your skin off, with little curls of skin bunching up under your fingernails and all that pain that comes from it actually feels better than that itch-from-hell, and your vision is greying out and tunneling because your brain is being starved of oxygen from your swollen throat and tongue blocking your air off… . Yeah, I get a little paranoid about food and allergies because I don’t want to go through that again and it is most certainly NOT a way I want to die.
But I get told “food allergies are rare” and “most people who think they have food allergies don’t” and I’m making a fuss, I’m too picky, I have an eating disorder or anxiety (about dying horribly? Yeah, that’s makes me a bit anxious…) or delusions or some other bullshit.
I shouldn’t have to bring in a copy of the ER report from the Rockford, Illinois hospital from Halloween Night in 1995 every goddamn time I tell a doctor or nurse or any other goddamned person I have food allergies in order to prove I’m not lying or crazy.
It gets old really, really fast.
With food allergies the assumption is that you’re lying until proven truthful - perhaps by collapsing with a reaction in front of the person. Would it really be such an awful thing to start by presuming truth until lying is proven?
Yeah, common, but let’s assume everyone saying they’re allergic is lying, hysterical, deluded, attention-seeking, or over-reacting…
You know, some people lie about having cancer, but we don’t start off assuming people who say “I have cancer” are liars or crazy. But that’s often how I get treated as someone with a food allergy. Often by medical personnel on to of it.
But also “civilians”. Like in this thread. Which does get back to the OP and folks getting cranked about how other people eat.
That is earned hate, fair play.
Agreed that you shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to prove a legitimate medical condition. (I remember your food allergies from previous threads, including the one you linked.)
It’s the millions of people who lie about food allergies that cause those problems, and the fact that they exist makes it a tough row to hoe to convince John Q. Public to presume truthfulness when millions of people – fully half of those claiming allergies – are either mistaken or lying.
If you knew someone who lied to you 50% of the time, would your default position be to assume they were telling the truth?
It depends on the consequences of being wrong.
If someone lies about what movies they like then it doesn’t matter if you believe them or not because if you’re wrong or they’re lying or whatever no one gets hurts.
If the issue is about a medical condition, though, being wrong could kill someone. So even if the odds are 50/50 the consequences of getting it wrong are so serious that it’s best to err on the side least likely to result in a medical emergency.
If someone says “I can’t lift that because I have a bad back” they might be lying because they just don’t want to lift stuff, but if they’re not and you do convince them to pick up something heavy then there could be serious consequences. So usually best to take the statement at face value, even if you’re not convinced of the truth, because who wants to have to call an ambulance or have someone spend time in the hospital or off work?
If someone say “I have a heart condition” they might be lying but, again, if you’re wrong about it could be really, really serious so best to assume they’re telling the truth even if you’re dubious.
But allergies are one of those conditions where even though being wrong could result in someone dying folks feel fine with the assumption the person claiming allergies is lying. And I think it goes back to the days when allergies/asthma/eczema where assumed to be a manifestation of mental illness, or psychosomatic, or found in “anxious” or “hysterical” people, or otherwise not taken seriously. And all the idjits jumping on the latest fad diet band wagon.
I mean, with half the people I see buying gluten free products at work and raving about how getting rid of gluten has changed their lives I do have doubts about having either celiac disease or a wheat allergy, but I say nothing. Because I’m not their doctor, I’m not qualified to diagnose anything, they’re adults and can decide what to eat or not eat, and if somehow avoiding gluten makes them feel better what the hell, good for them. Maybe they have some condition I’ve never heard of that interacts badly with gluten or wheat or whatever. Or maybe they’re crazy. But it costs me nothing to take what they say at face value.
I see a LOT of people fooling themselves about what they eat, or buying into a fad, or spouting just plain wrong information about food when I’m running a cash register where I work. It’s not my job to correct them. It’s not my job to worry about what they’re eating. It’s none of my business.
Which gets back to the OP.
There are related things, like people wanting to know medical details that are none of their business. Or trying to match a single person up with a date all the time. Or any number of other ways person A tries to foist their choices/preferences on person B.