I nearly died again! Food allergies and trust in Taiwan!

[housecat]

Blood tests.

[Taiwan_Student]

Yes, fish or fish derivative is like salt here. It must be really hard being a strict vegetarian.

That's another thing, there's a Japanese flavor enhancer widely used made from fish.

Look at this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Katsuobushi_block.JPG

It's called Bonito, Katsuobushi, wood fish and an other number of evil names. It is in everything, including most BBQ sauces, fish bases, chicken marinade and a thousand other places. I've even seen fish in the most common Steak Sauces, mushroom flavor, even... nothing to do with fish but it's in there....
Read all ingredients carefully and even with that, there are no guarantees here.

Fellow fish allergy heads... if you want to enjoy Chinese BBQ, you can do what I do. I buy the "Vegetarian BBQ sauce with the Buddhist symbol on it. I also carry my own barbecue.

[Taiwan_Student]

Would this recall happen in Taiwan.. from the allergy alert network ...

Fish Allergy Alert: Nestlé Prepared Foods Company
April 17, 2012
Nestlé Prepared Foods Company announced today that it is voluntarily recalling two hour codes of STOUFFER’S® Satisfying Servings Lasagna Italiano because the
package may contain STOUFFER’S Stuffed Peppers. While the Stuffed Peppers are wholesome, the recipe includes Worcestershire Sauce—which contains anchovy as
an ingredient--and there is no Anchovy allergen statement on the Lasagna Italiano package. Consumers who are allergic to fish should not consume this product......

[cfimages]

I'm curious - where did all these allergies come from? They seem to be a lot more prevalent nowadays.

When I was a kid, a lot of these allergies that seem common today didn't exist. No one had a peanut allergy. Epipen? Until I read this thread I'd never even heard of them, and apparently now all kids have them.

WTF have we done to our food supply and environment that's causing all this?

[Dragonbones]

I'm curious - where did all these allergies come from? They seem to be a lot more prevalent nowadays.

When I was a kid, a lot of these allergies that seem common today didn't exist. No one had a peanut allergy. Epipen? Until I read this thread I'd never even heard of them, and apparently now all kids have them.

WTF have we done to our food supply and environment that's causing all this?

You're assuming incidence has gone up. It may have, but when diagnoses of a condition go up, it can be due to various factors -- increased incidence, or unchanged incidence but more frequent, correct diagnosis, or overdiagnosis, and/or hysteria, or some combination thereof.

[cfimages]

Yeah, I'm assuming incidence is up as I don't recall ever hearing of any serious cases at all when I was at school. Whole classes eating peanut butter sandwiches and nobody having any problems.

[Taiwan_Student]

Yeah, I'm assuming incidence is up as I don't recall ever hearing of any serious cases at all when I was at school. Whole classes eating peanut butter sandwiches and nobody having any problems.

I believe that the incidents of allergies are actually going up. I always have talk radio as background noise. Mostly BBC and other news sources. I remember a show that actually stated that the incidents of allergies, especially peanut allergies was going up... They stated a number of reasons for their that may cause this but I can't remember. I think it was how we are processing foods, lack of breast feeding and are our over concern for germs.

Here is an article from the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/in_depth/allergies/allergicconditions_food.shtml

[Petrichor]

Yeah, I'm assuming incidence is up as I don't recall ever hearing of any serious cases at all when I was at school. Whole classes eating peanut butter sandwiches and nobody having any problems.

One dominant theory is that in our increasingly sanitised environment children's immune systems aren't as challenged as they need to be, and so go into overdrive, identifying normal things as potential enemies. The allergic reaction is supposed to be akin to the reaction you get when you fight off a disease, though I've never really understood where the throat closing/head swelling aspect comes into this.

[housecat]

A mother I know here told me the other day that her son's doctor actually told her to let him get dirty. That's some radical advice here on the rock, but right on the money.

I believe food allergies have gone up due mostly to how over processed everything is. We shoot farm grown poultry and fish full of both growth hormones and antibiotics. We shoot dairy cows full of hormones that make them produce far more milk than a nursing cow--even if they've never given birth.

We homogenize and genetically engineer grain and other staple crops to be disease resistant and to mega-yield.

No, I haven't done a lot of research about all of this, and I'm not going to. The information I'm talking about is just want I've learned from reading this and that, and from talking to local growers who sold veggies at the farmer's market back in my home states.

But trully natural foods almost don't exist any more. Think you can get around this by "growing your own?" (ha) Where will you get your seeds? Think you have a source of un-engeneered seed products from which to grow trully natural foods? Where did your neighbor get his seeds? The bees, apparently, can't tell a difference--and are dieing too. I have no idea if there's a link there, but it's pretty tough to imagine that you can mess around with you food to the extent that we have and not expect some side effects.

You have to use an appropriate fuel for the engine you're running, and we've re-formulated the fule.

[finley]

Indeed. We fiddle with stuff to such an extent it's impossible to tell what's hurting us and what isn't.

The bee thing, according to the latest research, is almost certainly caused by (or greatly exacerbated by) pesticides. Well, duh.

Growing your own isn't a bad idea. The seeds you buy off the shelf have been genetically selected, certainly, but they haven't had foreign genes inserted. Right now I'm planting out some herbs and veg in a big 200-liter window box I just built. It can be done.