Peanut Butter Kiss – Sucks
November 30th, 2005Peanut allergies, ever present in the public conciousness due to litigation-shy food labelling policies, are a pretty dangerous condition to suffer from.
I have a mild allergy to some nuts, as well as to bananas, bits of avocado that have been near the stone and some seeded fruit. If I do eat them, my lips swell up like I've been stung and I get dizzy or faint. Once, I collapsed at dinner while eating guacamole.
My sister can't eat strawberries for the same reasons. Having been advised by doctors that repeated exposure to whatever part of those foods I'm allergic to could increase my sensitivity, I try to avoid eating them though I don't go so far as to read food labels or avoid Peanut M&Ms. However for some people, even complete avoidance is not enough to shield them from danger, simply kissing someone who's eaten peanuts recently can kill.
This kind of allergy is on the increase, and exposure at an early age seems to be the catalyst. As technology permits increasingly esoteric combinations of molecules to be admitted into our bodies, are we reducing our tolerance to the environment we have created for ourselves?