Gary has decided he’s allergic to drywall dust AND to food. He’s been keeping a food diary of things he reacts to and it seems to be all foods.
(Or, as I so so gently suggested, Dr. Pepper? That was brutally shot down.)
I did wonder if a person could be allergic to all foods, and while I don’t know if Gary has this allergy, I understand that a person can be allergic to Balsam of Peru, an additive that is evidently in everything (including tomatoes, oddly). I don’t see how that works, unless Balsam of Peru is on the periodic table: if it’s an element in all things. It would be like being allergic to hydrogen. Or, well, nickel; that happens all the time. Or I suppose it could be a molecular isomer. Left to right it’s Balsam of Peru, right to left it’s a tomato.
I don’t really know how legit this whole Balsam of Peru thing is. It smacks of government conspiracy and “You don’t know what mind-control chemicals they put in our food.”
But, you know this stuff is in Dr. Pepper. You know it.
2 responses to “TWIL: Balsam of Peru”
… *it* isn’t in tomatoes, but two of its main identified components are. (well. odds are decent that tomatoes and Balsam of Peru also share”water” and “sodium” and other things.)
So then the question would be whether those specific components are responsible for reactions and for which people, etc. Also whether Dr. Pepper has the substance itself in it or shares some of the compounds, who knows; Natural and Artificial Flavorings is not *terrifically* specific.
But also yes, swapping to another caffeine source for, say, a week, might be illuminating…
(But also I would LOVE IT if labels would list what “spices” are in something, for all the cinnamon-allergic and capsacin-explodes-my-guts people. I’m not a “no additives in foods!” or a “chemicals are bad!” person, but I really really really like it when things are accurately labeled so that the people who need to avoid something specific *can* avoid it…)
KC – it really surprised me that all the ingredients aren’t listed. I thought that was the point of labelling.