Journal: March 11, 2009

[kalinda001]

When people ask me if I have any food allergies, my truthful response would be no. But that’s not entirely accurate because I do have a psychological allergy to onions.

Bulb/dry onions, scallions, chives, spring onions, red onions…basically any type of onion regardless of its name or form. I won’t eat them. I do cook with them but I will avoid eating them like the plague.

I will take them out, push them to the side or eat around them. I might eat them if they’re so overly cooked that I’m sure they’re dead but even then, I have to work up to it.

My sister never believed that I have that severe a reaction to onions. She took me to a Korean restaurant once and ordered a dish that had onions. Of course, she didn’t tell me and when the dish came, it didn’t look like there were onions in it. I became violently ill to my stomach the moment I put some in my mouth. I knew. Those dastardly onions were in there. They may have been hiding but they couldn’t fool me. Suffice it to say, my sister never tried that again.

The funny thing is that my mother also never liked onions and one of my aunts as well. I never knew about my mother because she does eat them now. It seems that she made herself get used to them. Why? I have no clue. You won’t catch me doing something that illogical.

Well, that's all for today.

Comments

[debris4spike]

I have a couple of minor allergies - but also I have real proplem with fish ... no allergy, just the thought of eating it .... Ewww. The rest of the family eat it though ... it is just me!

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Is it just fish or does it extend to seafood in general?

[debris4spike]

I can cope with a Prawn Cocktail ... with lots of the sauce. But all of it is edible - just the thought of the texture is what ultimately gets me!

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

The lecture on Molecular Gastronomy talked about that. He said there are the true allergies that come up at once and there are the intolerances like you and onions.

Just because there is no objective, physical cause it doesn't mean your feelings are not real and unpleasant. It goes back to our ancestors not having any way of telling if something was good to eat. If you became ill within a few hours of eating something new or noticeable then your subconscious screamed "Poison, don't eat it again!" and turns your stomach every time you meet it afterwards.

Apparently it is possible to retrain your body by tasting the food and following it by a pleasurable experience. That is how the lecturer's wife got him to eat Brussels sprouts.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Molecular Gastronomy
That's a great phrase. I might borrow it for an icon.

I do like brussel sprouts but retraining myself to like onions...Hmm ;)

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

retraining myself to like onions...Hmm ;)

Depends on how much an adverse reaction to onions inconveniences you.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

I have a problem with the onion family but it isn't exactly an allergy nor is it an intolerence such as reapermum but it is a physical intolerence. I love onions, I used to eat pickled onions like some people eat chocolates, 2 and 3 at a time just by themselves, put a plate of good thick onion gravey with a large hunk of bread in front of me for a snack and I would fall down and worship you. But after 40 I gradually found myslf becoming unable to eat them. At first it was just mild indigestion but it grew worse and worse until I become physically ill if I eat any thing that has onion or garlic higher than the 5 ingredient listed( in the UK the closer to the beginning of the ingredient list something is the hogher the proportion of that substance there is in it)so your intolerence could be a real physical problem kalinda001 not a psychological one.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I'd never heard of that before. So you can develop it over time too? I wonder why.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

It runs in my family, at least my mother developed a similar allergic reaction when she got past 40, hers was to chocolate.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Yikes, allergy to chocolate?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It doesn't sound psychological if you had a reaction to onions you didn't know were there. Me, I love 'em!

What makes me gag is texture: specifically soft and slimy. I can't eat jelly (Jell-O, I think you call it) or overripe/overcooked fruit and veges. I also refuse to eat cucumber because I can taste the stuff all day afterwards and I don't much like the flavour in the first place. Yet I love gherkins, and they don't affect me at all; must be something in the pickling.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

I think there's something about the flavour that turns me off. But not all of its flavour or I wouldn't be able to eat food cooked in it.

Yup, we call it jello.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

If you are sick without being aware of the onion then it is not a psychological allergy.
Such an immediate reaction sounds like an allergy or an intolerance for onions.
The fact that it runs in the family indicates you have an inherited disorder.