You don’t have to get into this if its more personal than you’d like, but I’m confused about the contrast between being allergic to:
Beans (but not peanuts, which are also legumes)
And then later saying:
Tofu is a fine supplement in many dishes
Tofu is made from soy beans; do you know if you can do soy in general, or if the fermentation (or another step of the tofu making process) is what makes it ok?
Getting technical: soy is a different branch of the legume family tree. The one I’m most allergic to seems to be Hologalegina (galegolds), which includes broad beans, peas, and chickpeas.
Tofu is always fine and soy is I think fine, but I’ve had reactions to a few things containing soy + something else (soy protein shakes = very bad day). Soybeans are phaseoloids, the same sub-family as black/brown beans, but only the latter reliably causes me problems. I haven’t tested all the phaseoloids but it’s obviously kinda unpleasant to do so.
Part of the problem with this allergy profile is the uncertainty it spawns; many foods have 2 or 3 ingredients that could be the cause of a reaction and it can be hard to tell which is the culprit. To complicate matters further, cooking helps at least some of them (fish is 50-50, egg yolk is fine).
I’ve been to formal allergy testing but they only had tests for a few of my problem foods because come on, who would be allergic to celery? IIRC the scale they used is 1 to 5 where 5 is “don’t f*ck with this ever”.
Strong reaction: Fish mix (4), egg yolk (4), catfish (5), english pea (5)
Weak reaction: trout (3), green bean (3)
No reaction: shellfish (although the allergist mentioned I could be allergic to the shells, which aren’t tested, and I’ve definitely reacted to every shellfish I’ve tried in the last two decades)
You don’t have to get into this if its more personal than you’d like, but I’m confused about the contrast between being allergic to:
And then later saying:
Tofu is made from soy beans; do you know if you can do soy in general, or if the fermentation (or another step of the tofu making process) is what makes it ok?
Getting technical: soy is a different branch of the legume family tree. The one I’m most allergic to seems to be Hologalegina (galegolds), which includes broad beans, peas, and chickpeas.
Tofu is always fine and soy is I think fine, but I’ve had reactions to a few things containing soy + something else (soy protein shakes = very bad day). Soybeans are phaseoloids, the same sub-family as black/brown beans, but only the latter reliably causes me problems. I haven’t tested all the phaseoloids but it’s obviously kinda unpleasant to do so.
Part of the problem with this allergy profile is the uncertainty it spawns; many foods have 2 or 3 ingredients that could be the cause of a reaction and it can be hard to tell which is the culprit. To complicate matters further, cooking helps at least some of them (fish is 50-50, egg yolk is fine).
I’ve been to formal allergy testing but they only had tests for a few of my problem foods because come on, who would be allergic to celery? IIRC the scale they used is 1 to 5 where 5 is “don’t f*ck with this ever”.
Strong reaction: Fish mix (4), egg yolk (4), catfish (5), english pea (5)
Weak reaction: trout (3), green bean (3)
No reaction: shellfish (although the allergist mentioned I could be allergic to the shells, which aren’t tested, and I’ve definitely reacted to every shellfish I’ve tried in the last two decades)