SC - Allergy Discussion Conclusions to date

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hello again, all.

Just an observation: it seems that some of us are allowing our tempers
to flare in the discussion on allergies. My intention in asking about
real versus imagined or misinterpreted allergies wasn't to sit and
listen to people get huffy at one another. There were some valuable
lessons to be seen in the discussions on both sides of the fence. In the
hopes that we can get on with something that we can reach a conclusion
on without too much additional argument, I'd like to post the
conclusions we did reach.

1. Not all the allegations of legitimate food allergies are Urban
Folklore (a.k.a. F.O.A.F.). Many are quite real and either quite
inconveneient for the sufferer, or quite dangerous. This was more or
less the main question I asked.

1. An unknown percentage of the allergies some people claim are simply
hogwash, either diagnosed by someone other than a qualified medical
professional using an acceptable variation of the Scientific Method, or
used as an excuse to rationalize some simple dislike. Example of the
former: "When I eat Lima beans and bathe in sulfuric acid solution, my
skin comes out in a rash. I'm allergic to Lima beans." Example of the
latter: "I can't eat X because I'm allergic to it, I could die, and
besides I hate the stuff, and will be as annoying as I possibly can
whenever I encounter someone who likes it, and if I eat X accidentally
without knowing it, I will show no symptoms whatsoever until I know that
I have ingested X, at which point I will make a scene." This is [only]
slightly exaggerated, but frequently I have seen such behavior in
connection with fish and organ meats, and I encountered a milder example
of it just today on this list, when a gentle listed some of his food
allergies, and included on his list one food he simply disliked
intensely. For practical purposes, he acknowledged to having a
psychosomatic allergy.

3. Posting an ingredients list is a good idea (assuming you can get
people to read it), not because it relieves the diner of all
responsibility for their medical problems and placing the onus on the
cook, but rather because it enables the diner to take the
responsibility, etc. I suspect this will eventually end up in Corpora as
a necessity for SCA events, like it or not.

4. SCAdians outside the U.S.A. probably think we are wusses ;  ) .

Finally, I'd just like to make it absolutely clear that I never intended
to suggest that all food allergies are imagined. I was just looking for
a sort of demographic as to who could personally claim them, as opposed
to who knows a guy who knows a guy who swells up like a watermelon
whenever he eats Cheezy Poofs. It seems as if we got a fair amount of
both types of response to my question, which is more or less what I
expected.

Adamantius    
  
- -- 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================