![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zeeth_kyrahSo I appear to be allergic to wheat, but not gluten -- and possibly not to graham wheat (the stuff used to make graham grackers and graham pie crust, which is an older variety of wheat). Which means the problem is a protein or material in modern wheat which isn't normally present in older varieties. Which means it's an allergy to either modern dwarf wheat (highly crossbred and containing many proteins not present in older wheats), or GMO wheat (and/or the stuff used on it).
It's also apparently a mild allergy (for now), because eating wheat with other stuff added (e.g., pasta with meat sauce instead of by itself) doesn't have as much in the way of bad effects.
How did I learn this? Because I ate a few handfuls of plain spaghetti tonight when sauce ran out, and later ended up with a horrible migraine headache that felt like my brain was being squeezed with rubber bands.
Potatoes appear to offer a safer source of starch for me, so it's not modern farming in general (yet). I guess I should be buying potato bread from now on.
Canned corn (I guarantee it's GMO corn because I used to have no problem at all with corn, on the cob or off), wheat (probably GMO, something I'll have to test), milk with excessive hormones and GMO products in it (I haven't been buying organically-farmed milk because I don't have a store open after midnight that sells it, so somehow I never manage to finish old bottles and jugs of milk -- instincts at work, I guess)... what next on the list of allergens?
Oh, yeah. GMO soy. I'll eventually have to find out, I guess. If I dare.
This is really annoying. "GMO" shouldn't have to mean "unsafe to eat", but that's what our modern agricultural "gods" made (with their notoriously poor handling of genetics-modifying science and its attendant consequences, like increased levels of pesticides in our food) because what they care about is profit first and above all, like every other standard corporation out there. Nutrition? Safety? Heirloom crops that offer diversity of population and different resistances to disease and pests, as well as variety in flavor and often better food value than their super-starchy, monocultured cousins? Bah, let the sensitives die off! Nevermind that the most sensitive animals in an ecosystem are bellwethers for the health of that ecosystem. When the rain forest frogs die off, the rain forest is dying. When the outliers of humanity are left suffering because they can't eat food, our agriculture -- and at least indirectly, our economic system -- is killing us.
You know, "our chosen economy is killing us" could be the subject of essay after essay. Further relating that to the topic of this post, food stamps don't pay enough to eat non-GMO foods regularly. I've been running out as early as halfway through the month trying to eat one good meal a day -- spending less than $10 a day on food! :/
I hope you're paying attention, because we need something better. We can't let our own food kill us anymore, and we can't let our economy get in the way of our prosperity.
(If you're wondering whether anything can be done, I suggest you take action to support GMO labeling laws. That appears to be the most effective means of controlling GMO agriculture, because people who read product labels will tend to choose products that don't include GMO ingredients. It works in Europe! Why not the US? After all, if GMO doesn't bother you, you should be free to choose it -- but if you can't eat GMO foods, you should be able to avoid them just like any other allergen. Better for you, better for me, and better at keeping a leash on the evils in Monsanto and Dow.)
It's also apparently a mild allergy (for now), because eating wheat with other stuff added (e.g., pasta with meat sauce instead of by itself) doesn't have as much in the way of bad effects.
How did I learn this? Because I ate a few handfuls of plain spaghetti tonight when sauce ran out, and later ended up with a horrible migraine headache that felt like my brain was being squeezed with rubber bands.
Potatoes appear to offer a safer source of starch for me, so it's not modern farming in general (yet). I guess I should be buying potato bread from now on.
Canned corn (I guarantee it's GMO corn because I used to have no problem at all with corn, on the cob or off), wheat (probably GMO, something I'll have to test), milk with excessive hormones and GMO products in it (I haven't been buying organically-farmed milk because I don't have a store open after midnight that sells it, so somehow I never manage to finish old bottles and jugs of milk -- instincts at work, I guess)... what next on the list of allergens?
Oh, yeah. GMO soy. I'll eventually have to find out, I guess. If I dare.
This is really annoying. "GMO" shouldn't have to mean "unsafe to eat", but that's what our modern agricultural "gods" made (with their notoriously poor handling of genetics-modifying science and its attendant consequences, like increased levels of pesticides in our food) because what they care about is profit first and above all, like every other standard corporation out there. Nutrition? Safety? Heirloom crops that offer diversity of population and different resistances to disease and pests, as well as variety in flavor and often better food value than their super-starchy, monocultured cousins? Bah, let the sensitives die off! Nevermind that the most sensitive animals in an ecosystem are bellwethers for the health of that ecosystem. When the rain forest frogs die off, the rain forest is dying. When the outliers of humanity are left suffering because they can't eat food, our agriculture -- and at least indirectly, our economic system -- is killing us.
You know, "our chosen economy is killing us" could be the subject of essay after essay. Further relating that to the topic of this post, food stamps don't pay enough to eat non-GMO foods regularly. I've been running out as early as halfway through the month trying to eat one good meal a day -- spending less than $10 a day on food! :/
I hope you're paying attention, because we need something better. We can't let our own food kill us anymore, and we can't let our economy get in the way of our prosperity.
(If you're wondering whether anything can be done, I suggest you take action to support GMO labeling laws. That appears to be the most effective means of controlling GMO agriculture, because people who read product labels will tend to choose products that don't include GMO ingredients. It works in Europe! Why not the US? After all, if GMO doesn't bother you, you should be free to choose it -- but if you can't eat GMO foods, you should be able to avoid them just like any other allergen. Better for you, better for me, and better at keeping a leash on the evils in Monsanto and Dow.)
Yes...
Date: 2014-08-05 01:51 am (UTC)Food allergies have exploded in the last few decades -- milk, wheat, corn, you name it. Either we've broken food or we've broken humans, or some combination of both. Killing people is not okay.
Try einkorn wheat, by the way. It's another archaic variety. Our food co-op carries it. Very very tasty stuff, I'd missed it. If you put it in sloppy joe mix, you get wild tidy joes.