Comment by LesZedCB
4 years ago
they are not imagined and you anecdata of one demonstrates nothing.
anaphylaxis is highly individualized and can change within an individual over time.
It's also not necessarily just about preventing anaphylaxis but general food anxiety as well as alienation from a cultural and social staple of sharing food together. Most people will never understand the secondary effects of anaphylactic food allergies, no less CONSTANTLY downplay then as you did with your brother.
I know this sibling downplaying is very possible because my partner has MCAS, which causes random allergies to pop up like whack a mole. Her family caused her very much grief as a child but she developed strong coping mechanisms and it's similarly capable of "managing what she eats." However I am one of very few people who truly understand how completely alienated she feels because of it. The primary concerns (death by anaphylaxis) are bad but very infrequent. The secondary effects of social alienation are constant and boundaries are always being pushed even by close friends and family
> not necessarily just about preventing anaphylaxis but general food anxiety as well as alienation from a cultural and social staple of sharing food together
I see, moving the goalposts to an even less defensible argument. Sharing food together doesn't mean eating the same thing. By this reasoning, we should all be forced to eat the lowest common denominator of least offensive food for everyone. If one person is vegan, we should all be vegan. If one person can't eat any nightshade vegetables (a common allergy), none of us should eat nightshade vegetables. Same for dairy, shellfish, etc. The set of foods all humans can comfortably and traditionally eat is approximately the empty set. This sounds like the very definition of a culturally and socially enriching experience around food!
You don't speak for my brother and he'd likely mock someone trying to "white knight" his eating experiences or suggesting his peanut allergy caused profound alienation. We all eat different things based on preferences, never mind allergens. Do people feel alienated and anxious because they can't handle spicy food but other people can? There is a ubiquitous food that I can't eat (for reasons unrelated to allergens) but never once did I feel alienated because of it, even though people tease me about it.
If people are intentionally being assholes about it, the issue is them being assholes and has nothing to do with the food. If one person is hyper-sensitive about what other people eat, the answer is therapy for that person, not changing the world to accommodate their hyper-sensitivity.