Hold the Fries

This post is not about what you might expect from the title; French fries and why you should not eat them because of their high fat, salt content, etc.  Instead, I am writing about food allergies.  In the same few years that I developed my autoimmune disease, I also developed a number of food allergies.  While my doctors can't say these reactions were caused by my disease, they agree it's likely there is some connection with my immune system so revved up. Although I don't know if there is any proven medical relationship between the two, I have heard anecdotally from several others with autoimmune disease that they also have food allergies and food sensitivities.  

One of my allergies is to onions and the whole onion family of foods.  This is my food allergy that certainly makes it hardest to go out to eat because onions, scallions, leeks, shallots, and chives...are quite a common ingredient. Ok, no onions. I finally figured it out. But I kept having serious allergic reactions when I would eat French fries (one of my guilty pleasures). At first it made no sense to me – I can eat potatoes, oil and salt so what was the problem?


What I soon discovered is that restaurants often cook fries in the same oil as they cook a number of food items including onion rings and fried chicken fingers (which often have onion powder in their coating). Many don't even seem to be aware of it until I cross-examine my waiters and ask them to specifically check with the chef. I realized this was more of a problem than I knew when a friend with a serious seafood allergy told me she had the same experience with French fries, but with an allergic reaction caused by calamari having been fried in the same oil!

Now we both know that when we are craving French fries or something else fried that we have to ask exactly what else is cooked in the fryer to avoid needing Benadryl, the dreaded epi-pen, or the even more dreaded trip to the emergency room. I know that most of the time I have to forgo those delicious French fries, but I am sure my cholesterol will thank me in the long run.