Someone else shared this about celiac disease and I have edited and added to it to be about corn allergies. #allergyawareness #itshouldntbethishardtolive

Imagine Corn Allergies

Imagine, if you will, finding out you have a disease or condition where food makes you sick.  At best you have multiple symptoms, all the time, ranging from a rash, to hives, to vomiting and diarrhea. At worse, it can cause anaphylaxis and death.

Imagine never being able to eat the same food as people around you.  Always having to watch what you eat.  Having to eat food that not only doesn’t taste very good most of the time, but is very pricy. 

Imagine having to eat like this day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year for the rest of your life.      

Imagine going places with other people and they want to try your food, just to see what it tastes like.  Imagine having to stand there and listen to them ridicule the food and go on about how bad it tastes.  Imagine being the one standing there knowing your food is not the greatest tasting but you don’t have a choice to eat the more tasty version, unlike them who can go back to eating as always and not having to give up taste in exchange for their health.

Imagine having to cook every meal at home, every day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Imagine not being able to simply order take out when you don’t feel like cooking.  Imagine coming home at night, tired, hungry, and exhausted from the day and not knowing what to eat and too mentally and physically exhausted to think about it.  Imagine sitting there crying because you are so tired and overwhelmed by doing this day after day, with no end in sight, but you still have to cook your meal for that evening or just remain hungry.

Imagine worrying about reacting to food particles in the air, so you can’t go to that restaurant that uses flour and bakes from scratch, or go to a petting zoo for fear of reacting to their feed, or even go to a pumpkin patch because what if they have a corn maze or a corn play pit for the kids. Imagine wearing an N99 mask to go anywhere there is popcorn being popped (the mall, car dealerships, farmers markets, hardware stores) for fear of reacting to the popcorn in the air.

Imagine going to the grocery store and taking twice as long to shop because you have to read every label to make sure you won’t get sick, and having to trust that there are no hidden ingredients that are not listed that will make you sick.  Imagine having to worry about whether the items that are safe for you to eat really are and having to trust the packaging until you try it for yourself, risking possibly getting sick.

Imagine going to the grocery store, spending hours checking every label, only to leave with a couple items that you can eat. Imagine having to find and interrogate local farmers about their practices to know if you will react to their food. Imagine calling local ranches and farms about meat, asking about everything they ingest, then contacting the ones who slaughter and the ones who butcher and package and inquire about what products they use, how they clean, what they clean with, what they package with and if they’d be willing to use your safe products if possible.

Imagine bringing all this “safe” food home only to react after trialing it. You now have a freezer full of food that isn’t even safe for you to eat, food that was expensive and you couldn’t afford to begin with.

Imagine buying something that was previously safe, only to start reacting and after contacting the company finding out they changed the formulation but because of COVID mandates they weren’t required to change their packaging due to supply shortages.

Imagine going on vacation and not being able to go to a nice restaurant without having to worry about what you are going to eat and if the place is safe for you.  Imagine having to research every restaurant and their food to be sure they have food you can eat, every time you go out to eat.  Imagine being so excited to find a place that is said to be safe and has choices that you are looking forward to trying.   Imagine getting to that restaurant having to ask for special accommodations and a special food menu and then having to trust those foods are what they are said to be.  Imagine the person waiting on you giving you looks of annoyance, or worse, indifference.  Imagine having to worry about cross contamination with anything near you or anything where the food you are about to eat was cooked or prepared.  Imagine finally enjoying a nice meal out only to feel sick shortly afterwards because there somehow was corn in it, even though you took every precaution you could.   Imagine knowing that this is just the beginning, that tomorrow you will feel worse until the contamination is totally out of your system.

Imagine having to watch what kind of soap and shampoo you use.  What kind of makeup you use.  What pots and pans and utensils you use.  Why?  Because they either contain corn or may be cross contaminated with corn.  Imagine having to worry about feeding your pets and accidentally inhaling dust from there food only to get sick later because it was enough to get corn in your system.

Imagine not only having to restrict your closet because of the fabric and how its made, but also restricting your family’s clothes because your hand breaks out every time you do the laundry. Not only that but you feel itchy and uncomfortable just hugging someone wearing unsafe fabric. Then imagine having to make covers for all your furniture or to buy new furniture, carpets, rugs etc so that you can safely sit down. Imagine needing to replace all your bedding and possibly even your mattress just to be able to sleep safely without reacting.

Imagine knowing that this will be the way things are the rest of your life.  Never again able to have your favorite pizza, your favorite ice cream, go to your favorite restaurant, or even buy your favorite brand of make up or hair products. 

IMAGINE CORN ALLERGIES

It’s time to change the way society views food. It’s time to have open disclosure from companies. It’s time to question what we are eating.