Living with Food Allergies, 2013 and on

[Linden]

Oh, pish. You're talking to someone from an immigrant household. There's no such thing as an expiration date.

   Asian DH and I totally cracked up.

[CMdeux]

Reminds me of the time when my high school BFF wanted to throw a birthday party for a container of dip that my mother had left in our fridge.  Because the expiry was a year out of date. 

   first thing I told my (now) DH was "never accept condiments from my mom without seeing the original container-- and even then, be skeptical.  She refills things."

{shudders}

[twinturbo]

Oh, pish. You're talking to someone from an immigrant household. There's no such thing as an expiration date.

   Asian DH and I totally cracked up.

No doubt he has similarly unearthed artifacts at his parents or grandparents place. Otherwise we wouldn't have stories to fuel mymomisafob.com. Like hotel snack foods from the late 1980s, or decade old unused codeine stored in the fridge (WTH?) from a surgery no one remembers and a pharmacist who probably retired since filling it. 

[jschwab]

Expiration date is (was?) October 29, 2009, folks  . I think we bought it 2007 and I got the allergies 2008/2009? Thanks for the laugh.

[jschwab]

Double post...

[hezzier]

Friend's PA son is going through desensitization, started with peanut flour, ate an actual peanut today.

[Linden]

Oh, pish. You're talking to someone from an immigrant household. There's no such thing as an expiration date.

   Asian DH and I totally cracked up.

No doubt he has similarly unearthed artifacts at his parents or grandparents place. Otherwise we wouldn't have stories to fuel mymomisafob.com. Like hotel snack foods from the late 1980s, or decade old unused codeine stored in the fridge (WTH?) from a surgery no one remembers and a pharmacist who probably retired since filling it. 

  I can just see my in-laws saying "They just put a date on there because they have to."  My non-immigrant mother would side with them because, "if it doesn't smell bad, it's fine!"

[CMdeux]

Sounds like my mother.

On the one hand, she's right that there's nothing magical about an expiry.  On the other, though...  I'm pretty sure that things which are years-and-years-and-years beyond it are NOT okay.  This distinction was lost upon her, I must say.

[hezzier]

This is my MIL also...we haven't been to their house in years.

[twinturbo]

Well, the idea of refrigerating or putting an expiration date on preparations that are themselves preservatives that predate refrigeration I scoff at myself, like soy sauce, curry, I'd put fish sauce on that list for fermentation and salt content. I openly ignore yogurt and cheese dates, anything that clearly is stabilized at room temp or requires it to ferment. Enzymatic pickles for example.

It's keeping the bag of room service coffee from 1988 when no one drinks coffee and a coffee maker has never been owned and will never be owned pointlessness that we turn the corner in to hoarding territory. I think that's an actual geriatric medicine issue where patients hoard medicines and will store the extras in a huge ziploc all together creating the portable pharmacy of nightmares.

That's until the zombies come. When the zombies attack then you run to all the really old people. They know how to farm and have hoarded a ton of stuff.

[YouKnowWho]

My parents still have spices with packing tape on them and Shop Rite pricetags.  We moved from NJ in 1984.  I finally convinced them last year to dump the hot sauce bottle that was probably purchased prior to my birth 

[TabiCat]

Sending out well wishes for safe and low stress holiday feasts and family gatherings. Foody holidays are just not what they used to be.

---------

MIL has decided that her new corn cassarol would be better with Jelopaneos. I know you don't do Jelopaneos but .....

Not a big worry for me there are plenty of other food I can eat and almost everything will be DS safe but really it is CAN'T not DON'T or won't. 

[jschwab]

Sending out well wishes for safe and low stress holiday feasts and family gatherings. Foody holidays are just not what they used to be.

---------

MIL has decided that her new corn cassarol would be better with Jelopaneos. I know you don't do Jelopaneos but .....

Not a big worry for me there are plenty of other food I can eat and almost everything will be DS safe but really it is CAN'T not DON'T or won't. 

I got really lucky on this one. My mom is shellfish-allergic, too, (also adult onset) and while her allergy is not as severe as mine, she gets it about segregating utensils and all that. She has always made safe food for me and I have never had a reaction at her house on holidays. She's amazing, especially for someone who has almost zero food restrictions. It really can be that simple and drama-free and my heart goes out to people, especially kids, who don't have their restrictions honored or respected .

[jschwab]

Oh my gosh, when you are extremely food-restricted this is what your monthly shopping list looks like:

100 pounds meat
30 bags frozen veggies
100 pounds potatoes
45 cartons of eggs
etc.

[twinturbo]

Taking the temp of FAS on the following idea.

What if we built an internal registry of vetted or recommended food allergy and anaphylaxis allergists? Also how epinephrine supplies and anaphylaxis management works outside our home country, particularly in areas of the world that have limited supplies and less experience with food induced anaphylaxis or much of any anaphylaxis?

This occurred to me as I'm building a personal registry in the Asia-Pacific area, particularly Taiwan, Singapore and Japan. For example, I know which clinician I would see in Singapore, and connect with FA support on the ground there, but I also know at times epinephrine auto-injectors become severely constrained at times with the supply available by lottery. Taiwan is vastly different, it's not as international as Singapore but a lot of the allergy and anaphylaxis research comes from there. I'm working on the epinephrine availability there.

I intentionally left HK out because it has such a large international footprint there it's a special case, much more accessible and diverse. I also wouldn't have much need for anything there personally beyond a daytime visit.

Mainland China--so vast not much point until you get to specific region or city. But I can find out.

I know a lot of us have traveled so I wonder if we pooled it can it coalesce into a resource?