Comments on: Saturday Sideshow

By: Dave Silva

Dave Silva — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:05:00 +0000

Tim K turned me onto your blog jeff and although i haven’t been here everyday…i really enjoyed your poker story. i look forward to reading your blogs from here on out. keep up the good work. you have a new fan.

Dave Silva

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:02:00 +0000

4. One other thing is that increasingly certain foods appear to be used as ingredients or additives to create other foods. If someone is allergic to say milk, corn, peanuts or wheat (I’m certain there are others I’ve missed), then they are probably a lot more likely to encounter potentially dangerous situations then they would have maybe 20 to 30 years ago.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:44:00 +0000

My uneducated theory on possible causes of the food allergy thing….

1. Food allergies are more common in wealthier communities due to the fact that middle-class and rich families generally have access to better health care then the poor. In poorer communities the kids from poor families probably die from the undiagnosed allergy.

2. Food allergies are more common today because we have greater medical knowledge. Undiagnosed deaths related to food allergies have probably occurred throughout time due to a lack of medical knowledge.

3. Something has changed in the way certain foods are grown or processed to make a greater number of people allergic to them.

Sometimes the attitude of people who do not suffer from allergies and do not have a close family member with severe allergies is rather naive. I’m allergic to cats and a buddy of mine who was a cat owner insisted my cat allergy would automagically disappear if I increased my exposure to cats by owning one. His attitude didn’t change until he got married and his wife never developed that immunity.

By: otis

otis — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:56:00 +0000

Just want to say that I like the early results from this blog. I’m adding it to the ol’ RSS feed.

By: Drew

Drew — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:02:00 +0000

My spouse is african american and has a very serious peanut allergy so I don’t have much respect for the article and its research; and, I fully understand and appreciate that it is the type of attention no rational person wants. The writer needs to remember that attention mongers will grasp at anything to satisfy their needs.

By: Idaho Nick

Idaho Nick — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:52:00 +0000

I haven’t read the article about allergies yet — but right off, I’d say that while I’ve seen the effect of peanut allergies and understand that they are real and deadly, I have a couple of in-laws who have clearly structured their lives around the attention they get from invented food allergies (cumin, anyone?). It’s funny, except when we go to restaurants and they send 90% of the food back because it wasn’t made to their specifications (sent to the “chef” as they ordered).