Mina:

I'm not sure it's done on purpose -- I tend to think the allergies are an accidental synergy -- but the US allows many food modifications that are illegal or otherwise proscribed in Europe.  (GMO crops are the most obvious example, but AFAIK there are also pesticides and herbicides legal here but not there, and tolerance for detectable residue is often lower AFAIK.)

JS

issa:

What Jen said.  There is a lot of quack "allergy testing" around, and the cheapest way is to do an elimination diet.  Pare yourself down to the foods I list above -- red meat, vegetables, root starches, and fruits -- for thirty days, and see if that helps.  If so, then you can start slowly adding foods back in (perhaps one every 4-5 days) and see if you can find where your problems lie.

Roy:

That's fascinating!  What levels do you mean by "high"?

JS

Helen:

AFAIK cytotoxic tests are among the many "allergy tests" that are useless and/or quackery.  They're subjectively interpreted (a technician looks for "altered morphology" of white blood cells, which can mean anything at all depending on the interpreter), and they don't measure any sort of actual immunologic reaction, which happens at a much deeper biochemical level.

Add to that the fact that allergic reactions must be to proteins (which is why all the common allergens are very high in protein), so being allergic to things like lettuce is nearly impossible; pile on the fact that allergies tend not to change over time; and I'm pretty sure that you're not actually allergic to most of the substances you mentioned.

That being said, the medical profession tends to label anything but skin-prick tests for Type I hypersensitivity as quackery, despite the awkward fact that every one of them learned about Type II, II, and IV hypersensitivity in their undergraduate microbiology class.  However, IgG tests are more difficult to interpret (agglutination can indicate that you're allergic, or just that you've eaten a lot of that food lately -- I'm not going to get into the details of Fc sialylation here), and I'm sure there are quack versions of them too.

Also, it's certainly possible to have problems consuming certain foods that aren't strictly allergic in nature -- but as Jen and I said above, the best and cheapest way to test for all the different possible allergies, intolerances, dysbioses, and so on is simply to do an elimination diet.  Basically limit yourself to red meat (lamb is purportedly even better than beef for this), non-nightshade vegetables (no potatoes, eggplants, tomatoes, or peppers -- sweet potatoes are a good starch source, and the least allergenic fruits (e.g. apples, apricots, pears, grapes, dates).

Many intolerances are, in reality, caused by a leaky gut due to gluten ingestion, so going gluten-free is usually the first step towards fixing these sorts of problems.  I also recommend the other steps from this article.

JS

William:

"Chimps that eat a lot of meat die early of clogged arteries as they did like the early humans before they got the genes to absorb meat."  

Citations?  Chimps regularly eat meat.  (Not saying they don't exist, just saying I'd like to see the citations!)

Also, increased meat consumption in humans generally tracks a large number of unhealthy behaviors, like smoking and heavy drinking...not to mention that the unhealthy part of a Happy Meal probably isn't the tiny scrap of "hamburger" hiding under the giant bun, the huge pile of n-6 soaked fries, and the big cup of soda.

That being said, ApoE4 exists...but the arguments against SFA consumption for them generally involve "high LDL", not an actual endpoint of CVD.  Doing well on ApoE4 generally involves being extremely sensitive to reducing n-6 load, reducing environmental toxins, and generally being protective of the fact that you're usually smarter than everyone else (and have an amazing immune system), but are very sensitive to poor diet and environment.

That being said, it is absolutely true that different people seem to do better on different diets, and that we have different tolerances for different suboptimal diets depending on our genetic and epigenetic background.  Sometimes some interesting data pops out if you look at subgroups, not just the average.

JS

Maxine:

I'm more concerned about the antibiotics and the grain-based diet, but your point is well-taken: feedlot meat is not the same as free-range meat.  I recently ran out of the grass-finished, free-range, dry-aged side I've been eating, and the difference between it and supermarket beef is remarkable.

I don't notice any difference between raw and regular milk, though many people do.  OTOH, I absolutely notice ultra-pasteurization, which makes milk taste like burnt matches.  I have no idea how anyone else can drink that stuff!

JS

NAY:

Sounds like you have some sort of digestive sensitivity to red meat, e.g. intolerance, as opposed to allergy. At least you can eat fish!

It's instructive to remember that in a world with seven billion people, there will be many people representing even the rarest conditions!

JS

Elle:

Hives definitely suggests a Type I allergy, i.e. the regular kind.

A delayed reaction, like you get to chicken, suggests an immune-mediated hypersensitivity -- especially since it slowly goes away over time if you keep strictly away from them.

Are you gluten-free? A lot of these sorts of intolerances are made worse by the tight junction-opening effect of gliadin peptides, and can often be improved by removing gluten grains from one's diet. (Give it a couple months before deciding to put your allergies to the torture test.)

I'm glad you've found out what was causing your problems! Food allergies and intolerances are extremely common -- but for some reason many doctors are loath to advise elimination diets, even though basic statistics says that a substantial number of their patients *must* have these problems!

JS