It depends what chemical combinaton has been used in the dyes and the level of intolerance to them.
In Victorian and earlier times, arsenic was used in the production of green wallcoverings. Yes, you could be poisoned by your decor. It's one reason why green became associated with 'bad luck'.
There will always be people who “ enjoy ill health “ and they may very well claim to be allergic to substances but of course there are many who are genuinely allergic, I personally suffer from hay fever which is an allergy to pollen of all things, very annoying but the symptoms are genuine. I was just surprised that someone who dismisses allergies out of hand claims to have a family member allergic to a colour!
I believe that excess cleanliness and the increase in processed food is a factor in allergies, also a coeliac friend talks about her grandmother who lost 10 children before they were a year old, failure to thrive was the diagnosis but they were all obviously coeliac. Very sad. Maybe a combination of many things.
I never had an allergy in my life. I could eat anything, drink anything. No hay fever, no reaction to washing powder, slight adverse reaction to mossie bites - that was it.
Made curries all my life as well. Then 3 years ago, made a curry for me and my son, and after eating it, I started sneezing, mucous build up, then hands started to itch, lips started to swell.. blah blah. Thought I'd had a naff prawn (my son doesn't eat prawns, so I fish (ho ho ho) them out for him) as couldn't understand why I felt odd and he didn't.
My son was quite worried as my face had bloated a bit. After a couple of hours the symptoms started to subside.
No symptoms after that for weeks. Then we had another curry. This time the symptoms started as I ate. Vastly worse. Lips swollen and tongue - throat felt constricted. Again - the only difference was I had prawns in mine and my son didn't. Luckily after a few hours the symptoms subsided again. Swore to my son that if it happened again, I'd call 111.
Nothing happened for months. Then after Christmas a couple of years back, my son was out and I had some cauliflower left over (which he doesn't like), so decided to do a cauliflower cheese with lashings (Enid Blyton school of story telling) of wholegrain mustard. Loverrrrrly. Made gallons of it. Finished the first plate and was going back for seconds when I started generating mucous & sneezing. Didn't link it to the 'prawns' problem at all. So had more. Fingers started to swell and itchy palms - even my feet started to itch. Face started to bloat with swollen lips and tongue - and difficulty swallowing. Completely confused me. This time the symptoms stayed with me - I was a bit more worried as I was 'home alone' and I couldn't work out what the cause was. The symptoms persisted all evening and I ended up looking like Archibald Snatcher. I thought I'd just go to bed as normal and contact the Dr the following day rather than go through 111. So, before retiring, took my statins without thinking. Couldn't get the tablet down and couldn't bring it back up. Pillock eh? Swollen throat and trying to swallow. Hmm. Brain dead. Anyway, the symptoms were still there the following morning - all be it nowhere near as severe. Before calling the Dr, I checked the curry powder I use and lo and behold it had mustard in it.
The Dr basically politely called me an idiot and said that with those sort of reactions you can get a second wave a couple of hours or so after the first, so I was lucky. I explained about the mustard - the only thing I could see had been 'common' - and they arranged an allergey test in Brighton - that Covid put paid to. But, because I'm not used to checking ingredients, I've inadvertantly had items with mustard in them (who would believe that frozen battered fish would have mustard in it - and don't have anything with cheese - as I guarantee mustard is added) and had reactions. A mustard allergy out of the blue. I had used mustard all my life - piccalilly mmmmm - and how can you have a cheese sauce without mustard? The Dr got a couple of epipens across to me.
You seriously don't know how the anaphylaxis feels until you experience it - and allergies, if I'm anything to go by, can just start out of the blue.
OH reacts badly to mustard, strong emetic reaction. Having had a couple of unexpected episodes we now have to check ingredients lists. Turns out that mustard is now being added to more and more supermarket dishes. They have changed their recipes over the years so items that were previously OK are now off the list. We also have the same problem with mushroom now being added, often as powder.
I suppose the upside for us is less laziness in the form of ready meals and more cooking from scratch. Much easier to do now that we have both retired and don't waste half our lives commuting.
Chinese takeaway food makes my eyelids itch and swell up (but home-cooked is OK even if I use a jar or packet of ready-made sauce) and I've had hayfever (in spring so it's a tree pollen of some sort) since I was a teenager, and autoimmune arthritis since I was in my thirties. My sister is allergic to kiwi fruit, of all things (they make her lips and mouth swell up) and garlic too. She also found that the arthritis in her hands, which the doctor had said was the wer-and-tear kind, improved when she went gluten free. She was aiming to improve IBS symptoms but gluten-free didn't help that.
No doubt some people claim allergies that aren't real allergies, but the immune system is a complicated thing that I don't think is fully understood yet, so if someone claims that they react badly to something I'm inclined to take their word for it.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
I think that coming into an allergy late in life was the problem for me. Luckily, I'm like you and tend to cook from scratch rather than eat ready meals, but having grown up not checking ingredients, it still never goes through my mind to check even after a very scary episode .
We tend to have a crappy meal on friday as I shop early evening so just throw frozen fish and chips in the oven when I get back as I put the shopping away/into quarantine. It was never an issue until Covid and the regular fish wasn't there so bought some beer battered fish - and they'd put mustard in the batter.
Having had an allergic reaction, I personally think that the containers should be marked more readily on the front rather than the allergen just marked in bold in a list of ingredients.
I suppose if they put every possible allergen in larger text on the front of packaging, there wouldn't be much room for anything else. And any particular one would still be buried in a long list.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
In mid Victorian times when people took an extended break in the country for their health, it was often beneficial, not that they knew it, because they were escaping from arsenic laced wallpapers which were much more prevalent in urban homes. A leading sceptic in the growing belief that arsenic was extremely dangerous when used in paints and inks was the Arts and Crafts pin up boy William Morris. His family owned arsenic mines which provided half the world’s supply at the time.
I have seen research that suggests that about 7 people in 10 who claim to have allergies are just hamming up a dislike of something or making a non existent causal link, and they do so to the detriment of the very, very genuine sufferers whose conditions are diminished by association. The middle class are far more likely to claim allergies than the working class, folk in California will do so at the drop of a hat compared to those in, say, Caracas. A friend of mine, a writer and a poet, was hosting a dinner party for fellow luvvies. Every one of her seven guests claimed an allergy to one thing or another (it’s much more sophisticated to say I am allergic to ... rather than I don’t like ...) so preparing the meal was a nightmare. Then, just before taking the meal to the table she sprinkled parsley on top to hear the complaint, “Well, that’s it. I can’t eat anything now. I’m allergic to parsley.”
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I've never heard that before
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We live and learn
I have seen research that suggests that about 7 people in 10 who claim to have allergies are just hamming up a dislike of something or making a non existent causal link, and they do so to the detriment of the very, very genuine sufferers whose conditions are diminished by association. The middle class are far more likely to claim allergies than the working class, folk in California will do so at the drop of a hat compared to those in, say, Caracas. A friend of mine, a writer and a poet, was hosting a dinner party for fellow luvvies. Every one of her seven guests claimed an allergy to one thing or another (it’s much more sophisticated to say I am allergic to ... rather than I don’t like ...) so preparing the meal was a nightmare. Then, just before taking the meal to the table she sprinkled parsley on top to hear the complaint, “Well, that’s it. I can’t eat anything now. I’m allergic to parsley.”