Xiamen food allergies

Encountering food allergies in Xiamen is not due to your special constitution or the "dirty" local ingredients. It is essentially the result of the superposition of the diet structure of the subtropical coastal city, the high allergen environment, and the special attributes of the specialty ingredients. There is no universal lightning protection list, and the response logic of people with different physical constitutions varies greatly.

I just received a friend who came from Xi'an a while ago. I made a three-day guide before departure. I avoided all the "highly sensitive ingredients" listed on the Internet. I didn't touch the bamboo shoot jelly and didn't eat raw pickled bamboo shoots. On the third day, after visiting Wanshi Botanical Garden, I ate a bowl with fresh food at the foot of the mountain. The shrimp noodles were battered, and his mouth swelled into sausage that night. After going to the hospital for a checkup, he found out that he had stained his clothes with Asparagus spores in the botanical garden that day. His allergy threshold was already exceeded. He usually ate ten shrimps and was fine, but half a shrimp that day triggered his allergy. I still remember the way he yelled at me while holding the guide.

When it comes to this, many old Xiamen people may disagree. In the understanding of the older generation, "fresh food is not allergenic." Seafood freshly caught from the dock is the cleanest. Allergies are caused by eating frozen and stale food. This cannot be said to be unreasonable. Frozen seafood is indeed easy to accumulate histamine after repeated thawing, and it is recognized as a major allergen. However, I have talked with doctors from the dermatology department of Xiamen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine before. Their clinical data in the past three years show that among patients with food allergies, more than half of them are infected by eating fresh seafood. More than 55%, especially shrimp, tubules, and clams from March to June every year. At this time, the seawater temperature rises, and the activity of allergenic proteins in seafood is the highest. If you have underlying diseases such as allergic rhinitis and eczema, you may suddenly become allergic even if you have eaten Xiamen seafood for 20 or 30 years. My uncle downstairs has been eating squid in soy sauce all his life. Last year during the Qingming Festival, he ate a small meal of freshly landed squid. He was hospitalized and hung up for three days. Even now he hides when he sees squid.

In fact, many people don’t know that half of the blame for food allergies in Xiamen lies with the “environment”. After all, as a city with the highest humidity in the country, the humidity here is above 70% for most of the year. Dust mites and molds float in the air all year round. In the spring, there are kapok and sycamore pollen, and in the fall, there are ragweed and mugwort. Even if you haven’t eaten anything, you may be itchy when you come back from shopping. Not to mention eating some allergenic food, which is equivalent to adding the final fire to the immune system. My best friend stayed up all night for a week last year to work on a project. She originally had mild allergic rhinitis. One day she ate a mango pancake for lunch, and her whole face swelled up like a steamed bun. When I went to check, I found out that her immunity was too low during that time, and she was allergic to dust mites, which also triggered cross-sensitivity to mango. She used to be able to show off two big green mangoes in one meal.

Many people search for lightning protection lists before coming to Xiamen, and the top two are always bamboo shoot jelly and mango. In fact, it is really unfair. The allergenicity rate of starworms in bamboo shoot jelly is actually more than 30% lower than that of ordinary shrimps and crabs. I can count the number of people who are allergic to bamboo shoot jelly on two hands. Most of them feel uncomfortable after eating it. In fact, they bought the kind from the roadside stall that was not cooked thoroughly or added too much preservatives, mistakenly thinking it was an allergy. As for mangoes, many people are allergic to eating green mangoes dipped in soy sauce. The reason is actually that the urushiol in the green mango skin has not been cleaned and has stained the pulp. If you peel off an extra layer of peel when peeling, there will basically be no problem. On the contrary, the allergy rate of local small Taiwanese farmers is higher than that of large green mangos. Many people don't know this.

As for how to deal with it, it really varies from person to person and there is no one-size-fits-all formula. If you have a clear history of allergies to seafood and mango, don’t listen to the boss’s advice that “it’s fine if you try a little bit.” Just avoid raw pickled and freshly squeezed mango juice. There is really no need to risk your body. If you have a normal constitution and have not had any allergies before, then don’t show off seven or eight kinds of seafood in one meal. Especially in spring and summer when there is a lot of pollen, after visiting the park or the beach, wash your face and change clothes before eating, which can reduce a lot of the risk of inhaled allergens and food superposition. When I eat seafood, I usually drink a cup of old Xiamen salted kumquat water. It’s not a mystery. The flavonoids in salted kumquats can indeed inhibit part of the activity of histamine. Many friends around me who are prone to allergies have tried this, and the probability of getting it is indeed much lower. Of course, if you are allergic to citrus, just pretend that I didn’t tell you.

There was an interesting discussion before, saying that local elderly people in Xiamen rarely have food allergies. Some people say that they have developed a tolerance to seafood since they have been eating seafood. Others say that the elderly eat light meals and do not eat several kinds of seafood in one meal. They also make tea every day. Theophylline can also neutralize some allergens. There is no conclusion yet. In fact, to put it bluntly, be careful when eating, and don’t be greedy for too much. If you really get a rash or can’t breathe, go directly to the hospital. Almost all tertiary hospitals in Xiamen have allergy departments, and emergency response is very mature, which is more effective than if you keep ten or eight lightning protection lists.