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Red Meat Allergies Caused By Tick Bites Are On The Rise (npr.org)
Tick bites can cause all sorts of nasty afflictions. And if you're bitten by a Lone Star tick, here's one more to add to the list: a red meat allergy. NPR reports: About 10 years ago, Dr. Scott Commins, an allergist and associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was among the first physicians to identify the allergy in patients with tick bites. Back then, there were just a few dozen known cases. That has increased dramatically. "We're confident the number is over 5,000 [cases], and that's in the U.S. alone," Commins says. There are also cases in Sweden, Germany and Australia -- likely linked to other species of ticks. In the U.S., the Lone Star tick has expanded its range beyond the Southeast, and there are documented cases of alpha gal meat allergies farther north -- including New York, Maine and Minnesota. "The range of the tick is expanding," says Commins. So is awareness about the red meat allergy it can cause. "We have a blood test, and the word is getting out."
Burn down nature! It's a luxury we can no longer afford!
It's okay, I only eat vegetarian ticks.
Table-ized A.I.
Can we tell if this tick has been genetically modified by PETA?
Have you ever seen a wild animal killed and eaten by a wild predator? Torn apart while not necessarily yet dead?
And then there are the wild animals that die of starvation, freezing, disease, etc..
In comparison, most domestic food animals live good lives and die quick deaths.
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My wife spent a few years working in Southeast Asia. While there she started having symptoms like what you'd expect with lactose intolerance, except that she had always been able to drink milk without issue. She tried cutting milk out, but the symptoms continued. After talking with a local doctor, she found out that there was something different about the way they raised cows there, that the symptoms she was experiencing were not uncommon among Westerners who moved to the region, and that the reason the symptoms were persisting was because they could be caused by any cow-based product, not just milk.
She had to cut out all beef, milk, and other cow-based products while she was there for a few years. By the time she got back to the West, she hadn't had cow's milk in over two years, so her body had lost the ability to process lactose entirely, leaving her well and truly lactose intolerant at that point. As for the issues with beef? So far as we know they disappeared as soon as she got back, though she was understandably gun shy about eating it for a few years. It wasn't until nearly a year into our marriage (three years after she had gotten back to the States) that I could convince her to even try beef again.
Anyway, it's interesting to see how different establishments respond when she mentions she's lactose intolerant. She'll usually try to avoid the topic by simply asking if a dish contains milk or cream, rather than trying to explain things. If they ask why and she has to say the words "lactose intolerance", half of them react as if she had said she could die at any moment, at which point she needs to clarify that, no, she doesn't have an allergy and they don't need to scrub the kitchen down. The other half reacts dismissively, at which point she rattles off this line about loving milk and cream even though they don't love her, which usually convinces the wait staff that she isn't one of those people falsely claiming an intolerance for ideological/nutritional reasons.
But, by far, my favorite reaction from a wait person was this time that we were ordering dessert at a decent restaurant and my wife asked if there were any desserts she'd be able to have, having mentioned earlier in the meal that she was lactose intolerant. After rattling off the list of desserts and acknowledging that each had cream, the waitress finished the list by saying, "I'll need to check on the creme brûlée, since I don't think it has cream in it." We didn't have the heart to tell her that it literally had "cream" in the name, and the waitress even asked "are you sure?" when we told her it definitely had cream in it.
The Lone Star Tick joins a long list of blood-sucking parasites from Texas. Most of the others, however, have been politicians.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
>Not you though, vegans. Nobody likes you.
You've cracked it, right there. There is no "lone star tick induced meat allergy" - it's just a convenient cover story to allow people to survive being vegetarian in Texas. :-D
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.