I got sick for, like, a week. I don’t actually know why, however, and this is why:
- I had blue cheese salad dressing. Blue cheese is made with penicillium [mold] — that is how it gets blue — which produces penicillin. Apparently, if you’re allergic to one, you could be allergic to both… or you could be allergic to just that one. I knew I’m allergic to penicillin, but it wasn’t until I looked at my allergy list that I realized penicillium is also on that list… I also didn’t know what blue cheese even was until it was too late.
- There was a bug going around.
I suppose the only way I’ll really be able to find out whether I got sick was because of the penicillium/blue cheese dressing, as I was as sick as I get when I take penicillin, but I’m really not interested in having to endure any of that again.
I do find allergies interesting, though, because even what is supposed to be good for the body can be seen as a threat. The body sees allergens as foreign substances and creates antibodies to fight that allergen, similar to the way it does with infections, diseases and viruses.
Anyways, this is short, but I figured it might be helpful to someone. I found a vegan version of blue cheese dressing, and I’ll be trying that very soon. c: Fingers crossed it tastes similar, if not the same!
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Comments on this post
Jessica
So sorry to hear that you got sick, and that’s one of the worst things about allergies – you’ve got to be vigilant about everything that goes into or near your body. I hope that you’re feeling better, and I’m glad to hear that you found a different version of blue cheese. 🙂 There is a book called “Food Allergies and Food Intolerance: The Complete Guide to Their Identification and Treatment” that was published in 2000 – I’ve not read it, but it might be what you’re looking for. Best of luck!
Christine
UGH! That’s so awful that you had to go through all of that. I wouldn’t want to try again and see what the problem was either. Allergies are interesting to me, too, mainly because I have so many kids with different food and environmental allergies. I also learned the difference between a sensitivity and an allergy which is striking! Let me know how the vegan blue cheese is. Be careful it isn’t flavored with nutritional yeast since that is also a mold!
Liz
Yes! The vegan blue cheese I found doesn’t have yeast. 😀 However, it does have vinegar, which is mold-forming, as well as soy, which I thought it didn’t have, but it does… ugh. My goal is to try it, then try to make my own that I can use whenever I want. I’ve learned yeast is most commonly used not only to make bread rise, but as a flavor-keeping agent, so if I just make something myself, it can stay constant, and it doesn’t need yeast.
The more I realize what my allergies do to me, the more I have this desire to know why and how the body — or immune system, rather — sees something that shouldn’t be so harmful at all as a threat, thus causing it to become an allergen. Sadly, I can’t find any books on this. 🙁
Ah! Not many know/understand the difference between sensitivities and allergies, so that’s awesome!
Kya
Eeek. That is awful. That would be hard to know what caused it and I wouldn’t want to tempt fate and see if it was the blue cheese either. x.x