I have a food allergy.  It doesn't seem to be a very common one and, really, it wasn't confirmed by a doctor or a series of tests.  I worked it through a process of elimination to narrow it down.

Back in the early 1990's, I began to notice a strange phenomena happening to me.  Seemed like every time I ate, I'd started feeling congested and within 15 minutes of the first bite, I'd start sneezing my head off!  While some attacks were relatively mild, there were at least two I thought I might end up in the hospital over.  Not good and very annoying, to say the least, as this would happen at many inconvenient moments as I'm sure most of you who suffer an allergy will agree to. 

I didn't have health insurance at the time, so I began to explore the cause on my own by removing certain food products from my diet for awhile.  As soon as I could ascertain one wasn't the cause, I'd put it back into my food pyramid and move on to the next potential culprit.  

Turns out, the food allergy I discovered stemmed from bleached, enriched flour and rice products!  (Think white bread, white flour, white rice)  I'm assuming it has something to do with the chemical make-up of creating the flour and rice because it's just not a natural process and I've never had the same reaction to their whole grain counterparts.  

However, since I'm an admitted addicted carbaholic, avoiding products became a challenge.  This food offender lurked in places you'd never suspect:  chef's would sprinkle hash browns or other fried potatoes with flour to give them a crispier texture, flour would be used thicken gravies, when asked for "whole grain" toast I'd receive 9 grain toast (which has the dreaded bleached, enriched flour in it) and the server wouldn't let me know in advance they didn't have "whole grain" products.  Just the slightest amount could set off a reaction....  

There was also the matter back in those days that all whole grain products tasted like cardboard and felt like sandpaper to the touch.  

UGH!!

Since my allergy never got out of hand enough for me to be hospitalized, I continue to eat the products anyway and suffer through the reaction.  But you know it's a sad state of affairs when your toddler (2003-2004) would sit across the table from you, watching your every bite and then start pretending to sneeze when the time was right.  (Ok.. that's actually funny! But still...)  When I'm in a restaurant, people who don't know me look at me like I'm contagious with a disease when my reaction starts up.  Those who do know me have learned to tune my sneezing out and go on with the flow of conversations we were in the midst of.  

Over time, I have learned what products and restaurants set off my allergy the worst tho' and I do tend to avoid those items and places.  Not always easy especially when you're looking to avoid the "same 'ol, same 'ol" daily habits and wanting to try something new.  

BUT recently these past few months, I noticed a new twist on this same allergy.  This time, it's not with food, but with toothpaste! Up until recently, I've been using the same toothpaste for years and years without a problem.  But now?  Anything with a bleach or whitening chemical is causing me to have a negative reaction!!  This one is far worse than the regular food allergy tho' and I'm afraid I may have to seek medical attention over it.  

We live in a very chemical world.  It's in our foods, in our household products, clothing, water, and in our overall environments.  While some allergies are natural and we're just born with them, I believe yet many more are caused by the chemicals forced upon us in our society.  It just cannot be that healthy for us, can it?  Toss them all into the fray (or in our bodies) and we're bound to have health issues related to them.  

I, for one, have been working towards having as natural an environment at home as possible.  We have a private water well, so we don't use pesticides on our acreage.  Yes, we have a lot of weeds as a result, but we don't have the chemicals in our water system either.  I buy many organic foods and wash everything before I will allow my family to eat it.  My family is so used to eating whole grain products that they request them at restaurants over the chemically treated white flour or rice ones.  

Oh, we're not perfect and I won't pretend to be - we're far from it!  But every little bit of my personal effort is helping to better our health and eat what nature intended for us to eat!!