Lauren J.'s Profile

As someone who has suffered from a severe dairy allergy my entire life, this posting and its long comment section caught my eye.

Dealing with severe allergies is a tricky thing. It creates a life where every detail about a meal, especially when eating out, cannot be overlooked. Cross contamination by simple mixing of spoons can result in your throat closing. With many restaurants not being able to accommodate such extreme allergies, I tend to either sit at dinners with friends with just a drink, always having to find a way to be witty about the "Why aren't you eating?" question, or I just plain don't go (in hopes to avoid the awkward questions or looks from waiters).

Having a health problem that revolves around food is tricky, seeing as how meals are what most of our days revolve around. More often than not, I understand that people have trouble understanding its severity, so I have become accustomed to finding a way to politely decline an offer for someone to make a meal for me, eat before I join them, and then just enjoy the company of my friends.

However, I will say that when someone makes the effort to go out of their way to create a clean, safe environment for me, and puts in the hard work of creating a meal that I can eat, words cannot describe what it means to me. Even choosing for us to dine at one of the few restaurants that I can eat at so that I can feel included makes me feel more "normal". My family members have even created a system to put little cow flags on food items that have dairy in them for holiday dinners, and seeing something like that lets me know that they truly care.

Not every friend can accommodate it, and I know that. But I associate myselves with people who either admit they cannot cook for me and don't want to risk my well being, and our relationship doesn't involve dinners, or people who go the extra mile to show they care.

I am a "real adult" living my "real" life with food allergies for over 21 years now, and I just ask you don't trivialize a real health condition by calling it "insane" without a proper understanding.