I’m a Vegan who is Allergic to Vegetables
I’m also allergic to fruit and some herbs.
Full disclosure, ‘allergic’ is a bit of a clickbait word in this case. My reality is that I have severe reactions to some fruit and vegetables, but because I’m not at risk of death I can’t technically call it an allergy.
A doctor once told me that I have many food intolerances. The difference between a food allergy and food intolerance is that an allergy is life-threatening, while an intolerance makes life uncomfortable.
Life-threatening involves anaphylaxis, uncomfortable is a polite word for the symptoms you experience when your body decides something is poison. When it does it will do anything it takes to rid your body of it. Diarrhea, rashes, hives, headaches, facial swelling, runny noses and fatigue are some of these things.
Regardless of the correct term, I am a vegan who has to avoid a lot of fruit and vegetables because my body doesn’t like them. The main offenders are banana, avocado, tomato, onion, garlic, celery, pineapple, apple and carrot.
The reaction is always worse to these foods raw. If they are cooked, turned into a sauce or pureed, sometimes my body will spare me the hell if I’m willing to play digestive roulette.
From the moment I was born, I hated bananas and onion with passion and spent most of my life thinking I was a fussy eater. It turns out my intense rejection of these foods was my body alerting me to my food intolerances without me being conscious of it. Unfortunately, it didn’t do the same for pineapple and I learnt the hard way pretty quickly.
Before I turned 30, I could eat tomatoes and celery as much as I liked. I eventually realised both of these were out too when my body decided to develop these food intolerances seemingly overnight.
What’s even stranger is that my nan had a hatred for tomatoes that matched mine for bananas. When she died, it’s as though her hatred of the most vegetable looking fruit had hopped out of her body and straight into mine — in the form of full-blown food intolerance.
After this somewhat supernatural passing of the torch, I decided to forget about tomatoes and keep eating vegan.
Why would I do that?
Firstly, there’s a lot more to the vegan diet than you might think. Australian cafes will have you believe that the only options for vegans are banana bread, bruschetta and avocado on toast, but that’s not the case.
There are many other foods made from plants — the fruit and vegetables not on my list for starters, legumes such as peas, beans and lentils, nuts and seeds, bread, rice and pasta, dairy-free milk and vegetable oils.
Secondly, the reason I became vegan was my other intolerances. Animal cruelty is one, and the other is almost as vile — my lactose intolerance. When I finally admitted something was wrong and decided to cut dairy from my life, I enjoyed eating so much more.
Thirdly, my reality is that my intolerances won’t kill me. I’m fortunate that if I do accidentally eat something that sets my body into fight mode, Telfast and other antihistamines are easy to get and as affordable as Neurofen or Panadol in Australia.
After discovering a few extra fruit and vegetable intolerances in the last few years, I found it was pretty easy to tolerate eating vegan. Losing those extra foods from my plate each day was worth the physical and mental benefits I had gained from eating plant-based so far.
So here I am, a vegan who can’t eat a few fruit and vegetables. It’s way less difficult than it sounds.
