A couple of years ago my father-in-law had a bout of diverticulitis that unearthed a genetic history of celiac disease in his family. I had gone almost three decades without hearing the word “celiac,” but in the following weeks of his diagnosis people with wheat allergies began crawling out of the woodwork: everyone from my friend’s daughter, to my best friend’s mom, to my waitress at the local restaurant. It’s kind of like buying a Honda Pilot, then seeing nothing but Honda Pilots populate the road. I call this phenomenon déjà new. I’m sure all of these things existed before they touched my life on a personal level, but one cannot be completely sure.
While wheat allergies are a new presence in my life, nut allergies claimed their stake much earlier. As a strapping, young lad in my first year of university study. I felt nigh close to invincible. Nut allergies, though, quickly put my mortality in check. During a post finals celebration in my Shakespearean literature course, one of my classmates ate a cookie that – unbeknownst to him – contained peanut butter. A bad situation quickly turned worse and we rushed him to the emergency room where, luckily, the doctors aided his full recovery.
This attack was my first, and hopefully last (knock on wood), exposure to the severity of allergies. It’s hard for someone to take these infirmities seriously if he has not seen their toxic potential. Since my first exposure to allergic reactions, my studies uncovered the best treatment for allergic ailments: avoidance. Julian Krinsky Camps & Programs adheres to this medical maxim. “We work closely with all of our University partners in an attempt to keep our campuses ‘nut-free’ and publish the nutritional information of all the food we serve,” says Julian Krinsky. “To be honest, though, hardly anyone notices.” This is the point. Food should be fuel, not stress. Food should be fun, not anxiety. We aim to keep it that way.
