Wednesday, February 4, 2009

An Interesting Racial Perspective on Food Allergy/Intolerance

I came across an interesting radio essay today while listening to Chicago Public Radio. You can listen if you click this link or the one above. The author of the piece is an African-American woman who says she recently discovered that she's allergic to gluten, dairy and sugar.

It's unclear from her piece, but it did sound as if she is actually "intolerant" and not allergic. Still--with all of the backlash surrounding food allergy and intolerance in the news lately (remember one OpEd piece accusing food allergy sufferers of being only "white," "rich" and "lefty?"), this is a truly interesting piece that explores prejudice against certain medical conditions and how the author feels her race affects her friends and family's perceptions of her disease. See what you think.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing that link. That was interesting. It never occurred to me that food allergies were limited to caucasians. In my son's second grade class, peanut allergies afflict a number of children, all from different backgrounds, many first generation Americans: Russian Jewish, Chinese, Indian, and even white/caucasian Gentiles of unknown heritage! :)