The Truth about Fruit Allergies and How to Make them Go Away, for Good. Really!
What’s the deal with fruit allergies?
The whole fruit allergy thing is SO bothersome. And I’m not talking about just having fruit allergies, which is annoying, to say the least, but I’m also talking about the mystery surrounding where they come from. There are tons of postings all over the web, but none really point to any quality information about how to rid yourself of those darn allergies! If you do a search for “Oral Allergy Syndrome,” you’ll end up with lots of posts and articles on the subject. Pretty much every one of them says that fruit allergies are on the rise, in general, and that the cause isn’t known or understood. The only suggestion they make is to stop eating the fruits that produce an allergic reaction. Not too helpful.
I can’t make any promises to you about getting rid of your fruit allergies. But what I can offer you is the hope of getting rid of them. I was able to get rid of mine, and it makes me believe that there’s no reason that you can’t get rid of yours. The hard part, of course, is figuring out how to go about doing it.
A brief background of my history with fruit allergies
Throughout junior high and high school I was one of those kids who took an apple to lunch with me every day. I loved apples. I liked other fruits too, but during that period of time, apples were my thing. One day in high school I began to notice that after eating an apple my throat and mouth would get itchy, and I’d get some bumps and general swelling around and on my lips. It got progressively worse over time, and I eventually stopped eating apples. The really sad part was that I had to stop eating pears, strawberries, cherries, peaches, nectarines, and plums too! Some people talk about pesticides as a possible cause for these allergies, but I would react equally to organic fruit, so I don’t think that had anything to do with it. I should also note that people often tend to associate fruit allergies with people who get spring allergies, and I do deal with allergies in April and May, so that’s certainly a possible link. However,
The tide eventually turned…
When I was in my mid-twenties I met a super-sweet vegetarian girl who’s diet soon rubbed off on me. Admittedly I was never much of a red-meat eater. I typically stuck mostly to chicken, turkey, pork, and fish, until I made a dramatic shift and stopped eating all animal products. After about 6 months of being vegetarian (vegan, technically), I had a piece of an apple and thought to myself that the allergic reaction it produced was much weaker than it used to be. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I did make a mental note for future reference. After about a year of being vegan, the allergy was 90% gone and I was back to eating every fruit that once caused problems for me! It didn’t take too much longer before I was 100% back to normal with no allergic reactions to any fruits. I can’t tell you how exciting this was, especially since I love fruit and wanted to eat so much more. After all, I had become a vegan, and I needed to get my nutrition from somewhere! These days I’m a raw foods enthusiast who eats probably about 50% of my diet as uncooked whole fruits and veggies, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoy eating fruits with no itchiness or swelling.
Why I believe my fruit allergies disappeared
First off, let me say that I’m not here to promote vegetarianism. Really, that’s not my goal. I can’t even say that I think animal products were necessarily the cause of my allergies. Animal products might have caused my fruit allergies, or to be more specific, it’s possible that a particular animal product might have caused my fruit allergies. However, I’m more inclined to think that it was something in one or more of the animal products I was eating.
When I initially shifted to being a vegetarian, the most dramatic change I made in my diet was to eliminate poultry and tuna. Prior to making the switch, poultry was the one thing I ate virtually every day, and tuna was something that I ate quite regularly as well. Admittedly I made other changes during that time, but none was so pronounced. It was already the case that I barely ate any dairy (I hated dairy ever since I was a kid), so I don’t think it was related to that. I switched to eating organic during that time period too, but that was a gradual shift, and my gut instinct is that it wasn’t related to the fruit allergies because even today I still eat plenty of non-organic foods. I think the fruit allergies had begun to disappear before I really started focusing on the switch to organic foods anyway.
Every time I think about the possible causes, I always fall back on the poultry. Something about the poultry had to be causing my allergies! I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 5 years pondering the possible causes of my fruit allergy. While I admit that it’s impossible to say with absolute certainty what the cause was, I feel quite sure that it was the ground turkey in my diet (or perhaps more specifically it was the anti-biotics in the ground turkey). When I was in high school ground turkey became a very popular as a low fat, low cholesterol alternative to ground beef. I started making ground turkey chili, turkey burgers, and ground turkey sloppy joes ALL the time. It was in high school that I also started having an allergic reaction to fruit.
If I had to make one recommendation to a person suffering from fruit allergies…
… Do you eat a lot of poultry? Do you eat a lot of turkey or ground turkey products? Cut it all out of your diet right away. Ideally I think you should stop eating all non-organic meat, dairy, and poultry for a period of 1 year. However, in my case I feel pretty strongly that the cause was specifically the poultry, and most likely the turkey, so if you eat a lot of turkey you should definitely cut it out of your diet and see what happens. You should also consider switching to all natural or organic meat and dairy products that contain no hormones, antibiotics, or other chemicals. See if this make an impact. I was able to notice after only about 6 months that my allergies were going away, so I think 1 year should be sufficient for most people to detect a dramatic change.
Good luck. I know how much allergies can put a damper on your ability to enjoy nature’s BEST food. I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on this one, especially if you make the dietary shift.
Hi,
I’ve been researching my really annoying allergies and found your blog. I too have severe fruit allergies, I actually carry an epi-pen as my throat closes up. This allergy has gotten progressively worse over time and I seem to be adding allergens. I also have allergies to cats (i own one), roaches and seasonal allergies (trees, grasses etc.)
The fruit allergy is the most annoying as I eat a tremendous amount of fruit and as each fruit gets stricken off I feel more and more depressed.
I do not eat red meat and so get my protein from poultry, dairy and soy products.
Any advice you can give would be great!
Thanks, Leigh
Leigh,
I’m sorry to hear about your severe allergies… However, there is hope! If I was able to get rid of my fruit allergies completely, I do believe that you can too. There is zero doubt in my mind that my fruit allergies were 100% caused by something in my diet. The hard part is figuring out what specific item(s) caused the allergies.
As I mentioned in the post, the most dramatic change I made to my diet during the first 6 months of eating vegetarian was to stop eating poultry, but my gut instinct is that poultry in itself was not the cause of the allergies. I think it’s much more likely that something IN the poultry was causing my allergies. Perhaps it was all the antibiotics that are used to keep the animals healthy while they are being raised?
My recommendation, short of switching to an all-vegan diet, is to switch to an all-organic diet. If all the poultry and dairy you consume from now on is raised without any hormones or antibiotics and is not preserved with any chemicals, I think you’re making a step in the right direction. See if there’s any improvement after 6 to 12 months.
My diet these days is quite strict by most standards. I eat a very large amount of fresh fruits, veggies, and greens. I eat no dairy, no meat, no poultry, and very small amounts of fish. I eat very little amounts of processed foods, but I do eat a small amount of bread, some tofu and other soy products, as well as some grains and legumes, but not a ton. Overall my goal is to eat as much as possible in its unmodified form. Virtually all my shopping is done in the produce section at the organic market. I buy almost nothing that comes in a box, can, or jar. However, I want you to know that my fruit allergy was long gone before I ever went to such a strict diet. The allergy disappeared simply after stopping eating all meat and poultry. I didn’t really increase my raw/whole foods until well after the food allergy had already disappeared.
Good luck! Please follow up with me if you have any success with these suggestions or others.
-Doug
I recently became vegetarian and in the few months since giving up poultry (I had been steering clear of red meat for a while), my hay fever and allergy to cat dander has all but disappeared. I’m hoping that it’s a permanent side effect.
Very cool! I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one whose diet has had a positive impact on his allergies. Thanks for sharing, Cris!
You and Kevin Trudeau should totally be friends. While Doug Zuck’s points and philosophies are both valid and powerful, of course we have to consider the fact that thousands of other factors are involved. I know a guy who has been 100% raw vegan for almost 20 years and is still deathly allergic to strawberries. While I have been veg for 10 yrs and vegan for 3+, my cat and pollen allergies are still present, albeit diminished. Actually, this post makes me want to take the organic level to 100%. C’est la vie.