Ben McNally is a bookseller in Toronto, and has been diligently foisting good books on people for more than thirty years.
Food that Kills
Everyone who has ever put together a dinner party knows by now to ask guests in advance if they are vegan, or if there's anything they can't (or won't) eat. Sandra Beasley would pose a challenge to even the most able and flexible host. She is allergic to "dairy (including goat's milk), egg, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard." She is also allergic to "mold, dust, grass and tree pollen, cigarette smoke, dogs, rabbits, horses, and wool."
It's the food allergies that concern us Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, an informative and engaging memoir. Most fascinating, to this reader at least, is the degree of her sensitivity and the ferocity of her reactions. You wouldn't have to make her ingest any of the allergens to make her sick, you'd only have to kiss her shortly after (less than 4 hours, to be completely safe) eating them yourself. And you wouldn't need a large amount of them either. She mentions being derailed by the milk derivative used as a binder in a prepared shooter sour mix after throwing back a shot at a friend's engagement party . And being derailed, in this case, means spending several hours incapacitated, waiting for the Benadryl to kick in.
Sandra Beasley points out that in any normal kitchen there are fifteen things that could kill her if she ate them, not including the drain cleaner. People die from anaphylaxis. But as she mentions early on, "this is not a story of how we die. These are the stories of how we live."
And what stories they are. Despite her allergies, Sandra Beasley has done her utmost to live a "normal" life. It has not been easy.
She describes several incidents from her life in which she is blindsided by hidden ingredients or sloppy serving techniques and ends up in the hospital or curled up on the bathroom floor.
She describes her journey from childhood to adulthood with candour and good humour, but clearly there were serious bumps on the road. She was blessed with supportive and inventive parents and grew up long before food allergies had really entered the public consciousness. Mandatory labeling of ingredients in food products did not occur until she was ten years old, and only after dramatic increases in celiac disease and peanut allergies, and under pressure from Jewish and Muslim groups, did the US Government pass serious food allergen labeling legislation.
Beasley talks at length about the difficulties she had as a child, then as a teen, and when she left home to attend University, just trying not such a social nightmare. She discusses the problems contemporary mothers with allergies have raising children who don't have them, as well as examining some of the theories regarding infant feeding to prevent allergies.
And she tackles the strides societies have made in recognizing and accommodating people with food allergies and offers a few suggestions that would make a difference.
Most impressively, she does so with such frankness and generosity of spirit that it is impossible not to be impressed and sympathetic.
This is an important book and it deserves a wide readership.
An honest story of a brave and resilient woman who has managed to remain clear-headed and upbeat despite her travails, Don't Kill the Birthday Girl will be a great help to anyone with allergies, even more helpful to those without them. Food allergy is an issue that is easily dismissed or overlooked, and Sandra Beasley, bless her heart, is to be commended for trying to prevent that. We are in her debt.
Everyone who has ever put together a dinner party knows by now to ask guests in advance if they are vegan, or if there's anything they can't (or won't) eat. Sandra Beasley would pose a challenge to even the most able and flexible host. She is allergic to "dairy (including goat's milk), egg, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard." She is also allergic to "mold, dust, grass and tree pollen, cigarette smoke, dogs, rabbits, horses, and wool."
It's the food allergies that concern us Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, an informative and engaging memoir. Most fascinating, to this reader at least, is the degree of her sensitivity and the ferocity of her reactions. You wouldn't have to make her ingest any of the allergens to make her sick, you'd only have to kiss her shortly after (less than 4 hours, to be completely safe) eating them yourself. And you wouldn't need a large amount of them either. She mentions being derailed by the milk derivative used as a binder in a prepared shooter sour mix after throwing back a shot at a friend's engagement party . And being derailed, in this case, means spending several hours incapacitated, waiting for the Benadryl to kick in.
Sandra Beasley points out that in any normal kitchen there are fifteen things that could kill her if she ate them, not including the drain cleaner. People die from anaphylaxis. But as she mentions early on, "this is not a story of how we die. These are the stories of how we live."
And what stories they are. Despite her allergies, Sandra Beasley has done her utmost to live a "normal" life. It has not been easy.
She describes several incidents from her life in which she is blindsided by hidden ingredients or sloppy serving techniques and ends up in the hospital or curled up on the bathroom floor.
She describes her journey from childhood to adulthood with candour and good humour, but clearly there were serious bumps on the road. She was blessed with supportive and inventive parents and grew up long before food allergies had really entered the public consciousness. Mandatory labeling of ingredients in food products did not occur until she was ten years old, and only after dramatic increases in celiac disease and peanut allergies, and under pressure from Jewish and Muslim groups, did the US Government pass serious food allergen labeling legislation.
Beasley talks at length about the difficulties she had as a child, then as a teen, and when she left home to attend University, just trying not such a social nightmare. She discusses the problems contemporary mothers with allergies have raising children who don't have them, as well as examining some of the theories regarding infant feeding to prevent allergies.
And she tackles the strides societies have made in recognizing and accommodating people with food allergies and offers a few suggestions that would make a difference.
Most impressively, she does so with such frankness and generosity of spirit that it is impossible not to be impressed and sympathetic.
This is an important book and it deserves a wide readership.
An honest story of a brave and resilient woman who has managed to remain clear-headed and upbeat despite her travails, Don't Kill the Birthday Girl will be a great help to anyone with allergies, even more helpful to those without them. Food allergy is an issue that is easily dismissed or overlooked, and Sandra Beasley, bless her heart, is to be commended for trying to prevent that. We are in her debt.
