WAS IT SOMETHING YOU ATE?

Science writer Emsley (Cambridge Univ.) and physician Fell (Director of the Oxford Allergy Center) define food allergy as the immune system’s reaction to either a particular food (usually a form of protein such as eggs or peanuts) or an environmental agent that is out of proportion to the amount of the substance ingested. Intolerance, on the other hand, “is caused by the body’s inability to detoxify certain components in food”—there is no immune system involvement, just a substance ingested that acts like a poison. Some intolerances are to a nutrient like lactose that an individual lacks the enzyme to process, some to non-nutrients such as sulfites or MSG (these latter occurring either as part of processing, or by contamination). Although the focus throughout is on presenting sound scientific information, Emsley and Fell organize their material in a way that makes it possible to sort out a possible food sensitivity: The common culprits are toxins, biogenic amines, salicylates, caffeine, sulfur dioxide and sulfites, and the big one, alcohol (“moderately poisonous, but such is the pleasure derived from drinking it” that we ignore the facts and suffer the consequences). Lucid and informative to anyone trying to pin down a specific food intolerance.