There is no telling how allergies can affect some people. We are all allergic to one thing or another; it’s just that to most, the special allergens that turn on the swellings, sneezes and itches, are so rare they will probably go through a lifetime without ever running across them. And then there are the rest of us who run across our allergens in the most innocent and commonplace fruit, flowers or spices. The simple plump strawberry is one such problem. The attractive red strawberry contains a cocktail of hundreds of kinds of protein. And one of them in certain people, can cause reactions seriously annoying like you would not believe - itchiness all over, and a swollen throat and mouth that cut off your air supply (if you work in a restaurant and a guest asks for no strawberries - remember to pay attention!). There is just one kind of strawberry discovered so far called Sofar (it is in fact cute that Sofar should come right next to "so far" in this sentence) that is free of the allergenic protein that makes sensitive people break out. There must be something about the redness in strawberries - the non-allergenic Sofar is white.

So how did they ever narrow it down so that they could find the one protein among hudreds in regular strawberries that can make people puff up? They took out blood samples from patients when they were in the throes of reacting to a serious strawberry allergy and looked at all the proteins in it. They found a protein that seen before in allergic people - in birch pollen. Europeans have had a long and rich history of suffering from birch, so everyone’s heard of it. Some people can just be allergic to strawberries but not birch pollen, and others can be allergic to both.

The strawberry growers of Northern Europe, since they have so much trouble with cases of strawberry allergy, have been trying to refine that white strawberry called Sofar, to give it a taste as special as a red strawberry. They haven’t been successful yet, as they suspect that it is something in the red that brings in the taste.

You would be surprised at the places that strawberries turn up in, if you want to stay strawberry-free. If you like herbal tea to drink and skin care creams and shampoos (not to drink), strawberry leaves are liberally used in these products and can cause problems in the more sensitive kinds. But the good news as far as foods go is, strawberry flavor, the artificial kind, has gotten really good at mimicking the real thing. And to save on costs they put the stuff in everything these days.

Tags: strawberry allergy, allergic to birch pollen