hi guys n gals. girlfriend has been told that she has an intollerance to spices and has been told to avoid eating spicy meals. what gets me is that "spices" is a generic word and i highly doubt that she has an intollerance to all the spices and we both like eating indian foods. not wanting to give them up we would like to figure out what spice or spices she has an intollerance to and build our cooking around what we can use. when she eats anything spicy she gets blisters on her legs feet and hands.

this is a shot in the dark but we are regulars to this site but we never post on the forum...we just linger in the background. we both thought it would be a good idea to ask some of the experts on here what spice they think it might be or what spice they wuld suggest we omit first.

we intend to get to the bottom of it one way or another.

cheers 1 very frustrated sid.

Welcome to the site (well to posting on it ! lol)

This topic comes up from time to time and unfortunately there is no easy answer !

You need to narrow it down by asking questions like -

Does it always flare up no matter where you eat or what you choose ?

Is it sometimes much worse after one particular type of dish ?

After that its just down to trial and error -

Make your own curries (follow the many recipes on this site if you like) and see if it has the same affect.

If it does try it again with one ingredient missing... see what happens... repeat etc.

Don't forget it could be anything she is alergic to, might be Ghee, Chillies, or even Rice etc... you really don't know until you go through things.

Does it only ever flare up with Indian curry dishes ?

That might point it more towards spices only used in Indian Cookery but it could just be that more is used (ie a lot of garlic or lots of chilli)

Fingers crossed you get to the right one near the start of the tests...

Steve

Have a look at this little topic about spices - Are All Spices good for you

Steve

I get very annoyed when people are given such blanket advise; ?you are allergic to all spicy food, so stop it all?! Person giving such diagnosis is biased against spicy, ?foreign? food at the very least, and probably has no idea that many spices are/can be good for you. He/she is condemning a patient to unnecessary hardship as far as food is concerned. Unless your allergy is serious, life threatening, there is only one way to find out and that is by omitting one spice at a time from your food. If it is serious allergy, do it under supervision of a specialist.

i totally agree with that statement mamta. i highly doubt that it is all spices causing the issue.

a few weeks ago we made the chicken saffron dish on your site and it uses 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder and 1 teaspoon of cardamom powder. she was ok after that so i think we can rule out saffron cinnamon and cardamom.

a few nights ago i pan fried some chicken breasts that i had marinated in a spice blend i make up and she got the blisters again. it contains annatto cinnamon clove pepper allspice garlic and oregano. we know it is not garlic annatto or oregano because we use those in other dishes and she is fine. im no expert but i think it it might be pepper or clove. i just find the whole thing odd that something as innocuous as cloves or pepper could cause a reaction like this.

cheers.

Hi Sid, I hope you manage to track down your girlfriend's intolerance. It can be a long haul but it really is eliminating things one by one - make simple curries (they are often the best!) and note down any allergic activity. Anyone who tells someone they are allergic to all spices is just showing their ignorance.

As Steve says this topic does come up, could be worth trawling through this thread as well:

http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/board/showthread.php?thread_id=15484

Winton

Hi SId,

you seem sensible and proactive in this, so you may well be able to sort it out.

The issue I have is your assumption that black pepper and cloves are innocuous.

When we talk about spices, we are really talking about the chemicals that provide the flavours/smells. Most spices are very well characterized, in as much as we know the major, and in most cases minor components of these natural chemicals in the spice. Many spices have natural chemicals that belong to a recognized group, others are very individual.

Cloves contain a very powerful chemical called eugenol, a powerful local anesthetic. Cinnamon (usually it's cassia) contains a chemical that hinders coagulation of blood cells, similar to warfarin. Black pepper contains about a dozen major components, many related to chemicals found in pine trees.

It is likely that your girlfriend is allergic to one of the chemicals, or maybe a group of them, as discussed. So the only simple way to resolve this is to keep doing what you are doing, but please check back here and discuss your results. We may be able to help with the understanding of which spice, or group of spices.

Note, for example, that allspice contains predominantly the same chemical that is in cloves, ie eugenol, and as you seem to have ruled out allspice, its unlikely to be cloves, either. And from the same reasoning, you cannot rule out nutmeg/mace, as, although allspice is supposed to taste like a mix of spice, it really doesn't, because it doesn't contain the same chemicals as nutmeg/mace.

Hope that makes sense.

hey this is great. thanks for the helpful replies so far. i will be sure to report any results on here.

lapis. thanks for the information. so does anyone know what the blisters are? i just find it odd that something you ea can cause blisters on your finger and under the fingernails and on the feet and legs. so bizarre to me.

Do they look like this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyshidrosis ?

can be caused by stress or alergic reactions...

don't forget to look for the "un-obvious"... it may be that it always seems to be after eating spicy food but that might not be the case -

For Example - it may be that you eat spicy takeaways after a night at the pub, so she is drinking and it could be that. On a similar theme it could be you only eat spicy food at weekend when she gets doll'ed up to go out and uses nail varnish or a different perfume etc... Could even be something bizzare like you use a certain spoon/fork for eating curries that contains different metals (my brother and I have what we call "racing spoons" for eating curry... a shorter than normal spoon that can easily fit in your pocket).

Steve

it looks similar but nowhere near as bad as the pictures on that page. they are small blisters that are raised and the whole area looks distorted even a finger nail. the blisters pop and dry up but then something triggers it off again after eating spicy stuff.

we don't eat take aways because neither of us are fond of indian restaurant cooking.

thanks for the replies.

sounds like allergic eczema to me, but I'm not a physician!

Whatever you decide, stick to it, don't deviate or be persuaded to follow another path until you have exhausted one.

The spices found in most curries do not number a dozen or so. In order of amounts, I would offer the following.

coriander seed

cumin seed

black pepper

fenugreek seed

mustard seed

chillies

turmeric

cardamom

cloves

cinnamon/cassia

nutmeg/mace.

There are others, more regional, like

black cumin

fennel

ginger powder

mango powder

pomegranate powder

but you will know what you use. Of course, it could be a herb.

Please keep us informed. Good luck.

"Guest" wouldn't nightshade mean no potatoes, no tomatoes, no peppers, no chilies, no aubergines oh and no smoking ?.. Its unlikely that all those would be setting off a reaction when it only seems to be happening after spicy food.

Steve

Most spices are toxic in high doses, bt even in small doses irritate the human digestive system. Mustard is one example.

Spices contain substances that can not be used by the body and if a substance can't be used, it wastes precious nerve energy in expelling it to prevent damage to the body's vital organs. Spices are harmfull in proportion to their toxin concentration. They waste nerve energy and cause enervation in proportion to the amount of energy expended in excreting the noxious substance.

Because of the toxic substances contained in spices, they cause irritation to the lining of the stomach and intestines. In fact some of them, such as mustard, cause bleeding of the stomach worse than asprin, when taken in large quantities such as the amount some people put on hot dogs.

Spices do not enhance digestion as we have been taught. On the contrary, because of the irritation they produce digestion is impaired. Besides the irritation to the gastrointestinal tract wich may lead to inflammation and ulceration, spices irritate all the tissues inside the body with which they come in contact.

The latest theory in the production of arteriosclerosis is in line with Hygenic theory-that arteriosclerosis begins with an initial irritation, followed by inflammation of the arterial lining with the deposition of fatty material and finally calcium. Spices are definitely irritants and to continue using spices when you know how they are irritants to every tissue with which they come in contact is tantamount to saying "I don't care if I get arteriosclerosis, or gastritis, ulcers or cancer."

Hot peppers can also irritate and inflame so should only ever be used in very small quantities.

Spices were originally used to disguise the taste and effect of bad meat and other foods in the days before refrigeration - human beings have forgotten how to enjoy the natural tastes of unflavoured food now.

You can't rule nightshades out. It would be worth trying it. A lot of currys are made using tomatoes (tinned or fresh) and tomato puree. Also chilli peppers (fresh, dried, flakes) and paprika. I guess that it's a shot in the dark but you will never know what is causing it until you eliminate one thing at a time until you eventually find the culprit. The above post from me is something that I found online when I came across this thread. So if anyone disagrees with what is in that post, then fight amongst yourselves, I will be over here :-)

Darren, interesting points but where is the medical fact behind this ? I'm sure you'll find things like "salt" is needed in the body for normal living. Yes there are some toxic chemicals in some spices but the amount (as previously discussed)is way beyond anything people would ever eat.

Steve

Darren,

if you believe any of what you have written, maybe you should stay 'over there'. You cannot post something and then say, 'I didn't write it, it's nothing to do with me', what a cop out. You are putting the discussion in jeopardy. Go away.

Spices can cause stomach cancer?? I've never heard that before. I have stuff that claims they can lower the immunity because the immunity is mostly in the gut. Then again I have watched a video by someone called Daniel Vitalis (a leading speaker in the raw food community) regarding the immunity, and he claims that from the mouth to the anus is a tube that is outside of the body. He used the analogy that if someone stands inside the hole of an inner tube, are they inside the inner tube or outside of it? The answer is that they are outside of it. To get inside of the inner tube they would have to make a hole in the rubber and climb inside it.

Basically the way he put it was that the immunity is inside the body and not inside the gut.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKKT6v0sFVU

"Spices were originally used to disguise the taste and effect of bad meat and other foods in the days before refrigeration - human beings have forgotten how to enjoy the natural tastes of unflavoured food now."

Where is this coming from, another myth perpetuated by ignorant? Spices have been eaten in the east for centuries, if not a millennia. They are eaten for enhancing flavours, as well as their health benefits. Anything in excess can be bad and that goes for spices too, but to say that they disguise bad food?.! Did you know that there is a custom in India whereby it is considered 'uncool' to eat leftover food from a previous meal. This probably has its roots in a wish to avoid eating food that had 'gone off'. In my mother's house (and now in my siblings houses), leftovers from a meal (not from the plates) are usually given to the servants straight after the meal, but if there are too many leftovers, they are kept in the fridge and eaten with next meal. Many people of older, pre-fridge generations still do not eat leftovers and get quite upset if served any.

Anything in excess is bad, as are spices, especially old, out of date spices. But most have health benefits.

Sid I will suggest that you go the elimination route as suggested by many here.

Thanks Mamta for setting the record straight. Too much 'armchair diagnosis' in not just inaccurate but potentially dangerous.

Regards 'masking' the taste of food, why do we continue to salt, smoke, dry, pickle (& even cook) food despite the advent of refrigeration? Because it tastes good!

Because it tastes good!

Quite! Why would people (of any community) eat harmful food/spices? they eat things because they taste good and are good.

we are in the process of eliminating one thing at a time and we are starting with chilli peppers and tomatoes. we will see how this goes and then after a couple of weeks if things havent improved then we will know that its not likely to be chillies and tomatoes that are the culprits. i have been reading up on it the last few evenings and i also would not rule out garlic onion and ginger because i read that a lot of people seem to have had similar experiences and it turned out to be garlic and onions and in some cases ginger. if it was garlic does that mean that we should also be careful of other plants in the onion family? i believe that you should always look at the simplest things first because more often than not it tends to be the very things under your nose that go unnoticed the most. unless we rule out foods other than spices we could be banging our heads against a brick wall. only if we have no joy with the elimination of other things first are we going to go down the spice path. we have already ruled out cinnamon (actually it was ground casia) green cardamom and saffron. the girlfriend has noticed a numb feeling in her finger tips on the affected fingers when waking up in the night and first thing in the morning. if you anyone has ever got their fingers cold to the point where they hurt and when you put them under warm water to get the feeling back they are agonising (im sure many people have experienced that). she said it feels like that but nowhere near as painful. she reported the sensation to be the same. sounds like circulation to me but i am not a doctor.

Sid do you mean chillblains ? My mum suffers with those even when its not cold, merely a large change in temperature will set her off ! Even to the point of wearing thin socks in the house then putting thicker ones on to go out, trying to keep a more even temperature on her feet !!

Steve

sid / Darren / dave - if you're going to try and kick off arguments here by replying to yourself, you might want to know that we do log IP addresses and can see it's the same person posting.

There is an interesting debate from other posters so I'll leave the thread - but please don't persist in being an idiot, I'll just delete anything more I see from you.

Pete - Administrator.

It could be several people all in the same place sharing the same router all in the same house .... and as for 'where' its not too difficult

If you want help with cookery/food/spices/recipes then please enjoy the forum, if you just want to talk to yourself then this isn't the place for you.

Steve

I have no problem with people in the same place talking on the same thread, as long as it's rational debate about the topic and not getting daft or insulting.

I've already had to kill a couple of posts; sids friends might want to reign it in before it gets to the stage where he can no longer post to his own thread.

Pete - Administrator

Rehabilitation Centre, great.

Genuine posters from any background, welcome.

Troll posts (posts clearly made to stir things up rather than to contribute to meaningful discussion), not great and not welcome.

You are both up early today!

ma

Not really, ma... normal time to get up before work!

been in two minds whether or not to post here again after the misunderstanding a few nights ago but i figure that no harm was done.

because people have been really friendly and helpful i thought i wold update people on what we have noticed up to now. we first of all decided to start with looking at the basic things first before we get into eliminating certain spices. we decided to eliminate tomato chilli pepper and potato (girlfriend doesnt like potato anyway). we went just over a week without eating any of those ingredients and last night i made a curry using tomatoes but no chilli (not even chilli powder) and this morning my girlfriend was itching all over. nothing serious but she said that she has been itching and some new small blisters appeared between her fingers. i know it might still be early days but i am going to make some food using the same spices that i used last night but without any tomatoes and see if she has any similar reactins. spices we used were white and black cuming green cardamon bay leaf casia bark fenugreek seed coriander powder cumin powder fenugreek leaf turmeric garam masala.

i thought if it comes to the point that we have have too try looking at spices we may powder 1 spice at a time and add just 1 to a smoothie each day for a few days and see if there are any reactions. then wate a few days and try a different 1. we may find out quicker that way. does anyone thing this is a good idea????

someone mentioned here that casia can thin the blood. correct me if i am wrong but i believe casia to be the hard bark that smells like cinamon. whole cinamon is the stuff you buy in a jar from asda and tesco???? they look different and cinamon breaks much easier. i think that is right.

just curious to know if cinamon has the same blood thining properties as casia bark does?

thanks sid.

I didn't say it 'thins the blood', this is a fallacy. To thin something, it has to be thick, presumably. The agent in cassia (called coumarin) hinders blood cell coagulation, it prevents blood clotting it doesn't bust the blood clots once formed. In cassia, coumarin content up to 7%, whereas in cinnamon, its about a tenth that value. Coumarin is similar to heparin (that prevents blood clots in injury cases and kidney dialysis patients, and warfarin, a so-called 'rat poison'. It doesn't poison the rat, but stops blood clotting, you can figure the rest!

I would have thought that if this is such a big problem, your girlfriend could have a (NHS) allergy test.

..was just thinking the same Lapis....have you taken her to a doctor? How do you treat the blisters?

yes we have been to the doctor and we started this thread off because she was told that she has an intollerance to spices and that she should avoid all spicy food. personally i think the word spices is a generic word and i highly doubt that she has an intollerance to all the spices. its more likely to be 1 maybe 2 but i highly doubt all. we are new to cooking indian food and we both enjoy it to much to give it up. the doctor gave her some steroid cream to treat the blisters. its a case of treating the symptoms but not the cause.

my apologies if you understood my questin lapis. i was just wondering if cinamon has the same properties as casia bark. you have now answered my question so thakyou for that. i know it is not cinamon or casia bark or green cardamoms or safron that she has a problem with because we made the chicken safron on this site and it uses 1 teaspoon of ground cardamom and 1 teaspoon of ground cinamon (we used ground casia bark). i was just curious that is all.

we have seen an alergy test online. the man has a clinic in harley street and also does alergy tesing online by sending a gadget through the post. you plug the thing into the microphone socket on a window laptop (we are only have a macintosh here) and you load a some software and click. then you put the gadget on 1 of your fingers and it records a uniq electric signal from you and saves it into a file. you email the file and it checks it against a bunch of electric signals from over 300 foods (i think it is that many) and then the computer checks it agains your uniq signal and they email you with the results of what food you should eat and what you should eat sometimes and what you shold avoid.

1 i am not convinced of this. 2 it costs about 170 pound. we are just trying to sort it out ourselves. i am sure we will get there in the end.

don't do it, it is quackery.

The only one that is any good is when the skin is tested with the allergen. If you don't think you can bully your GP into arranging a test, then you can do what you are doing, and continue until you find the answer. Then you can change your GP, and tell him/her why. Your GP does not want to arrange a test because it costs his/her practice.

yes it does sound a bit odd to be honest. there are many conmen out there on the internet. i am not convinced 1 little bit.

thanks for the info lapis. much apreciated.

we intend to get to the bottom of it because we have intention of going to india in next year. it is just a boring way of doing it but we wil get there in the end.

i will make sure to update this when i find out something else.

peace. sid.

Hello sid

I hope you get to the bottom of this soon.

1. Stop adding garam masala, because it has multiple ingredients and she could be allergic to any one of them, you will never know. The one I use has brown/black/large cardamoms, bay leaves, cinnamon/cassia, cloves and black pepper, sometimes a few green cardamoms. However, ready-made ones can have different ingredients. Different people/suppliers have slightly different formulae.

2. Keep getting back to her GP. Lapis is right, his/her refusal to refer you may be linked to spending money from his budget. It may not be, but he/she obviously does not understands your GF's problem or dislikes spices. One can?t condemn someone to stop eating a food group without proper evidence that the person is indeed allergic to it.Don't let them dismiss you with such blanket advice as handed out upto now, which really is quite useless in true allergies. Insist that it is a serious problem for her, it is interfering with the quality of her life (and indeed yours). Tell them that you have tried eliminating things one by one yourselves, but it is difficult and a long process, you need help. She needs to see a specialist.

When the government decided to give control of the budget to GPs, this was my one big worry, that they will try to limit specialist referrals, especially towards the end of their financial year. GP's are not meant to be financial people, many of them are ad at it and won't pay accountants, because that costs money!

Having worked in NHS, I know that sometimes you have to make a nuisance of yourself to get things done. Those who speak loudest (not shout LOL!), get things done!

Good luck

hello all. an update on how things are going so far. eliminated nightshade foods and it has been nearly 4 weeks now. girlfrinds skin looks to have cleared up a lot but still not perfect. it no longer looks as angry. been using a lot of spices. actually been using as many as i can but without going crazy. you get my drift. i wanted to know if it was something other than a spice that was causing it because that would be easier to pin point than an individual spice. last saturday i made garlic and coriander naan bread and i used a lot of garlic. i crushed it into a paste with salt and added it into the flower with chopped coriander and the yeast etc. next day my girlfriend had blisters on her feet and a few blisters had poped up on her fingers. not eaten garlic for about 5 days now but still eating spices and her skin is loking good. i don't know why but i have a feeling that the doctor was wrong and i dont think it is any of the spices that is causing this. i suspect it may be garlic but i am unsure yet. the only way to tell would be to leae off the garlic and chilli see if the skin clears up totally (whilst still eating a lot of spices which we are doing) and then introduce garlic or chilli back in one at a time and see if there are any changes. we have not used tomatoes for ages now and i have been using yoghurt and coconut milk in stead of them and with great results. just thought i would keep you posted because you have all been really helpful. sid.

Sid, sounds like you are making good progress on working out your GF's allergy - I absolutely agree with you that it's ridiculous of your GP to suggest you give up all "spices" because she MIGHT be allergic to one or two (and even that isn't definite as it could be something else).

I hope you can a) push for your GP to refer your GF to a specialist who can help you both tailor your elimination / reintroduction plan and b) narrow down the culprit soon.

after spending a consderable amount of time trying to find out what my girldriend is intolerant too i think i have narrowed it down to all the plants in the onion family. stopped eating hot peppers for a few months but continued to use all the other spices and onion and garlic and the blisters never went away. then i stopped using garlic in my cooking but the blisters didn't go completely. on odd ocasions i juice vegetables and one day i had half a leek in the fridge and i put that through the juicer and we drank the vegetable juice. within about an hour she had a flare up of blisters on her feet that itched. i looked at all the vegetables that i had put in the juice and the only thing different than usual was the leek. so i stopped using any of the onion family and her skin has healed up. i have been using hot peppers again for a few weeks and lots of different spices and her skin looks fine.i think that green cardamom pods may cause her a problem to a degree also but we are still in the process of experimentng with that one.

making curries without onion and garlic can be quite challenging and the resuls are nothing like what we are used to but i think it will grow on us.

just thought i would keep you all informed

sid

Sid, sounds like you are narrowing in on a selection of culprits gradually. Good news!

Many Indians do not eat garlic or onion so you will not be alone in missing out those two ingredients!

you ought to try hing, aka asafoetida, a resin from the plant in the carrot/coriander family. It is used instead of garlic and onion in some parts of India, especially Jains and Pandits. My rogan josh recipe uses hing, but not onion/garlic, and tastes just fine (my opinion).

The sulphur compounds in onion/garlic are needed to make flavour compounds when cooking meat, so hing would be a suitable substitute.

thanks kavey and lapis. i do use asafoetida but the one i have been using is whole pieces that you grind yourself and while i like the idea of that the flavour is not very strong compared to the ready powdered one IMO.

i just think it is odd that all along it was onion and garlic causing the problem. so much for it being caused by spices. so if i we hadnt have eliminated things to fin out the culprit(s) then the problem could still be there but we would have stopped eating something we enjoy. it makes me wonder how many health problems that people suffer from are due to a misdiagnosis of something else.

Glad you are finally making some headway in your investigations Sid. Going back to your original posting you must be relieved you questioned the Doctor's original diagnosis. Telling someone they have an intolerance to all spices is about as daft as telling someone they are intolerant to vegetables, especially when it turns out the culprit is from a different food group altogether.

Remember on Mamta's search engine as well as using + to add various ingredients for recipes you can equally use - (minus) to eliminate them!

Winton

Hello Sid

This is such good news :-). Well done and congratulations on your power of elimination and deduction!

As Lapis says, using asafoetida, along with one or more of the ?seeds?, like cumin/black mustard (rai)/fennel/carom/nigella etc. gives varying and pleasant flavours to curries. If your GF is okay with tomatoes, you can make tomato based gravy and thicken the sauce by adding a little besan or Bengal gram (often called chickpea) flour. You can either dry fry a cup of besan and keep it in a small jar for this purpose or add it to your hot oil after your ?tarka? seeds have spluttered. Then give it a gentle fry on low heat-it can burn fast. You will know when besan is done because you get a nutty aroma and it changes to golden brown-not dark brown. Besan is best for Indian curries, but if you don?t have it, other flours will do. You can also make yogurt based sauces, using full fat yoghurt.

I am sure that I have said this before, my MIL was a strict vegetarian and in India, strict vegetarians often do not eat onions and garlic either. She was one of the best cooks I have ever known and one never missed onions in her food. Admittedly it was vegetarian curries, but cooking various bean curries, jack fruit, yam curries is not common without onions. So do not worry, you will develop your own recipes. Feel free to ask for help here, there are many great cooks lurking around this forum. You might even want to share your best with all of us here.

Best wishes

Mamta