Potato Allergy - the Cinderella Food Intolerance

Potato Allergy Symptoms

Potato Allergy and Intolerance

Allergic to Potatoes?

Symptoms of a Potato Allergy

Food Allergies: When Food Becomes the Enemy

Potato Allergy Symptoms: Natural Remedies For Allergic Reactions

Food Allergy: New Insights and Management Strategies

Obituary of Dr Richard MacKarness, author of Chemical Victims

Patatin - possible cause of all the trouble!


evil potatoe by bdoodle24

I don't want to dwell on this too much as it is a tale I have told so many times. My potato allergy was discovered largely by accident. Some allergies are. Sometimes people don't like to call it an allergy because it does not always lead to anaphylactic shock as a nut allergy might, but the symptoms were very unpleasant and I really have to watch what I eat. Like any young person I would eat on the run and in my second job I often used to work in the lunchbreak and snack on coffee and a pack of crisps (chips in the USA). When I had time, I would have a cheese salad and chips (fries in the USA). I started to notice very unpleasant tummy pains in the afternoons. It would pass though. I thought it might be the fat, so I cut the cheese out and had chicken salad instead. No difference....

About a year down the road I would wake up in the night crying with pain in my stomach. My new partner was a vegetarian and his ambition was to live on a vegan diet. He had no clue about balanced nutrition so I cooked for both of us and was, to all intents and purposes, vegan too. We loved Indian food, like samosas, pakoras and various vegetable stews and curries. I had never been a big rice or pasta fan, so we usually had potato in some form, or chapatis, or French bread....

It got so agonising I thought I had cancer. I was scared to visit the doctor, my partner was scared if I didn't, so he threatened to leave me if I didn't get it seen to. The doctor diagnosed an ulcer and prescribed ulcer medication - Zantac at first. This helped for a while. By the time the diagnosis was confirmed by barium meal I was nearly painfree. Three months later it was back. The doctor couldn't understand a chronic ulcer forming in someone in their mid-twenties. Doctor therefore queried my alcohol consumption, smoking habits, diet... then tried me on two antibiotics and a bismuth compound - the standard treatment for Helicobacter Pylorii or ulcer causing bugs. It went, and it returned again... By this time he had me figured either as a secret spirit drinker or an hysteric. I was neither. It was back on the meds again, but I had noticed I was gaining weight.


You say potato..I say Vodka by mdw9235

The only way I can lose weight is on an Atkins style plan. It has always been that way - me and carbs don't get on well - so I went on the classic no bread no potatoes diet. Coincidentally I was also reading a book called, I think, Chemical Victims. After three weeks we were invited to a party and as a reasonable person I don't diet at parties so I indulged in some potato salad - a favorite dish - and I woke up in the night convulsed in pain. For the next three days my belly was swollen but there was no gas, and nothing would move.

A light started to dawn - potato was the only thing I had not eaten for three weeks. If it was an allergy it would have gone in that time from chronic (ulcer forming) to acute (agonising pain and paralysis in the gut). I deliberately tested this by a further three weeks off potatoes and then a portion of chips and the result was equally painful. We had an answer - I eliminated all potatoes from my diet and, as mysteriously as they appeared, the ulcers went. Cue the food industry changes in practice...

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Mutant Spuds by FredzShop

Now food manufacturers being aware of gluten intolerance are busy removing wheat flour from many of their products. They have a safer alternative, corn flour, which was used back in the 80s when I had my first potato problems.... However, this has become more expensive and they are now using potato flour as a cheaper and "more flavorsome" alternative.

Every time I go to the store I see a new recipe change, a new thing I can no longer eat. Some of these things are really silly, like pre-cooked meat and apple pie. I am writing this page to make the industry aware that an allergy to potatoes does exist. It runs in my family - my mother and two aunts have a problem with pain after eating potatoes. It also coexists with an allergy to nightshades or solanacea....

The huge industry that has arisen out of allergen free cooking takes no account of potato allergy and recommends potato flour wholesale as completely safe. This is an untruth that needs exposing! Please get off the couch and do something to help us!


Funny Couch Potato by doonidesigns