1. When you tell people about your allergy, you dread the question you've answered approximately a million times before: "But what ACTUALLY happens to you if you have nuts?" UMMM, LET'S JUST SAY WE PROBABLY DON'T WANNA FIND OUT, CAROL.
2. If, like me, you're lucky enough to only have a tree nut allergy, you'll have to remind people 5 trillion times that you CAN eat peanut butter because peanuts are technically a legume.
I have literally never heard the word "legume" outside of the sentence "Peanuts are a legume."
3. Whenever you eat anything new, you stare down the ingredients list, reading it again and again just to quadruple check that it's nut-free...
I've noticed most people eat stuff and have no clue what's in it. Being the allergy kid, I always have to ask for… https://t.co/BDpPa0zwJm
4. ...because you can't always 100% trust that the bolded allergens will be correct:
@AldiUK URGENT nut allergy risk - Specially Selected Pesto incorrectly labelled - nuts not in BOLD on ingredients… https://t.co/zuVgcOOYLt
5. A lot of the time, the product itself doesn't have nuts in it but it's, "made in a facility that processes nuts," which is endlessly infuriating:
Warning: This tweet manufactured in a facility that also processes nuts.
6. It's incredibly hard to be a vegan or vegetarian because nuts are such a fantastic source of protein and they're used in so many meatless recipes:
7. While we're on the topic, when did everyone start putting cashews in everything???? When I was a kid, it was easy enough to avoid them. But now there's shit like this:
Like, this looks delicious and also like it would kill me dead.
8. People are perplexed when you use normal dairy milk (yes, like from cows) in your coffee, but you'll never understand the allure of almond and cashew milk:
when the lady in front of me at starbucks this morning ordered a latte with "half almond milk half soy"
9. Finding a good nut-free protein bar is ridiculously difficult...
Wish I could find protein bars that didn't have nuts in them 🙄
10. ...and when you do, it's such a huge accomplishment you want to shout it from the rooftops:
11. In general, finding nut-free "protein"-filled snacks is like finding the holy grail:
Adulting advice: find a flatmate who shares a life-threatening nut allergy with you.
12. Forget about eating any of those free baked goods at the office. It's just not worth the risk — or the effort of finding out if you can indulge:
13. You'll simply never quite be able to understand why everyone loses their goddamn minds over Nutella...
14. ...and pesto pasta means nothing other than a trip to the hospital:
15. Oh, and macarons? More like, maca-ruin my life!!!!
16. You feel kind of guilty that your S.O. (and other people who love you) basically has to give up nuts by default.
17. Whenever you travel internationally, it's so much harder to explain your allergy. Like, can I have the croissant at that cute little french café or not???? (Answer: Not. 😭 )
18. Speaking of traveling, you never leave home without your trusty EpiPen — a necessary, life-saving tool that does not come cheap:
Confession: my Epipen expires today and given I had to pay $120 for it I’m considering a cheeky stab just to get my moneys worth.
19. And people somehow love joking about trying to kill you with nuts. (Like, I'll never forget the time a "friend" wanted to feed me a brownie with nuts in it just to see what happened)...
all the allergy drama passed me by (how) but thinking about how my extremely nut-allergic bf told me about how at a… https://t.co/3i90VumDnp
20. ...or people complain even though their snack might ACTUALLY KILL YOU:
If u have a peanut allergy ur a straight up bitch smh I couldn't bring my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school cuz of u
21. Even though some people may not understand how scary it is, it's something that is unbearably terrifying if you start thinking about it too much:
Sometimes a deadly nut allergy is part of your everyday &some days you spiral & can’t bear living with it/the fear for the rest of your life
22. Seriously, we're not just being picky. We're not whining. WE MIGHT *LITERALLY* DIE.
At 6yrs old, I ate a cookie on set of #GirlMeetsWorld that had nuts. I had a life-threatening reaction & used my Ep… https://t.co/s6NxaSXT8P
23. Because our freaking immune systems have decided that nuts are DANGEROUS for us even though they're not, and in doing so it makes them ACTUALLY DANGEROUS FOR US. And every time I try and wrap my damn head around that I get a headache, so I'm done here. Thanks!
