Extreme allergic reactions in the US disappear when in Europe. But why?

Many of you know I deal with extensive food allergies (and other health issues). Until recently, I knew they were exacerbated by drinking wine, but all that changed when I went to Spain and Portugal for #SteemFest 2.

In Europe, I treated myself to some white wine.

After all, it was a rare overseas vacation, and it was unbelievably cheap compared to what we pay in the US. To my surprise, none of the vino blanco I consumed gave me any allergic reaction. Quite the contrary; it helped me digest food better...the same food that would have sat, undigested, in my stomach for hours back in the US. Weird, right?

The greatness of this discovery is hard to put into words.

Try and visualize the last time you ate way too much at a meal. You were uncomfortably full for the next few hours. You started to regret every last bite because, well, it was even a little hard to breathe with the weight of your bloated belly expanded to its limits. You were thinking...please don't ask me to pick anything up or I might explode.

You'd do anything to feel normal again, right? Well, that's basically what happens when I eat anything. I feel full after just a small portion, and it sits in my stomach for what seems like ages. Therefore, finding out that a glass of wine would aid in digestion was a freaking miracle.

During this trip, I started to feel a smidgeon better (hey, any progress is good, no matter how minuscule), and the reactions on my hands and skin all but disappeared.

When we came back to the US, something strange happened.

Jordan and I went out and bought some white wine to give me the same digestive zen I got in Europe. We picked out bottles from Spain and Portugal (obviously) and a few seemingly comparable US varieties.

The slight effervescence and refreshing taste of the low-alcohol Spanish and Portuguese wines were as delightful as I remembered. Not too dry, not too sweet. When needed, I had a glass, and it didn't give me a reaction.

When I tried the bottles from the United States, however, it was a different story. My hands became inflamed with heat rash and hives. The day after drinking only a glass with dinner, I woke up with a booming headache and felt hungover. Let me emphasize: that happened after only one glass. It was as if I was drinking poison.

What gives?

What could possibly be so different between wine created in the United States & Europe?

I have two theories.

Theory 1

The first comes from an incredible book I'm reading by Larry Olmsted called "Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do about It." (Not an affiliate link, I don't get anything if you click on that or buy the book—it's just there for your convenience.) In it, he talks about the rampant food fraud and Fake Food all over the world, though he focuses mostly on the US.

I'm well aware of some of the awful farming and manufacturing practices in the US, but some things truly shocked me:

• The blatant plagiarism of sacred, centuries-old products, (i.e., Parmesan Reggiano);
• Cutting corners during growth and manufacturing (i.e., mixing new olive oil with older, rancid batches for higher profits);
• Mislabeling specifically to confuse or mislead the consumer (i.e., saying something "all natural" or "100% pure" when there is no regulation on what that means, the quality standards behind it, or even the validity of it being natural/pure at all);
• Adding things like "bottled in" or "product of" to confuse the consumer into thinking the product was grown/created at that location. (i.e. Extra Virgin Olive Oil saying "Product of Italy" doesn't mean the olives were grown in Italy).

I'd love to go on, but I think you would be much better off to read the book. It's now one of my top 3 most highly recommended books.

Anyway, with this in mind, I have a feeling there's much fewer chemicals, less cutting corners, and not as many harmful processes happening in Europe as there are in good ol 'Murrica. We have the FDA, but if what Olmstead says is true, there's far less regulation than we think there is.

Also, GMOs? Don't even get me started.

Theory 2

Okay, I'm gettin' started. I'll admit, I don't have a PhD on this topic, but I've done my fair share of reading and research on it, so I'm also not simply a raving conspiracy theorist. The second theory I have for why US wine (and other food) makes me sick and European wine doesn't is due to chemtrails, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and harmful pesticides.

(source)

Can of worms, opened.

This theory could be a post in and of itself, so all I'll say is that the adulteration of food in the US due to genetic modification and the addition of harmful, untested chemicals is changing our food. And it's changing the health of the nation. My body seems to be reacting to these things more severely than some, though I believe many people aren't aware that the root cause of their chronic conditions, cancer, and common diseases could be due to these reasons.

What do you make of all this?

Comment below.

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