Things like food allergies aren’t taken seriously because Karen doesn’t like onions or seafood and tells everyone she’s allergic. It’s not just ignorance at that point, it’s selfishness and a complete lack of empathy and reason.
I don’t care if Karen can’t eat them because she is allergic or because they taste like shit to her; if she hates them so much, then you are the problem for trying to make her eat something that she hates so much that she feels her only choice is to tell you it’s an allergy.
As someone who is allergic to some foods and has to carry an epi pen everywhere I want to say that I do not care if Karen says they’re allergic to whatever. The problem is people who do not take food allergies seriously and assume that when someone says they have an allergy they actually have an allergy.
If you’re one of those people who have to prove someone isn’t allergic, you’re not just an asshole, you’re an attempted murderer (not you, op, just people in general).
OK but let’s think why a person might feel like they have to lie about severity to secure compliance with a food request. I reckon the woman with a name that has transformed during her life into a gendered insult and an actual allergic person share a common struggle, a well-founded fear of betrayal by the person preparing their food.
I have preferences for things I don’t like on my food and ask for removals or substitutions regularly. Sometimes those requests are forgotten or ignored and I will get it remade, or maybe I just suck it up and deal with it if it’s takeout and I’m a half hour from where I got the food. Not once in my entire life have I considered telling people I have an allergy.
So yes, I have thought about why a person might feel like they have to lie about severity, and my conclusion is “that person is a self-centered asshole.”
This kind of distills down to the “I suffer needlessly, so others should too” fallacy. Perhaps your food preferences aren’t as health-critical as other people’s, but I still think you’d be justified in demanding what you actually paid for more often. And you not doing so doesn’t mean that other people are assholes. Really, I think the food preparer who is inclined to take everyone’s food requirements less seriously merely because they get more food requirement requests is truly a real asshole, way before the person who realizes that framing their preference as a requirement more often gets them the respect that everybody’s preferences deserve.
I suspect that it only takes one or two situations where a near certain mistake which would be a huge inconvenience to correct is averted by lying before the average person begins feeling safer lying from the outset as a general rule.
Okay, but that’s just a preference. What about stuff like lactose intolerance, where it’s not an allergy, but it still makes somebody feel sick?
If you knew a food made you sick, I could understand saying it was a milk allergy to make sure people actually knew it made you sick, even though that’s not the truth.
Sure, that’s not a problem. Calling a legitimate sensitivity an “allergy” for the sake of expediency isn’t a problem. It’s still a legitimate dietary concern that needs similar handling.
People should respect other people’s body autonomy where food dislikes are concerned just like they should for just about every other form of body autonomy. The fact that they don’t is the reason this problem exists.
Yes, a person who asks for no onions shouldn’t get onions, but a dislike doesn’t require workspace and utensil sanitization to the same degree as an allergy.
Someone saying they’re allergic but then getting food prepared on a surface that was just used for the thing they’re allergic to can still have a reaction to it, but it’s perfectly fine for someone who just didn’t want it on their food.
Telling someone you’re allergic when you’re not either creates an enormous amount of extra work for the kitchen staff to avoid cross contamination, or reinforces not taking it seriously because they don’t and nothing bad happened. In both of those scenarios the person lying about being allergic is an asshole.
I’m a former head chef of two kitchens, one that specialized in vegan/gluten free/specific diets. If someone feels the need to lie about an allergy, I don’t care as long as they understand their food might take another minute or two — if that. It doesn’t actually take that much longer. Food allergies are to be expected, it’s up to the chefs to organize their kitchens and train their staff to handle them.
Edit: We used to get Jainists, who don’t eat onions or garlic as a religious thing. So I don’t care what people’s reasons are, I’m there to cook food they like that won’t make them sick.
That’s a fair point. Handling such request is part of the job, and if someone isn’t willing to do that then they aren’t doing their job correctly. I can definitely appreciate that perspective.
It’s unfortunate in both cases that someone with a preference and someone with an allergy don’t always get the appropriate response, but I still maintain that someone without an allergy saying that they do is just making things worse.
I respect your stance. I inform folks about food stuff when I can and accept I can’t change everyone, only make the kitchen more efficient.
Even with all the bullshit it was a great feeling to be able to make safe, good food for people who had hard time finding places to eat out. Our integrity and no-questions-asked attitude was worth it.
I still find the people at fault who deliberately ignore the boundaries of people who say they don’t like a food. I’m unfortunately allergic to things I actually really do like, and wish I could eat.
If someone doesn’t like something (their age doesn’t matter here), we should be more respectful of their autonomy over what they put in their body. Having to claim an allergy in order to have that taken seriously is the nuclear option after saying you don’t like something doesn’t work/isn’t respected.
That people like me with allergies receive some of the fallout of that is still on the people trying to force others to eat foods they don’t want to or shouldn’t.
I’m there with you. I’m properly allergic to a few foods I really love, including almonds and (non-celiac) wheat. My wheat allergy is just mild and I can avoid some of the fallout if I pop a Benadryl first. It’s likely an extension of my severe grass allergy, which also doesn’t kill me.
Many people don’t understand food allergies, thinking food allergy means instant anaphylaxis. That’s when you see these “purity test” bullshit posts where the waiter refuses to serve the person “faking” an allergy for their own safety (and I’m sure everyone claps). I can eat about a pancake’s worth of wheat once every week or two and just be a bit uncomfortable for awhile. If I ate like a whole pancake breakfast? It gets ugly and uncomfortable, sometimes for a few days.
So if I snag a bite of my partner’s pancake, I’m not faking an allergy. My self-control just sucks sometimes.
This reminds me of people who get upset when somebody in a wheelchair stands up or walks. Some people have disabilities where they can physically stand and walk, but only for brief periods. So if they need to reach a can high on the shelf and nobody’s there to help them, yeah, some wheelchair users will stand up and get it themselves. It doesn’t mean they’re faking, or looking for attention, or whatever other bullshit such judgemental asswipes come up with.
Likewise, people with allergies can have reactions that differ from person-to-person and that range in severity. It appears so obvious, which makes it wild how some folks can’t seem to comprehend that people can be different from each other.
Conversely if people just honored dietary requests without question we probably wouldn’t have nearly so many people who feel like they have to lie about severity to secure dietary request compliance. In all cases the buck stops with the person making the food.
It’s a genuinely dangerous ignorance.
Things like food allergies aren’t taken seriously because Karen doesn’t like onions or seafood and tells everyone she’s allergic. It’s not just ignorance at that point, it’s selfishness and a complete lack of empathy and reason.
I don’t care if Karen can’t eat them because she is allergic or because they taste like shit to her; if she hates them so much, then you are the problem for trying to make her eat something that she hates so much that she feels her only choice is to tell you it’s an allergy.
As someone who is allergic to some foods and has to carry an epi pen everywhere I want to say that I do not care if Karen says they’re allergic to whatever. The problem is people who do not take food allergies seriously and assume that when someone says they have an allergy they actually have an allergy.
If you’re one of those people who have to prove someone isn’t allergic, you’re not just an asshole, you’re an attempted murderer (not you, op, just people in general).
That Karen telling people she’s allergic is a contributing factor to why people don’t take allergies seriously.
OK but let’s think why a person might feel like they have to lie about severity to secure compliance with a food request. I reckon the woman with a name that has transformed during her life into a gendered insult and an actual allergic person share a common struggle, a well-founded fear of betrayal by the person preparing their food.
I have preferences for things I don’t like on my food and ask for removals or substitutions regularly. Sometimes those requests are forgotten or ignored and I will get it remade, or maybe I just suck it up and deal with it if it’s takeout and I’m a half hour from where I got the food. Not once in my entire life have I considered telling people I have an allergy.
So yes, I have thought about why a person might feel like they have to lie about severity, and my conclusion is “that person is a self-centered asshole.”
This kind of distills down to the “I suffer needlessly, so others should too” fallacy. Perhaps your food preferences aren’t as health-critical as other people’s, but I still think you’d be justified in demanding what you actually paid for more often. And you not doing so doesn’t mean that other people are assholes. Really, I think the food preparer who is inclined to take everyone’s food requirements less seriously merely because they get more food requirement requests is truly a real asshole, way before the person who realizes that framing their preference as a requirement more often gets them the respect that everybody’s preferences deserve.
I literally said that I do get it corrected unless doing so is a huge inconvenience for me.
I don’t lie about why I need special treatment.
I suspect that it only takes one or two situations where a near certain mistake which would be a huge inconvenience to correct is averted by lying before the average person begins feeling safer lying from the outset as a general rule.
I guess I’m more averse to lying then this supposed “average person” then.
I’m okay with that.
Okay, but that’s just a preference. What about stuff like lactose intolerance, where it’s not an allergy, but it still makes somebody feel sick?
If you knew a food made you sick, I could understand saying it was a milk allergy to make sure people actually knew it made you sick, even though that’s not the truth.
Sure, that’s not a problem. Calling a legitimate sensitivity an “allergy” for the sake of expediency isn’t a problem. It’s still a legitimate dietary concern that needs similar handling.
Okay, but you understand that she’s still what most people would consider a “lying karen”, right?
No? I very much don’t believe it is.
People should respect other people’s body autonomy where food dislikes are concerned just like they should for just about every other form of body autonomy. The fact that they don’t is the reason this problem exists.
Yes, a person who asks for no onions shouldn’t get onions, but a dislike doesn’t require workspace and utensil sanitization to the same degree as an allergy.
Someone saying they’re allergic but then getting food prepared on a surface that was just used for the thing they’re allergic to can still have a reaction to it, but it’s perfectly fine for someone who just didn’t want it on their food.
Telling someone you’re allergic when you’re not either creates an enormous amount of extra work for the kitchen staff to avoid cross contamination, or reinforces not taking it seriously because they don’t and nothing bad happened. In both of those scenarios the person lying about being allergic is an asshole.
I’m a former head chef of two kitchens, one that specialized in vegan/gluten free/specific diets. If someone feels the need to lie about an allergy, I don’t care as long as they understand their food might take another minute or two — if that. It doesn’t actually take that much longer. Food allergies are to be expected, it’s up to the chefs to organize their kitchens and train their staff to handle them.
Edit: We used to get Jainists, who don’t eat onions or garlic as a religious thing. So I don’t care what people’s reasons are, I’m there to cook food they like that won’t make them sick.
That’s a fair point. Handling such request is part of the job, and if someone isn’t willing to do that then they aren’t doing their job correctly. I can definitely appreciate that perspective.
It’s unfortunate in both cases that someone with a preference and someone with an allergy don’t always get the appropriate response, but I still maintain that someone without an allergy saying that they do is just making things worse.
I respect your stance. I inform folks about food stuff when I can and accept I can’t change everyone, only make the kitchen more efficient.
Even with all the bullshit it was a great feeling to be able to make safe, good food for people who had hard time finding places to eat out. Our integrity and no-questions-asked attitude was worth it.
Someone with an allergy can be just fine with cross contamination if their allergy is mild.
But it’s people like Karens that perpetuate the reason people don’t believe it.
If they didn’t misuse the word, people would take it more seriously when they were told.
I still find the people at fault who deliberately ignore the boundaries of people who say they don’t like a food. I’m unfortunately allergic to things I actually really do like, and wish I could eat.
If someone doesn’t like something (their age doesn’t matter here), we should be more respectful of their autonomy over what they put in their body. Having to claim an allergy in order to have that taken seriously is the nuclear option after saying you don’t like something doesn’t work/isn’t respected.
That people like me with allergies receive some of the fallout of that is still on the people trying to force others to eat foods they don’t want to or shouldn’t.
I’m there with you. I’m properly allergic to a few foods I really love, including almonds and (non-celiac) wheat. My wheat allergy is just mild and I can avoid some of the fallout if I pop a Benadryl first. It’s likely an extension of my severe grass allergy, which also doesn’t kill me.
Many people don’t understand food allergies, thinking food allergy means instant anaphylaxis. That’s when you see these “purity test” bullshit posts where the waiter refuses to serve the person “faking” an allergy for their own safety (and I’m sure everyone claps). I can eat about a pancake’s worth of wheat once every week or two and just be a bit uncomfortable for awhile. If I ate like a whole pancake breakfast? It gets ugly and uncomfortable, sometimes for a few days.
So if I snag a bite of my partner’s pancake, I’m not faking an allergy. My self-control just sucks sometimes.
This reminds me of people who get upset when somebody in a wheelchair stands up or walks. Some people have disabilities where they can physically stand and walk, but only for brief periods. So if they need to reach a can high on the shelf and nobody’s there to help them, yeah, some wheelchair users will stand up and get it themselves. It doesn’t mean they’re faking, or looking for attention, or whatever other bullshit such judgemental asswipes come up with.
Likewise, people with allergies can have reactions that differ from person-to-person and that range in severity. It appears so obvious, which makes it wild how some folks can’t seem to comprehend that people can be different from each other.
Conversely if people just honored dietary requests without question we probably wouldn’t have nearly so many people who feel like they have to lie about severity to secure dietary request compliance. In all cases the buck stops with the person making the food.