I am a man who loves to eat. So much so that my fiancé predicts fatness in my future since I absolutely will NOT stop stuffing my face with food in front of me. I will clean my plate two or three times and still polish off her portion of whatever scrumtious meal we had. A food that I don't like is a verifiably rare commodity; I've run into maybe two or three in my gorging on the craziest fare the North American and Asian continents have to offer.
That's right; I love dog meat and fried locusts. Duck's blood, spam, and fertilized chicken fetuses fresh from the egg. I've even been known to enjoy brussel sprouts.
And so it is with great and terrible sorrow that I seem to have developed a new food allergy to that massively scrumtious, essential part of any American fast food lover: the Chipotle burrito.
I had one for lunch for the first time in a month or so last Thursday, and then started to break out in hives all over my body. I've never gotten hives from anything, ever in my life, and my only three known allergies are all synthetic, man-made pharmaceutical drugs.
So what do I do? I gulp down some Benadryl to help with the hives and take a few puffs of an old asthma inhaler to calm my poor fiancé's worries that I would choke to death in the night on my swollen windpipe, wondered briefly what set it off, and went about my business as usual.
Maybe it was my afternoon run, since I haven't exercised in months. Maybe it was the beautiful spring weather we've had in the DC area lately, with all the pollen and junk that floats about. I hadn't eaten anything even remotely unusual except for the Chipotle, but I've been eating that for four years, so it can't be that, right?
But my Friday morning jog, carefully retracing my steps with Benadryl in my pocket to try and see if I'd get a reaction, produced nothing. I ate all the other foods that I had on Thursday, and still nothing. I even wore the same clothes, just to be sure. Nada. And then I had Chipotle again. Within a half hour I was getting hives again, with a vengeance. My face was puffing up and part of my neck, which finally forced me to begrudgingly accept the fact that it might choke off my windpipe one day if I kept it up.
Then again, "Death by Chipotle" doesn't sound like such a bad way to go, does it?
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That's crazy. We go to Chipotle b/c we have a child with egg and peanut allergies and she is fine there. We also have an older daughter who is ONLY allergic to Azithromiacin (Z-pack) and she has broken out in hives twice now after eating there. She had a pork taco with just cheese and lettuce. She also had some guac & chips. I think it could be the pork or guacamole. I'm really confused b/c we have eaten there many times. Did you have either of those or ever figure out what it was?
ReplyDeleteI'm only allergic to odd, random drugs as well (Ceclor, amoxycillin, pediazole).
ReplyDeleteI also had two different meats, the chicken and the pork. I can't say I ever figured out what it was; probably a bad shipment of something since my hives were on back to back days. It's a little concerning that it's happened to someone else, though. Maybe Chipotle's supply chain needs more quality controls.
In the interest of full disclosure, I had Chipotle again one more time this year (I just couldn't resist!), and was completely fine.
Still, I've since moved on to the joys of Baja Fresh (incredible salsa, free with chips with every burrito!).