Nut free nights

Some people have severe nut allergies, which is something I don't recall hearing about until recently. Major League Baseball is on the case:

From Cracker Jacks to bags of straight-up peanuts, baseball games can be a bit of a nightmare for fans with severe nut allergies. According to Reuters, about half of all MLB teams will host at least one "nut-controlled game" this season, so even the most allergic fans have a chance for to catch a foul ball with their beer. A nut-free game typically means "an isolated section of around 100 seats that have been thoroughly cleaned," not selling nuts nearby, and having medical staff on hand in case of an emergency. One Chicago mother of a highly nut-allergic young baseball fan said that hearing the crunching of peanut shells during a game is "like being in a horror movie."

Huh? I have allergies and Dr. A has some pretty bad ones but audio allergies? The only audio allergies I have are to Lawrence Welk and eurotrash electronica. <synth drum rim shot>

I don't really have a problem with nut free nights: it's never a bad thing when a business tries to please its customers. Besides, nut free nights is (are?) fun to say and evokes some inordinately silly imagery such as players with empty cups... <painful rim shot>

I know, however, one person who might find this trend worrisome and it's Harlan Pepper the nut naming dog dude from Best In Show.

 

 What's a nut namer to do without any nuts? Sing this song?

 

I couldn't find the version I really wanted: Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts. I haven't heard their Nuts To You LP since I was in kneepants. Wait a minute, I'm wearing shorts right now so I am indeed wearing knee pants. It's fucking hot here y'all.

Back to Doug Clark, here's the classic as well as "classy" in the Good Fellas sense cover:

Comments

[Southern Beale]

Well, one of my best friends has a son who is allergic to peanuts -- so severely that he's been rushed to the emergency room from eating something that wasn't even a nut, it was like pizza where the flour had been processed in the same plant as peanuts, something really benign like that.

Just imagine how this kid's nut allergy has basically overtaken their lives. Until people started wising up to the dangers of food allergies, she could never trust that an unthinking babysitter, parent, teacher or day care aid wouldn't slip the kid a cookie and that would be the end of him.

I never thought much of food allergies either until this. Now she volunteers with FAAN and I've learned a lot more about it.

As for why this stuff has started cropping up all of a sudden, I'd say the say reason we're seeing more of every other disorder. It's the chemicals in our air, water and food. It's the crap that leeches out of the non-stick pans and the BPA in our water bottles and waterver toxins are in our carpets and wall paint. We've surrounded ourselves with toxic chemicals and then wonder why our kids get sick.

Somehow the free hand of the market was supposed to prevent all of this from happening! Guess we'd better just blame the EPA.

[Adrastos]

Chemicals used by agri-business have been my guess too.

[MapleStreet]

While I remember as a youth those who couldn't eat shellfish or they would go into anaphylactic shock (and high possibility of dying from it). I'm allergic to Fire Ants and Bees. Even though this gives me a healthy respect for the power of allergies to cause misery and even kill, I too wonder why nuts seem to have suddently appeared as a severe allergic reaction (as opposed to my allergies to various pollens that are just a pain.

Some try to explain the nut allergy as peanut oil is used in so much of what we eat. Others actually, with some good evidence, say that the increase in the number and severity of allergies are due to our cleanliness - in short, babies and toddlers don't have enough exposure to various antigens and this leads to a higher possibility of developing allergies. Others point out that allergic reactions use Immunoglobulin E and that the main body defense using IgE is defense against worms / parasites. So maybe our kids need to get more whipworm ?

Anyway, one more day, one more theory. Asking the same question of my allergist a year ago, he listed all these theories but didn't convince me that he felt he had a good handle on the answer either.

[Jb]

I find it particularly interesting that children in third world countries have few, if any, food allergies. Guess that's a good thing for them, but makes me wonder what's behind all our own children's. I tend to agree it might be related to chemicals used by agri-business and not the actual food itself.

[pansypoo]

um, i am going with darwin here. obviously we are doing something WRONG.

[OkieBlue]

Hot Nuts. I remember the album from 1962. Lots of bawdy songs and I loved it. Anybody else old enough to remember that?