Thread: Attitude to food allergies?

Originally Posted by Corteo

I'm going to be going to Russia here soon and I am allergic to milk, wheat, soy, and corn. I'm fine with and understand the fact that there will be a lot of things that I can't eat but I was wondering... what is the cultural opinion on allergies? Like would I offend someone if I went "I'm sorry but I can't eat that".

I spent quite a fair bit of time in the Ukraine, Belarus and Latvia and I noticed that rice milk and soy milk was almost impossible to get hold of. It's the same in other Eastern European countries. They have less allergies.

• You can't get a soy latte or similar, and you can't get substitute milk in hotels.
• Milk is used in Russian type cooking a lot, so you really have to be careful with what dishes you eat.
• People are not used to food allergies at all, and I genuinely think it's quite unusual in the ex USSR countries. They are not being insensitive, they just don't know what you are talking about, or the inconvenience of being sick for a day just because you accidentally had some milk.

Originally Posted by "Anixx

I have seen "contains nuts" only on imported products. There is no such allergy known in Russia.

Strange as it seems, you may be right.

I come from Sweden, and I remember a very big media story and campaign, in the 1990s. There had been a massive comparative study of the health of kids in the Baltic States, compared with Swedish kids. Things were not good in the Baltics at the time, just after the breakup of the USSR, peoples lives were not easy. But yet, the Baltic kids were healthier in almost every way! And they have very similar genes to ethnically Swedish kids, which was supposed to make the study more relevant.

The most important finding was that the Baltic kids almost never had allergies!
They tried to figure out the reasons and it was something about the pregnancy care of mothers, how infants were looked after and how hospitals and peoples houses were cleaned (!) that was thought to be the reason. I suppose the situation in the Baltics in the early 90s was similar to Russia, so they probably would have had the same results if they had compared with Russian kids.

As a result of the study, the state (in Sweden) had a big campaign telling people to clean differently - avoid certain "modern" American/British style cleaning products in favour of "traditional" cleaning products, similar to what they were using at the time in the Baltic states.

The modern cleaning products kills all germs, and babies who are not exposed to real germs develop more allergies! Plus they contain all sorts of perfumes and things that are unhealthy for babies.

Oh, yes - the Baltic mothers breastfed their children more than the Swedish mothers. This makes a difference too, for allergies.

But if Russians start living exactly like people in Western Europe, then you will soon have allergies too!

It wouldn't surprise me if small kids, born 2000 and onwards have just as much allergies as Western Europe and the USA.

When Hanna was here I said to her, that I have never seen rice or soy milk. But now I see it almost in every shop.
«Беллакт» soy milk for example

Originally Posted by Dmitry Khomitchuk

When Hanna was here I said to her, that I have never seen rice or soy milk. But now I see it almost in every shop.
«Беллакт» soy milk for example

Yes I noticed that eventually - it is a powder, so it needs to be blended with water.
I think it is for children but it worked to make an excellent latte from!
And cost about 5% of the cost of soy milk in Western Europe. Good product.

(while milk is price subsidised in the EU, soy and rice milk is not...The price for one litre of rice milk in Sweden is over 2 Euro. One litre milk is perhaps 0.70EUR)

But if Russians start living exactly like people in Western Europe, then you will soon have allergies too!

I think that before late 80s allergy was a non-known word. But then there was a large campaign in the press about allergies. Sometimes it was claimed that allergies are behind virtually all dishealth.
The campaigns though lacked any details: they did not mention specific allergies, rather they claimed that allergies may be for anything. I think attributing anything to allergies became rather popular in those times. But the main reasons for allergies usually were named air polluted with exhaustion gases, pollen, domestic dust, domestic animals, pillow fluff, cockroaches, synthetic food. So the stereotype is that healthy natural food cannot lead to allergies.

And cost about 5% of the cost of soy milk in Western Europe. Good product.

I think that any soy products are regarded non-healthy in Russia. Many think about them as about cheaper "ersatz" substitutes for normal products, invented in the USA to feed the poor negros. They are usually much cheaper, otherwise nobody would buy them. Also soy products very often include genetically-modified soy, and many people fear such products.

Originally Posted by Hanna

It wouldn't surprise me if small kids, born 2000 and onwards have just as much allergies as Western Europe and the USA.

Nice observation! That's why I said earlier that allergies are not "very widespread" (instead of saying they don't exist). Among older people, say over 20, they are basically unheard of. Almost the only ones who are aware of wheat/soy/milk allergy are mothers of young kids who have them (but it's kind of a new thing).