possibly lurking celery?

NB: I have a mild food allergy to celery (so does my mom). When I eat something with celery in it, I get hives.

So I got to thinking: could I POSSIBLY have got something I was allergic to in my food yesterday afternoon? So I catalogued what I ate:

A small packet of Graze's mock-jelly-donut snack (raspberry and gelatin gummi strings, dried cranberries, little tiny cookie things, some slivered almonds)

A glass of milk

And for dinner:

some prunes (What? I like prunes and they are supposedly a good source of silicon, which can help prevent bone brittleness)

about half a can of "light" syrup canned peaches

some neufchatel cheese

A bowl of tomato soup, made using a homemade roux and a couple cans of "no salt" Brookshire's tomato sauce

And at CWF: a cup of typical sugar-sweetened (I can't do artificial sweeteners so I check) cocoa and a small slice of raspberry cheesecake.

So I thought, could one of those things set me off? Raspberries? No, I eat them all the time, I ate gobs of the frozen kind over break and had no ill effects. Peaches? Not likely, again, I eat canned peaches regularly. Dairy? I eat almost more dairy than anything and an attempt years back to do it as an "elimination" diet showed that it had no effect on hives.

Almonds? Maybe, but I ate them in stollen over Christmas....

Then I decided, while heating up lunch here at home (Refried beans with cheese, a salad, some applesauce) to take a look at the second tomato-sauce can I had:

Water, tomato paste, onion powder, citric acid, natural flavors, dried bell pepper.


Uh-oh. "Natural flavors" can cover a host of things, one of those celery.

So I have a call in to one of Brookshire's "people" (she was away from her desk and I left a message).

The good news is, if "natural flavors" includes celery, that means my body isn't doing a new stupid thing to me, it's doing the same old stupid thing it's done for years, and I can stop being concerned. Also, the fix for the problem is simple: give the remaining can to a food drive (celery allergy is rare enough that I doubt whoever got it would have a problem) and don't buy that kind any more. (Hunt's, as I remember, is just tomatoes, water, and a little salt)

If not, it could still be mold. But the timing is so suspicious of when I got the hive and it got bad that I would not be at all surprised to find out there's celery in there. (I really have to be careful about "natural flavors." In some cases it's totally innocuous but in others there can be celery there.)

Also, it seems my celery-induced hives are getting worse, which means I need to be extra careful.

ETA: I just remembered now that I had a bit of indigestion this morning, which is somewhat uncommon for me, but which IS a symptom of a celery reaction (it was one of the issues my mom has with celery). So, dangit - but at least now I know. (Brookshire's has not called back but unless I hear a "no, it doesn't have ANY celery of any kind" I am going to assume that that's it.)

Back to Hunt's sauce for me.... or to Cento whole tomatoes (which are just tomatoes, salt, and basil, and are very, very good.)

E-ETA: From some of my desultory research, I have learned a couple things:

a. Celery allergy can result as a cross-reaction with birch or mugwort (Artemesia; mugwort is the European common name) pollen allergy. (I am allergic to birch. Don't know about mugwort)

b. It's more common in Europe than here, and is most common in France, Germany, and Switzerland. (Not that it probably means anything, but a goodly chunk of my heritage is German and another is French)

c. In the EU, there's a requirement that foods be labeled if they contain celery. I admit, I'd love to see manufacturers here parse out the nebulous "natural flavors" designation so I knew....then again, some may change formulations often enough. I guess the answer is I just have to avoid "natural flavors" containing foods unless I can verify they don't contain celery, or I have successfully eaten them before. (And even then I'd have to be wary of reformulations). But I also understand that celery allergy is rare here and they probably can't label for all potential allergens....anything that contains a protein could theoretically be an allergen for someone.

 d. This is going to mean I have to start asking at restaurants like my mom does. The couple of favorite restaurants they go to up there all know her and expect the request. I presume things like a salad with oil and vinegar dressing is safe....and I've never noticed problems with Panera's food (and most of their food, it's pretty recognizable what's in it. And I don't eat the soup anyway, too much salt.)

The upside? If I can be really, really vigilant about the (comparatively few) processed foods I use and get rid of any with celery, maybe I will have far fewer hive problems. (Hope springs eternal.). When I was at my parents' over Thanksgiving, I had NO hives, and all the meals I ate were prepared at home by my mom and were certifiably celery-free. I also had fairly few hives over Christmas despite eating a few things she didn't specifically fix and which may not have been 100% celery free.