cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/post/1116242
Woke ticks are out to turn the US South into soyboys
(did I do that right?)
Because people don’t read the source anymore:
that nickname is misleading, because alpha-gal syndrome can cause strong reactions to many products, beyond just red meat.
The alpha-gal sugar molecule exists in the tissues of most mammals, including cows, pigs, deer, and rabbits. But it’s absent in humans.
the allergy also can be set off by exposure to a range of other animal-based products, including dairy products, gelatin (think Jell-O or gummy bears), medications, and even some personal care items.
it’s possible to get over the allergy if you can modify your diet enough to avoid triggering another reaction for a few years and also avoid more tick bites.
When vegans took actions too seriously
The saying from Jurassic Park “Nature finds a way…”
Going to heal the world.
Nice.
Ah yes, globally, but also in the US
You have a lot more pretentiousness than knowledge, my friend. The density of cases is much higher in the US than any other country, by nearly an order of magnitude. Besides, don’t people like you get happy when something is worse in the US?
by nearly an order of magnitude
Was this in the article? They barely mentioned anything about it spreading globally and no actual* numbers on the cases or spread outside of the US.
You’re reading an awful lot into a cheap joke.
Let him have his little pleasure while his country collapses.
Fun story: I once watched a lone star tick crawl into the headphone jack of my phone. After trying for hours to get it out, I did two google searches:
-
What eats ticks?
-
Guinea hen mating sounds.
Thirty seconds later, it crawled out.
Probably more effective than opossum noises
Hhhhhhhhhhh
-
My experience has been starkly different from Sterile_Techniques and I’m also living in what might be termed as “the middle of Ya’ll Quaeda” USA. So, it’s interesting to hear that there’s such a big difference in opinion / understanding on this topic.
For sure, 20 - 25 years ago it seemed like almost nobody had heard of it, and whenever someone said they were allergic to meat because of a tick bite, there was a lot of skepticism and denial.
However, these days, pretty much everybody knows someone who has this allergy, and that’s no exaggeration. Even the most backwoods, anti-science, do my own thing, fuck your feelings kind of people are telling others to check themselves for ticks and/or taking steps to keep ticks off them because they’re aware of all the risks from tick bites. Now, they might be claiming that it’s government bio-warfare, related to 5G and/or covid, or some other unnecessarily contrarian bullshit, but they do take it seriously from what I’ve experienced.
Also, the good news is (or bad news I guess depending on your perspective) is that a lot of people seem to experience improvement of symptoms in time, so it’s not necessarily a permanent thing for everybody. I don’t know if it’s just that some people continue to test the limits and end up inadvertently putting themselves through exposure therapy or if the immune response itself just naturally wanes over time, but several people I know who’ve had this for 5 - 10+ years say they can usually get away with a small amount of mammal meat, like maybe a hotdog now and then at a minimum, even though a small bite would have caused them a lot of trouble when they first developed the allergy.
Living in the middle of Y’all Quaeda, I’d think the local cousin fuckers would be more riled up about this. Eating steak is a point of passion down here, second only to worshipping Trump.
For the most part it’s just ignored… I kinda anticipate a trend of folks acquiring the allergy, then literally killing themselves in denial.
RFK will save them…with leeches eheh. You vote for a snake oil salesman, you get witch doctors, have fun in the middle ages! :)
Idk if I’m allergic to red meat, but I do know that my body has a really hard time digesting it. It just sits in my stomach for an absurd amount of time and makes me feel so nauseated.
Haven’t eaten any red meat in years because of it.
It just sits in my stomach for an absurd amount of time and makes me feel so nauseated.
I sort of thought that everyone experienced that.
deleted by creator
I mean, I can see old fashioned doctors saying to have a lil more red meat if she’s anemic. My mom grew up eating a lot of red meat for her anemia. There’s medicine for anemia now, however.
My stepfather is one of those people who wants meat and potatoes at every meal. I moved out of their place 3 years ago and I’m still not able to eat regular potatoes in any form because I ate so many while with my parents. Sometimes just looking at potatoes makes me mad.
My stepfather was told that he’s at risk of a heart attack and/or stroke. He also has anger issues and smokes. Had his first heart attack in his 30s. Hasn’t had any others yet, but yet is the keyword.
I have the same but only with beef. Pork and lamb are fine.
I think with the allergy it’s the myoglobin which content defines what is a Red meat. (edit: it’s not the myoglobin, it’s a specific sugar structure, reading the article mightve helped) My issues to digest beef is more likely related to the structure itself, the “long fibres”, because minced beef is completely fine.
I can eat small amounts of pork. I haven’t had lamb in like 20 years so idk how I’d digest it. Beef is my biggest issue. I’m essentially a pescatarian but have chicken every once in a while. My main sources of protein are fish and tofu and beans. My mom is wonderful enough to cook a separate meal for me when I come over for dinner and they’re having beef there. Other members of my family and my friends just alter what they’re making when they know I’m going to visit.
Your mom is much better at “momming” than mine. Since the day I went vegetarian, she said, “You have to cook everything for yourself now.” So I learned how to cook before I got into high school (which I can’t really complain about. It’s better than never learning how to cook at all.)
The weird thing is, she still thinks it’s the 90s or something. Prior to every family event, she tells me to eat something before going because “there will be nothing” for me. Yet every family event in the past decade (or more), I have been far from the only vegetarian there. My siblings, cousins, and their spouses have a completely different attitude than the one my mom has - they think, “If I’m throwing an event, I want everyone to be able to eat.” They’re aware of dietary differences, whether it’s veganism or a peanut allergy, and they care enough about their guests to make sure they don’t go hungry. Even though I’ve never asked for any special treatment, they always consider me when they plan food options. It makes me feel included and loved.
That simple concept doesn’t seem to enter my mom’s brain. Despite me being well-fed at recent family parties, she still not only thinks nobody would care enough about me to consider me when food planning (which really says a lot on its own), but also that having dietary restrictions is some super rare thing. Oh yeah, and she thinks she still has to warn me at all. I’m in my mid-30s and haven’t changed this aspect of my diet in over 20 years, ffs. Perhaps I’d know a wee bit more about all this than she would?
My mom wasn’t always good at it. She was very abusive for most of my childhood. She was having seizures constantly and it fucked with her behavior super bad. We didn’t know about the seizures for years because they don’t present like you’d imagine a seizure presenting. Once she got them under control, we worked together to repair our relationship. It wasn’t easy, especially because her seizures cause memory lapses. She legit didn’t remember a lot of the stuff she’d done. I actually had to bring in folks we know as witnesses to help her realize what she put me through.
I’m so sorry your mom is shitty. I hope some day she’ll be able to change.
This is the Earth saying NO MORE. The world would be a better place if all the food used to feed livestock went to humans instead.
We literally grow enough plant based food to feed 16B people. Instead we give it to the 90B land animals we eat instead. For some reason
most people don’t want to live on cereal and soy meal
it’s almost as if… we could grow something else. We’d actually free up a not-insignificant amount of agriculture land if we all ate plant based.
we use the soybeans for oil. the soy meal byproduct would be industrial waste of we didn’t feed it to livestock
I reject your nightmare vision of 16 billion humans. 8 is already twice too many.
i’d argue that the ideal number of humans would be approaching zero.
Long term, it will. Evolution is still happening, there weren’t any humans a million years ago, and there won’t be any in another million.
Shorter term, humanity’s main resource that allowed us to reach 8 billion in the first place is running out.
Unfortunately we’re still headed towards 10 billion by mid century, and I shudder to envision that horror as I may still be alive then.
Just burn all the ticks and tell earth to go fuck itself or we will fuck if it keeps being chaos incarnate?
I’m no vegan but isn’t this technically a good thing? Red meat has negative environmental impacts right?
isn’t this technically a good thing?
Far from it. There shouldn’t be anywhere near this many ticks as there are now. It’s a sign that the climate is changing and that is getting warmer overall.
Where I live is considered to be the tick hotspot in all of Canada. 15 years ago it would be wildly rare to hear that someone had a tick on them. Now it’s rare to hear the opposite. Go for a hike in the trails nearby and you can easily walk out with at least a few dozen on you.
And it’s not just the temperature itself. It’s that the climate is affecting everything in the ecosystem.
We’re going to see crazy tropical infections and parasites migrating a bit more north every year, and we’re not ready for it.
Don’t worry, I’m sure the current administration will totally save us all from the inevitable screwworm plague about to rain on us.
My first thought reading the headline was ‘the Earth is healing,’ LOL
I can just imagine the coming conspiracy theories.
Except you can die if you accidentally eat a trace amount in something.
Even better for the environment!
Probably. In some situations where there are no predators and you have semi-wild herbivores roam (usually goats, they are the least picky eaters) to eat forest fuel to prevent forest fires, it might be an ecological solution. But otherwise, yeah, red meat is something to reduce, not sure if this will be enough.
Not exactly goats, but kinda.
The same thing applies to roe deer in most of Europe. It has to be culled due to a lack of natural predators. They would eat everything, ruin the ecology and then be on the roads increasing crashes and human deaths.
And can’t really introduce wolf populations into populated European zones which haven’t had proper predators for ages.
I’m against industrial meat farms, but not eating meat as a concept. There’s just no need for the type of animal torturing powerfarming that is so common in, like, the US. (Watch Clarkson’s farm for instance to see British farming.)
So red meat prices are about to plummet right?
I need ox tail to be affordable again
Really shit short ribs are like 10 a pound right now at Walmart.
I second this. I discovered it right before it got insanely expensive and only made it like a couple times.
Transition to eating the rich.
Mmmm porky pig.
isn’t that red meat though?
Is lard red meat?
I assume there’s a reason the euphemism for human meat is ‘long pork,’ not ‘long beef.’
Pork is red meat
Nah most of them are white.
I think its crazy how many people get ticks where they go unnoticed long enough for it to bury and reach your blood. I wanna say it’s a full 24 hours before that happens and even then idk how much it takes before this will effect you since even things like limes disease means it needs to be in you for even longer.
Idk about others, but I have had my fair share of ticks, but thankfully, never one go unnoticed long enough that it broke through. People really should check more. Showering is a great time to discover if you may have one on you.
As a kid, I had a ticket on the top of my head just a bit back of center. Couldn’t see it in a mirror, didn’t feel anything weird right away. My mom noticed it at some point, but we had no idea how long it had been on there at that point. I was between 6-8 IIRC.
I got a tick bite. And I didn’t even notice it. It was right on my arm. So it’s not like I’ve just been sitting around feeding the fucker for the fun of it.
As the doctor told me. They can be very tiny, they latch on, and then you accidentally rub it off, never knowing it was there. And during that, it regurgitated and that’s why you see the giant tick bite mark.
The real question. Is why people see a giant hollow red circle and just ignore it. It’s a very distinctive mark, I don’t know how you could miss it, unless it’s on the back of your thigh or back. Go to the doctor, get penicillin. That’s it.
And these days, if you know you live in a high risk area, you can get vaccinated.
I’ll tell you why. Because it’s fucking expensive.
I had what looked like a classic “bullseye” tick bite (several, actually). People told me “run, don’t walk, to the ER”. So I did.
The ER doc told me it was probably fine but I should see my doctor. $600. They had the gall to bill me $600 for telling me to go see a doctor. And that’s with “good” insurance.
I still have no idea what caused those marks.
You haven’t lived somewhere the ticks are really bad then.
There is a point especially with ticks too small to see with a negative eye that you will simply not catch them all even if you catch 99% of them.
I honestly am not sure if I live in a bad area or not. During peak times, spring and fall, I will find several on me and the kids per year and a bunch more in the house, which were most likely dragged in by our dog. I feel like it’s a lot more than some people, but it could be worse. I have never seen any that are that small, thankfully.
Nope, you don’t.
In southern new england US, walking 100 feet from my car to the door of my mom’s house you can reliably get a tick from close mowed grass. Granted the area is coastal wetlands, but the density of ticks is incomprehensible.
It is one of the reasons I moved away, ANYTHING you do outside you immediately have to take a thorough shower if it is in nature (wait what is the point of being outside without nature? I know). That means you have to compartmentalize your outdoor work/play so it only happens in one chunk that you can then decontaminate yourself from with a shower and tick check after.
Even still though, you can’t be perfect with it and if you have outdoor pets you are fucked too.
I am not joking, I have pulled countless ticks off me and gotten lyme disease several times along with everyone else I know from that area. You get very very very good at tick checking and mitigating ticks getting on you (at this point I know the feeling of a tick crawlng across my leg hair and can catch them just by the feeling of them crawling up my leg when I am lucky), but you just can’t be perfect.
If this sounds disgusting and ridiculous, yes, yes it is.
I am not talking about the ocassional tick, I am talking about EVERY time you go into the woods you come back COVERED in ticks. This isn’t hyperbole, they genuinely get this bad in certain areas especially in the vicinity of wetlands.
Jesus Christ this sounds awful. How long is tick season?
I always figured it’s a sensory thing, different levels of skin sensitivity. I’m highly sensitive, so I imagine there are people who are much less sensitive. For me, I get tickled very easily (and I absolutely hate it.) Any light touch can trigger it. A gentle caress by someone’s fingertips makes me want to jump out of my skin. Lately my skin’s even become more sensitive to chemical irritants. I can’t use the bandaids my boyfriend bought (which are pretty average and of a standard brand) because the glue in it now gives me a rash.
But the benefit of this sensitivity (and, I suspect, the reason this hyper-sensitivity was maintained in humans at all) is that I can feel ticks and most other bugs almost immediately. I’m not perfectly immune - they are sneaky little fuckers. Sometimes a lucky one is able to sneak onto my scalp undetected for a bit. I became aware of that after the last time it happened, so now I brush my hair and feel around my scalp as part of my “tick check” routine.
