by Gwynn Guilford
It turns out that tick saliva can make you go vegetarian (with the exception of poultry and fish) due to its creation of an allergic response to a mammal-meat based sugar. Helen Chappell explains the condition's growing prevalence in the southeastern US, where the lone-star ticks – and possibly other species – responsible for the allergy live:
I was hoping for some reassurance when I spoke with Dr. Scott Commins at the University of Virginia about the allergy. “We believe this is becoming an epidemic in the South,” he told me instead. There aren’t any published estimates yet of the prevalence of the allergy, but anecdotal evidence makes it clear that there are a whole lot of us missing out on our barbecue.
The Dish 