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A (messy) parenting lesson learned…

Our daughter Kylie has, on three occasions now, gone to bed perfectly happy and fine, only to wake up vomiting in the middle of the night. By the morning, though, she'd be fine again, and acting like nothing much had happened.

I figured it was something in her food that was triggering the events, but the first two times it happened, there was too much overlap in the meals to figure anything out--she basically ate the identical dinner. When the third incident happened this week, however, I was able to note only two overlaps with the prior meals: on all three occasions, she'd eaten some small cherry tomatoes and some banana with her dinner.

After I related this story to my friend Kirk, he wrote back "yea, tomatoes and bananas don't go together. Acid and starch = boom!" Perhaps this is common knowledge, but I hadn't ever heard this before. I've certainly seen it in action often enough now, however, to believe it. So as much as she likes both, Kylie's days of combining the two are now over!

As an aside, sorry it's been so quiet around here lately. We moved a couple weeks back, and between packing, moving, and unpacking (not even close to done yet), I just haven't had much time to write.

3 thoughts on “A (messy) parenting lesson learned…”

  1. I don't doubt that the combo of tomatoes and bananas might be the cause of your daughter's vomiting, but I don't think it's generally because of the acid and starch. I've often had tomatoes and potatoes (starch) in the same meal, and often in the same dish. Think of a dinner salad with tomatoes followed by steak and potatoes...

  2. Hi Rob,

    Of course, everyones' constitutions are different (even more so for young'uns). But if, even after not mixing tomatoes and bananas, Kylie's still unwell on those foods, it might be worth having allergy tests done.

    My girlfriend's mildly allergic to tomatoes (tingly mouth) and incredibly allergic to bananas (rash, throat-swelling, vomiting, the whole lot). She's been told by her doctor that banana and tomato allergies often go together.

    Mind you, my poor other-half is mildly or severely allergic to pretty much everything in the known universe... Chocolate (though only very, very mildly, she assures me), deodorant, toothpaste, mints, gnat bites, insect stings, kiwi fruit...

    I got off lightly... just red cabbage (no, really) and penicillin get me reaching for the EpiPen or the Piriton!

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