THE MEAT MYSTERY

An unexplained allergy to beef, lamb, and pork has been spoiling barbecues for years. Scientists now understand the eight-legged culprit behind it—and how you can protect yourself.

BY JACQUELINE DETWILER-GEORGE

ONE NIGHT in the late 1990s, Greg Gilbert, Ph.D., discovered he was allergic to meat. A forest ecologist and professor at UC Santa Cruz, he was working with the indigenous Guna people on the Caribbean coast of Panama to diagnose a disease in coconuts. At dinner, his host served him a stew made out of peccary, a hairy relative of the pig. Gilbert got violently ill and assumed he’d eaten something that either was unsanitary or had gone bad. The next time he visited the Guna and ate pig’s-feet soup, it happened again. That’s when he realized he hadn’t had a one-off reaction. He suffered an allergic response every time he ate meat. Fast-forward a decade: Gilbert was still allergic, and just one of many people who suddenly and inexplicably found…

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Men's Health (Digital) - 1 Issue, Jul/Aug 2020

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