A cure for allergies?

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I’m still downloading all the greatness that was NACUFS 2012, of which I’ll post a more comprehensive blog later this week. However, there was one thing I was amazed to learn and am interested to hear operators’ different takes on, especially those who weren’t in attendance at the conference.

During celebrity chef Ming Tsai’s very entertaining general session he extolled his passion about food allergies and how he has dealt with them in his career and restaurant, Blue Ginger. Tsai was so passionate on the subject he recently was instrumental in working with the Massachusetts state legislature to draft Bill S. 2701, which requires local restaurants to comply with simple food allergy awareness guidelines.

Tsai told a story about his experience with food allergies, which took center stage when his son was diagnosed as being allergic to soy, wheat, dairy, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts and eggs. Tsai said he really became passionate about the topic when he went to a restaurant and alerted the manager to his son’s food allergies and was told that the restaurant would rather not serve him. Furious, Tsai said he became committed to providing a safe space for sufferers of food allergies, hence the legislation and the Food Allergy Reference Book, which he developed and uses at Blue Ginger.

The most interesting part of Tsai’s talk was when he discussed how his son is doing now. Tsai says his has been cured of his allergies completely through work with an energy doctor. Tsai says this Eastern medicine method, called the Allergy Release Technique, relies on mind over matter and simply believing that it works. The method is only being practiced by one person, Amy Tarenger from Allergy Art in Lexington, Mass. Tsai says she has cured 130 to 140 kids. Tsai said he believes you can cure everything through energy. There just aren’t enough people who understand and practice it yet, but the fact remains that Tsai’s son was cured of all his allergies.

This story was amazing to me. I have been allergic to almost everything under the sun. I was allergic to milk as a kid and always was jealous of the delicious-looking chocolate milk my peers got to drink while I had to drink pulpy OJ at lunch. While I grew out of that particular allergy I still have many others including cats, pollen, dust and mold, which I somehow manage to keep under control even in dirty New York City. But I remember so well being that kid who couldn’t eat cereal or enjoy ice cream so I definitely have a soft spot for kids with severe food allergies. Can there really be this cure? Tsai testifies it worked for his son. So why do you think it hasn’t caught on as the number of people with food allergies has seemed to balloon over the past few years? Is it just reluctance to try something new or is there some medical info that I’m missing? From what Tsai said I would love to see this method become more readily available for kids everywhere. What do you think?