Zoë's Food Blog

Something that happened earlier this year has intrigued me about allergies and how your body works when you are allergic to something, how this develops and whether you can become allergic to something you've had lots of before. I also want to relate this specifically to food :) Firstly in regards to the science of what happens when you are allergic to something. An allergy is an immune response to a substance that is generally harmless to most people, this can be food, medicines, commonly bee/wasp stings, pollen or penicillin. It is the body's release of certain chemicals that results in the discomfort, tissue damage or even severe reactions in some cases such as anaphylactic shock. Allergies produce certain hypersensitivity reactions depending on the substance and the symptoms, It is described that there are 4 classifications of hypersensitivities based on how quickly the reaction presents itself. Type 1-2 presents the reaction within minutes to hours after exposure, wherea...

New great recipe! Just got back from a run and fancied something healthy to keep me going, try this smoothie. Handful of pomegranate juice pods Half a carrot 1 satsuma Handful of frozen blackcuurents and raspberries Splash of orange juice Chia seeds Yum! Using a proper blender mine was a bit chunky 😞

Hi, so I haven't posted in a while and since starting my second year at university studying Food With Nutrition I want to try and post more often! Recently at uni we were set a piece of work where we've had to write an abstract for an article and the article I was assigned was about how the substances (or polyphenols) in pomegranate were linked to lowering blood glucose levels. Their study conducted research where 3 groups consumed a type of pomegranate substance (juice, supplement or acid solution equivalent to the acids in a pomegranate) after a small meal, this was only a piece of bread. The study didn't produce many significant findings in regards to the in-depth effect pomegranate could have on things like glucose transport but as an overall finding they did produce significant results in that the juice itself showed to have a positive effect in reducing blood glucose levels. I mean obviously there were flaws with this study, as there always is, but it made me think o...