I see a lot of people at least joking about going vegan lately. I’ve been vegan for roughly… ah, I want to say 4 years now? I lost track awhile ago. It was around the time the wreckers came to Hexbear and convinced a bunch of us to watch Dominion (highly recommend doing so btw, it’s free online).
ANYWAYS, if you’re interested in more than just shitposts and are seriously interested in veganism I was thinking I could help answer any questions you have. Comment here or send me a DM if you’re blush shy. 
This comm has limits on what we can talk about btw, such as diet. And I think the whole website has restrictions on recommending specific brands of food? So DM for questions like that, thanks.
This is a highly specific question that may be outside of the scope of the thread, but IDK where else to mention it. My main barrier to becoming vegan is allergies. I don’t know this for sure because I have no official diagnosis, but my grandma does and was the only person who seemed to understand my seemingly random allergic reactions. But, she told me that it could be MCAS+Histamine allergy, what she deals with. Being randomly allergic to different things for short amounts of time. Last time I tried a prebought vegan alternative, I went into shock. Looking at the ingredients list everytime this has happened, nothing really stuck out to me as something that’d cause that reaction. Right now, I’ve only ever had minorly annoying allergic reactions with meat, nothing that’s sent me to the hospital, while it feels like anytime I start getting comfortable with eating vegan stuff (mostly preprocessed tbh, although my own vegan cooking did send me to the hospital for allergies once), I end up in more medical debt.
Are there any particularly allergy inducing vegan foods? Any particularly hypoallergenic vegan foods?
First, I know medical care is expensive in the USA, but I’d really recommend getting tested if it’s so serious that it’s putting you in the hospital. Vegan or not, you might eat something that kills you down the line. Debt is better than death.
Second, I think you’d be surprised by how many allergy friendly processed foods are also vegan. Both groups are such a tiny part of the overall population that often times they’ll just group us all together and assume every vegan is allergic to something. Some of the more common allergens that affect vegans are soy, wheat, sesame seeds, and nuts. I’ve seen various premade pizzas, proteins, crackers, and cheeses avoid some of these allergens. I’d say out of the most common ones, soy is probably the hardest to avoid. However, if you’re eating out, especially at a vegan place, I’ve never had issues finding out if something had an allergen or not. In fact, sometimes they’ll advertise it right in the dish description.
Of course, there are food allergens out there you’d also be avoiding by going vegan like dairy (I didn’t realize I was allergic to it until I stopped eating it), eggs, meat, and fish (shellfish is a major one). Out of the most common allergies, it’s about a 50/50 on whether it affects vegans or not. I will say, as a vegan in America, I’ve gotten way less food poisoning since I went vegan. I basically just need to be careful about washed greens and restaurant cleanliness nowadays, so that’s been nice.
Again, I’d really recommend getting tested if you can, so you know what exactly it is you need to avoid. Tell your doctor about your family history. If you’re American I can recommend a specific grocery chain that likes to focus on allergy specific vegan foods, but I can tell you now that it won’t be cheap. Once you know what affects you, you’re better off cooking at home.
I’m starting to get medical care, I’m hoping I have time to get everything done before I run out of insurance later this year. Last time I went to go get tested was immediately after my allergic reaction where they didn’t mention that taking allergy meds within a week of the test would mess up the results when making the appointment, just when I walked in the door. Go figure. Yeah, I’m probably allergic to dairy. I actually know I’m allergic to shellfish, so I never have that one.
I mean lots of people are particularly allergic to peanuts and those are vegan. What do you mean by vegan foods specifically? Because vegan food can mean anything from an apple to an Oreo cookie. Do you mean meat substitutes?
Usually meat substitutes are made of soy, wheat, beans, potato, mushrooms, jackfruit, or some combination of starches/gluten. So if your allergies cross over with any of those I’d suggest looking into the ingredients on a meat substitute to figure out where you need to watch out.
What I’d honestly suggest though is moving away from meat substitutes entirely. There are a lot of great cuisines that don’t rely on using meat, dairy, or anything similar!
Yeah, meat substitutes like nuggets, the sort of shit you’d grab from the frozen aisle. I’m a prep cook in my day to day so I rarely have the energy to cook at home as much as I love to cook.