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Re:'New car smell' is the scent of carcinogens by dawnerd on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @04:12PM (#26158852)
Fun fact, I'm actually mildly allergic to salt. Docs didn't believe me and just tried to say it was GERD or similar. Finally found one that did some more tests and yep.

I also can't be around any strong perfumes or I'll break out in hives. It sucks when someone on a plane comes on like they just took a shower in the stuff.

Re:'New car smell' is the scent of carcinogens by marcan_42 on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @09:22PM (#26161866)
Wait, what? I'm pretty sure you can't be allergic to sodium chloride. Salt is literally part of your body. You'd die if you didn't ingest any salt.

Do you mean you're allergic to some common additive in table salt, or specifically to elevated salt concentrations? The former sounds like something you could call an allergy (but not to salt itself); the latter I probably wouldn't call an allergy so much as higher sensitivity to significantly hypotonic food or drinks. An allergy is usually defined as an excessive, damaging immune reaction to a foreign substance that is itself harmless at that concentration. Salt isn't a foreign substance.

I get the feeling a lot of people are lumping tons of things into the category of "allergies" where the underlying biological processes are very different. That doesn't mean the reactions aren't real, but it makes it very difficult to reason to reason about them. When everything's an allergy, the word allergy stops having any useful meaning.

Re:'New car smell' is the scent of carcinogens by forgotmypw17 on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @09:30PM (#26161918)
Most "plain old salt" available through commercial sources does contain several synthetic additives as "flow enhancers".
Re:'New car smell' is the scent of carcinogens by marcan_42 on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @10:10PM (#26162182)
Indeed, but then it wouldn't be a salt allergy so much as an allergy to those additives (and one that you could easily fix by cooking with proper pure NaCl).
Re:'New car smell' is the scent of carcinogens by forgotmypw17 on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @01:04AM (#26163247)
Sure, but many don't even know it's usually there, even when the ingredient list just reads "salt".
Re:'New car smell' is the scent of carcinogens by dawnerd on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @11:58PM (#26162880)
Easier said than done.
Re:'New car smell' is the scent of carcinogens by cptskippy on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @05:44PM (#26159748)
I received similar skepticism from people for coconut but after a few times of my lips turning purple they started to believe me. I seemed to have aged out of it though as more recent accidental exposures haven't resulted in a reaction.

I'm not about to tempt fate and willing subject myself to it.