What Does GRM Know About Allium Intolerance?

I don't know why I didn't think to ask The Hive before, but... now I have.

The situation: I like all the alliums. So does my wife, but unfortunately, her tummy is only okay with a small subset. This isn't an allergy, it's an intolerance, and while it's a pain to work around, at least she's less sensitive than some folks who truly can't eat any alliums at all in any dose without severe reactions.

Leeks? No problem! Raw, cooked, whatever. Chives, also good! <-- Which is weird. I haven't seen a spreadsheet showing what's missing from leeks relative to other alliums.

Onions (all colors), garlic (every variety we've tried, including e.g. elephant garlic), shallots, the whites of scallions... All give her a pretty bad tummy ache. Definitely less problematic if things are cooked way down for a long time, or of course in smaller proportions. A *touch* of garlic powder or onion powder doesn't seem to be too bad, but going heavy enough on them to be pronounced in flavor also seems to have an effect.

Garlic-infused olive oil is okay, but mostly is of the "sweet, roasted garlic" addition than the fresher taste (which is great, but not the only thing one wants from garlic). I made my own once, but the warnings about garlic solids sitting in oil as an ideal botulism playground make me uneasy.

Random fragments of culinary wisdom like removing the central kernel from a clove of garlic, as some Italians say improves digestibility; no change.

We've tried asafoetida (or hing; resin from a giant, er, fennel? which tastes garlicky and is common in Indian cooking), and I think it was okay for digestion, and adds some similar flavors, but there's a pretty low threshold before you're thinking "that's definitely hing, not garlic" and it tastes a little funky.

I don't even know what I'm hoping to find, but it would be great if there was... I dunno, something like Beano is for beans or Lactaid is for dairy, only for alliums. Or other random ideas I just haven't thought of.

I'm glad that leeks are okay. We basically just sub in leeks for all other alliums, and it's sooooooo much better than not being able to do any.

I'm currently doing an elimination diet and challenge for FodMaps. Of which garlic and onion may be an issue. I'm almost done with reintroducing certain food categories. 

I've been getting infused oil from Saratoga Oil Company. They refill bottles in the store. Maybe there's a similar vendor/store near you?

I really hope I'm not allium averse. I'm Italian. It won't go well.

Have you talked to a nutritionist/dietician? I'm working with one from my doctor's office. Very helpful and insightful.

Knew a guy who had a reaction to alliums. They put him to sleep. His solution was generally avoidance and he was "mature" (meaning old and wealthy) enough to have tried a bunch of solutions.

Leeks and chives may be okay because you are eating the greens instead of the bulbs.

Shallots may be okay - you didn't list them one way or the other. Worth a try.

Also, green garlic, garlic scapes, and ramps or wild garlic may also be okay. They are more like leeks and chives.

If the cause and effect relationship is tightly connected in time, experimentation is easy. If the consequences take a few hours, it becomes more difficult to try eliminations and experimentations.

Shallots are indeed there, on the no-fly list. We eat more the whites of the leeks than the greens, as that works better as a sub for onions/garlic, so it's not strictly that where leeks are concerned (though it's correct of course that we're eating the greens of the chives, and it seems like the greens of scallions are better than the whites. Scallions may be the one identifiable example of one that turns problematic as we reach the bulb.

It's not, broadly, so much a matter of identifying which alliums are problematic. We've been at this a while, and while there's some grey area in terms of stuff she seems to get away with sometimes, it's more a question of finding anything that can be done to mitigate, or new alternatives we haven't discovered yet. Though I would love to see a spreadsheet of the compounds present in each of these alliums and whether they're found in the entirety or just the white parts...

Unfortunately, so far it sounds like by way of root cause a Beano/Lactaid pill isn't imminent (Popular Science article, though I am grateful that my wife's symptoms don't seem to be nearly as bad as the author's).