Friday, October 17, 2008

I'm Not Nuts


I just finished watching Kevin J. Lindenmuth's new documentary, "I'm Not Nuts": Living With Food Allergies. Am I allowed to make this required viewing for every childcare worker and educator in the country? Because I'd like to. This film clearly and carefully lays out the basics of what it's like to be food allergic and/or to have a food-allergic child. Visual mediums are so powerful--I think this will touch people who don't know much about food allergies in a way that written stories cannot. The videotape footage of a one-year old, egg-allergic girl scratching her hands at her first birthday party because she was allergic to the eggs in the cake made me weep. (Her parents didn't know about her allergy at the time, of course.)

For those who do live with food allergies, the information here is nothing new, or at least not very much of it. But the feeling is one of a support group meeting and allergist's visit right in your own living room. I found myself nodding my head in agreement and talking to the screen. "Yes! This is what it's like."

Full of interviews with the food allergic and their families, as well as interviews with allergy experts such as Terry Furlong, co-founder of FAAN, Scott Sicherer, M.D., researcher in the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai, and Harvey Leo, M.D. and Ben Song, M.D., of Allergy and Immunology Associates of Ann Arbor, MI, I think this documentary is a great resource.


Watch the introduction here:


Kevin Lindenmuth has worked in the video production field for more than 24 years. He is an independent filmmaker who has produced seven documentaries since 1997. You can read more about the documentary here.

Order "I'm Not Nuts": Living With Food Allergies (84 minutes, 2008) at www.lindenmuth.com. The DVD is $29.95, including shipping and handling.

This review was written for Go Dairy Free.

4 comments:

  1. Your sidebar ad is for chicken tortilla rolls (from El Pollo Loco) that contain cheese :-)

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  2. ARGH! *going to email Blogher*

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  3. Well there's a good way to get me informed... Reading about these things doesn't give us the real picture... Now if you put a person who deals with that daily, talking to me, now that's a different story.... :)
    Very nice of you to share that!tks!

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  4. What a great blog! My oldest son is anaphylactic to all dairy products. My other children (except one daughter) suffer from milder forms of milk allergy. I am amazed at how uninformed so many are in regards to allergies and how serious they can be:) I also have a blog and website: www.milkallergycompanion.com Let me know if you want to exchange links:) Thanks for providing this service.

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