Vancouver local plays it fast and loose with nut allergy

May contain traces of nuts? Who cares?!

By Isabelle Orr, Entertainment Editor

“Yes, I have a nut allergy. And no, I’m not careful about it,” said Cindy Duvall, 26. “I don’t let my possibly fatal nut allergy rule my life.”

The brave young woman spoke out about her carefree lifestyle at a press conference last Thursday.

“Just because eating a pastry at a coffee shop could end up with me cold, dead, and in a coffin, it doesn’t mean I have to monitor what I eat or drink,” said Duvall. “I don’t choose to live my life that way.”

“She should absolutely live her life that way,” Reena Davis, a family health practitioner of over 20 years, told Other Press reporters. “About one percent of people in North America have a nut allergy. They’re very common, and a side effect can be, well, death.”

“Some people smoke. I don’t check the ingredient list on a box of cookies,” Duvall said. “That’s just how I roll.”

Duvall, who at the time was wearing a black leather jacket and causally flipping a granola bar that said “MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF NUTS AND TREE NUTS” in the ingredient list between her fingers, urges all those with nut allergies to adopt her carefree lifestyle.

“I used to be just like everyone else who couldn’t break down the proteins found in certain nuts and legumes. I would obsessively freak out and double-check with the waiter that my salad didn’t have any cashews on top. Now, I breeze through life and simply use the ‘itchy tongue method.’ That’s where I eat a bite of something, wait for a minute, and keep throwing that food down the hatch if I don’t feel my throat closing up. I’ve only had three reactions this year so far!”

Other people were joining Duvall’s cause. “I’ve been allergic to nuts for my entire life,” said Randy McArthur, 47. “I used to think I would outgrow it, but every single year without fail I would somehow ingest a walnut in somebody’s carrot cake, and I’d blow up like a balloon. Thanks to Cindy, I’ve been living my best life. I eat what I want, when I want, and I deal with the consequences after, when I’m already losing consciousness. Who even needs walnuts in carrot cake? Everybody’s just there for the cream cheese icing!”

“I urge everybody who is joining Cindy’s cause to reconsider,” Davis said. “Anaphylaxis is a serious condition and shouldn’t be treated lightly, no matter how cool it looks to not care about your nerdy nut allergy.”

“I might go to a vegan restaurant after this and have a bite of a muffin,” Duvall said to a shocked crowd. “Maybe a bite of pesto. Who knows? The world is my nut-covered oyster.”