Ingredients-wise, mustard oil is sometimes used in Indian cooking and can be intense.
Yes! I think some “heat” is more likely to make me cough than burn my tongue. I don’t know that they are used in Indian cooking, but wasabi and horseradish come to mind. I think mustard works the same way. I enjoy many foods with what some might call quite a bit of a tip of the tongue and back of the throat burn, but wasabi and horseradish set off my already reactive lungs, and blow up my sinuses. I may cough up a lung, but I still enjoy them.
This “Housewife In Training” website says
“Wasabi has a sharp, fiery heat. The wasabi plant contains an organic compound, allyl isothiocyanate, which makes it so spicy. …Allyl isothiocyanate is also found in mustard and other plants from the Cruciferae families…”
I once tried a recipe for an Indian cold carrot dish that had that kind of “heat” but I’ve never been able to find it again.
Sounds like it’s not necessarily limited to Indian cuisine, but that you are noticing patterns – one of them is it’s associated with eating out. It could be you eat a greater volume when out or are not chewing as thoroughly when socializing. Maybe you don’t usually drink alcohol with meals at home. Any of these could contribute to coughing fits, potential signs of a lesser-known form of reflux caused by bacterial imbalance that gets aggravated by the foods themselves or volume of foods: https://digestivehealthinstitute.org/natural-treatment-lpr-silent-reflux/
In this theory, you may be consuming low Glycemic Index foods (high in amylose, such as basmati rice, or other certain insoluble fibers, e.g. raffinose, found in beans) or foods that you cannot properly digest (such as those containing lactose, fructose or certain oligosaccharides, e.g. sugars in beer) when dining out. Or you’re not chewing especially well and may be overeating. Anyway, fermentation occurs due to bacteria being where it doesn’t belong (your small intestine), which produces gas in the stomach and small intestine that pushes partially digested food or acid back up your throat. The underlying condition in LPR is Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), which causes the excess gas leading to reflux and swallowing problems. If you have IBS-type symptoms, a persistent cough or runny nose, then generally speaking, it’s worth exploring this condition.
The MSG sensitivity could be a bona fide salt sensitivity like my sulfite sensitivity is.
I had the battery of tests. I see an allergist once a year.
For whatever reason, thankfully , I don’t react after Chinese restaurant food very often. I can use commercial oyster sauce, hoisin, Chile crisp and xo sauce at home without developing hives.
I get hives from the mushroom arugula salad at a chain called Terroni, while being a major Italophile. I love Middle Eastern food. I get hives after cheap shawarma, cheap fattoush or cheap tabouli from take-out restaurants around 80 percent of the time. I am usually okay after fancier Middle Eastern restaurants, so it makes me think it’s either an ingredient that gets used, a vegetable spray to preserve vegetables longer or a pesticide residue from not washing vegetables enough. Or a combination of issues that accumulate. I love Thai food, but Thai specific restaurants set me off, too. I
It sounds like I have an ethnic restaurant attitude problem, until I mention it also happens after Caesar salads at Whole Foods, if I get raw tomato or raw onion on burgers, or order tasting menus at fancy restaurants.
The MSG sensitivity isn’t always in people’s heads. I watch the MSG levels, partly because it is way more likely that I get hives at places that use a lot of sodium, regardless of the form of sodium, and I don’t tolerate huge amounts of sodium.
If you’re coughing, do you think it could be related to the amount of fat used in restaurant food? I know my local Indian restaurants use a lot more cream , ghee and oil, than I use at home. Combined with some alcohol, that might explain part of it.
Thanks for all the info, advice. I think I’m sensitive to too much spice. All 3 restaurants had spicy food. No alcohol was involved, I don’t drink except for a very occasional glass of white wine.
This doesn’t happen in regular everyday restaurants nor Chinese restaurants.
(I never get heartburn … rarely drink coffee, drink tea daily.)
You could always ask the waiter for a small dish of yogurt to have on the side. When I started eating Indian food it was much spicier than what I was used to. I remember dining in an Indian restaurant once when I first started working and I started coughing at one point. The waiter asked if it might be from the heat and when I said yes he went to the kitchen and brought back a dish of yogurt for me. I ask periodically for a dish of yogurt to have on the side and it has never been a problem.
I would echo the suggestions of others and see a doctor. The cause of your cough could be anything.
I doubt that. Mustard Oil is really only used in Eastern Indian Cooking, Bengali in particular and I have never run across a Bengali Restaurant in the Bay Area.
Not sure which of of these holds, as you didn’t say what you ate (other than dosa, which has zero spices on its own).
“Too much spice” is a catchall without much value given your familiarity with the cuisine (a term someone ignorant of Indian food might use, like “too spicy”, which you already dismissed earlier).
Presumably you use similar if not the same spices when you cook indian food at home, where it does not cause any of these issues.
I would personally make a distinction between restaurant food and home food (which are quite different across all Indian regions— restaurant curry bases are cooked ahead in bulk, more concentrated, and heavier to digest), but most non-Indians who cook Indian food at home try to replicate restaurant dishes, so it may not be relevant here.
But that still begs the question many have asked but remains unanswered: what specifically did you eat the various times you had the choking / coughing reaction?
Except the number of people with a bona fide salt sensitivity vs “Chinese food syndrome” is quite different— like MSG-haters who eat plenty of other MSG-laden food that’s not Cbinese, only Chinese MSG somehow affects them
There are many allergies that don’t show up in tests, but there are plenty that do — it’s moot to discuss without any tests ever being conducted.
I agree with your approach of tracking your sensitivities and do the same myself, so I can head off a possible reaction by using anti-histamines and digestive enzyme supplements with certain types of food and drink that I anticipate I might react to.
Completely agree re: the Chinese-food syndrome. LOL
My comment about MSG is more that there is no test available for MSG , salt or mineral sensitivities. They aren’t true textbook allergies, so trial and error, and journaling, is the only way to figure them out.
( I will say, only Black Sambuca after Sushi makes me sick, but I haven’t tried White Sambuca after Sushi just in case )
Well, whatever it was, definitely have strangers on the internet tell you why you felt the way you felt, and how you are probably wrong about all of it
Yep, this gave my mom a coughing fit this week too — kala namak, green chilli, cumin, the first two are definite throat triggers, the third I mention only because of my friend’s kid’s allergy. (Kala namak in excess has other unfavorable digestive effects too.)
Garam masala, so cumin again, possibly chaat masala on the paneer which also has kala namak, jhol (curried) momo likely had green and red chilli both in the jhol. (Both may also have had capsicum, another common irritant, also chilli family)
An allergy panel might be able to identify the irritants, especially if you give the allergist some parameters to narrow it down.
Or if you can’t get a panel done, try your own elimination test.
Chaat masala and kala namak are finishing spices, so restaurants can leave them off if you ask (but you have to ask, because they are like “umami” elements that restaurants love to sprinkle on everywhere).
Green chillies may be embedded in things — green chutney, various gravies, cooked into dals as well as used in tadka / tempering to finish — so may need more care / alertness to avoid (though cooked into a sauce or sabzi, the sharpness is mellowed so you may not react).
If it’s as simple as as an obvious ingredient or two, you might be able to just avoid those fairly easily.
Chai masala = Tea masala
Composition varies, but usually contains cardamom, clove, cinnamon, pepper, and dried ginger.
Chat / Chaat masala = Savory “finishing” spice mix used in chat (bhel, pani puri, papdi chaat, and so on).
Composition varies, but is heavily dominated by Kala namak, roasted cumin, and amchur (dried mango, sourness might also be a throat trigger — chaat masala can have pomegranate seeds and citric acid in addition to amchur).
Maybe an easier test is to try some chaat masala on its own at home and see how you react (make sure you have a glass of water ready and also that someone else is present!)
Interesting you read it that way. I see it much more as she put out a query asking what might be going on, and people began to speculate with the limited information provided. No ill intent. But a bit of skepticism about the “ethnic” bent.
Except giving medical diagnosis speculation as to what the issue could be with limited information is probably not something that should be happening on a food board and is better discussed with a physician. JMHO.
I love Middle Eastern food. I get hives after cheap shawarma, cheap fattoush or cheap tabouli from take-out restaurants around 80 percent of the time. I am usually okay after fancier Middle Eastern restaurants, so it makes me think it’s either an ingredient that gets used, a vegetable spray to preserve vegetables longer or a pesticide residue from not washing vegetables enough. Or a combination of issues that accumulate. I love Thai food, but Thai specific restaurants set me off, too. I
