Spoilers for SG1 "Pegasus Project"

[mamadeb]

Rodney canNOT be "mortally" allergic to citrus. If he were, he'd be *dead* - do you know how many places use citrus oil as a cleaner? And t his is assuming he has another source of vitamin C because scurvy kills. It's also a very common ingredient in so many processed foods that he'd basically starve to death.

What I *do* buy is that he has a *mild* allergy to citrus oil - enough that he gets hives when he goes near too high a concentration. It's unpleasant (and, you know. Benadryl might well counteract it. Or Zyrtec. I have contact dermatitis. Zyrtec keeps me sane and hive free.) and, yeah, prolonged exposure will, in fact, make the allergy worse, and he's quite right to want to avoid it when possible. But touching a lemon? Will not kill him.

And we know he's a hypochondriac. His "hypoglycemia" is extremely atypical, for example. This, again, doesn't mean he doesn't have hay fever or isn't allergic to bee stings. He might well have a hyperactive immune system, which really isn't fun (see above re:contact dermatitis. Also hay fever that makes me wheeze and an inability to stay for long in a house with cats. All coming upon me at the same point, and all reducing and leveling off, thank God.) However, he's just the sort to exaggerate his symptoms from "annoying" to "deadly". And John is just the sort to both call him on it (Yes, I'm allergic. I can't breathe. Okay. I can breath, but it's not easy. Okay, but I get *covered* in hives. Well, not so much *covered*, but the place of contact can itch for an hour.") and tease him about it afterwards.

Which, honestly, I can't see him doing if it were actually serious - then it stops being a joke or funny. Also, he saw the whole lemon thing and smiled, so he wasn't exactly feeling betrayed.

I think the lemon thing was more a message from John to Rodney. "I believe you can do this. These guys don't know you the way I do, but I believe in you."

And, here's the thing. Over the past couple seasons, he's been *less* hypochondriacal as he's gotten more validation from everyone.

And, yeah. It was funny.

And, no. I really don't think John carries a lemon with him at all times. He doesn't have to. Rodney will save the universe because John believes he can.

Comments

[ratcreature]

But there are people allergic to lemons and such, no? I've always assumed it was mainly a food allergy not a contact allergy. I have no clue whether citrus fruits are one of those things that may cause severe allergic reaction in a few (after all most people don't drop dead from either their food allergies), but I don't think it would be harder to avoid citrus than to have to avoid soy or peanuts or wheat or any of the other really common ingredients people are allergic to. Sure citric acid is commonly used as preservation agent, but I don't think it's the acid itself that people are allergic to, since iirc allergies are usually caused by the more complex molecules, like certain proteins and such, no? And unless it's some kind of naturally produced organic thing I doubt the preservative will come from actual fruit and have these allergens in it. I think I've actually read some SGA meta post about this a while back from someone who researched allergic reactions to citrus fruits as food.

And I don't think vitamins would be any problem at all. I mean, vitamin c is in lots of foods, I don't think scurvy is something he'd need to worry about. It's not like citrus fruits were eaten everywhere at all times or are even the richest providers of vitamin c. He could eat some rose hip jam or tea and even with the cooking he'd probably get more vitamin c than from orange juice. Or eat the occasional seabuckthorn powerbar. Or just have some broccoli and other vegetables regularly.

Since Mitchell was hardly going to force Rodney to eat the lemon when he pulled it out and held it in Rodney's direction I definitely understood the whole thing as joke, and didn't read anything more into it beyond that John and Rodney can be really dorky with each other.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I just did a spot of research on citrus allergies.

They're not uncommon, but there's no hint of them being deadly.

No one is allergic to the juice (although there those who are citric acid intolerant, it's not an allergy, will not produce anaphylacis and it's extremely rare.) They're allergic to either the oil or proteins in the fruit itself. Which is why citrus oil cleaners would be a problem. Also, it's not easy to avoid getting the proteins or the oil into the juice so Rodney should avoid juice if he can - but if he ingested some, it would not be dangerous.

Recipes that use zest would be, of course.