Asymmetrical Information

Interesting--I didn't know it had a name, either. The effect seems kind of hit-or-miss; a wide variety of liquors caused me to hurl during my college drinking days, but the only one I got turned off to was beer.

I understand that oncologists take advantage of this phenomena during chemotherapy. Chemotherapy can cause intense nausea, and patients can come to avoid their drugs because of the association. So oncologists will introduce a novel food (I've heard that they use root-beer flavored Life Savers) soon after administering cancer drugs, in order to trick the mind into developing an aversion to the Life Savers instead of some other cue. I believe that even though the patient is fully aware of what's going on, it seems to work pretty well.

Related. I've read that allergy sufferers can respond even to images of the thing(s) they believe themselves to be allergic too. Which explains all the TV commercials for allergy medicines...

My particular bete noire is żubrówka (bison grass vodka). It wasn't the first (or last!) time I'd gotten horribly ill after drinking too much, but something about the way it happened (drinking a bunch of wine and then doing too many shots of vodka) has stayed in my memory and nervous system and I can't even think about drinking bison grass vodka anymore.

You know you're too drunk when you hear people talking about what to do with you and you realize you're powerless to do anything about what they choose. "Should we just leave him here?" "I guess we could leave him on my couch"...

For me, it's grape juice. I'd always had GJ in my fridge, but one day, after a big ole glass, my stomach erupted. It was a chemical reaction between the mildly acidic juice and whatever (and the true perp) was in my stomach, and it took no more than two seconds. I have not had grape juice since, although the occasional glass of wine is still very tasty, thankfully.

Bison Grass Vodka? The name alone makes me a little queasy. My poison (literally) was tequila -- but in my defense it seemed like a good idea to start doing shots AFTER celebrating my friend's promotion with a bottle of champagne. Bubbly tequila is no-one's friend.

Back when I was in the Boy Scouts, we went camping in a place near some picked-over watermelon fields. We had permission to take all we wanted. We pigged out; some of the melons were overripe and I got sick as a dog. I'm fully recovered now, but it was twenty years before I could stand the thought of watermelon.

When I was 10 I overindulged on thick fudge. I'm a chocoholic still, but even looking at fudge makes me ill.

The chemotherapy thing is fascinating.

how say you to having a glass of oil instead of orange juice, then? Cheers.

It's interesting you give Southern Comfort as an example. I got completely trashed on the stuff as a freshman in college - *many* years ago - and to this day just the thought of it disgusts me.

Hmm...you know, I don't think it needs to be what actaully poisoned you. When I was in the Air Force, I had to get a lot of shots. One of the group I needed was Tyhphoid. It was a series of two shots. The first, Thyphoid-A often made people real sick. It knocked me down for the count. Now, it so happens that I has some Apple-Cinnamon Oatmeal for dinner that evening. Used to be my favorite. For the last 15 years I can't even get a wiff of it without my stomach turning over...

Of course the Bacardi aversion is somewhat more honestly earned...heh...

Warm cola drinks. Also parmesan cheese on tomato sauce. (The latter still smells like vomit to me whenever I encounter it.)

"Bison Grass Vodka?"

It's vodka flavoured with a kind of long bladed grass that (European) bison like. Each bottle has a blade of the grass in it.

The taste is actually kind of sweet, kind of gingery kind of vanilla-ish (without being either). It's often consumed with apple juice.

here's a visual:

http://www.hipernet24.pl/sklep/img_items/b/005/581.jpg

Perhaps not exactly the intensity of the Garcia effect, but count me as another SoCo hater.

"(European) bison"

Who knew?

The chemotherapy thing is fascinating, but it also has to be well-managed. It is a reason why hospital food is bland for cancer patients-- if you give people all kinds of different dishes from their favorites each time before they get chemo or radiation, eventually they come to hate just about every food that they once liked. So they try to serve people the same dish before each bout of chemo or radiation.

In my partof the world it’s almost always hard cider. That’s what it’s easiest and cheapestto get when you’re 13 or 14 (Somerset and Devon arebig cider apple growing areas and many farms still make it round the back of the barn. A pound a gallon back in the day.) so that’s the first drink that introduces most to the technicolour yawn.
An aversion to cider is quite common in those counties, strange when you think it’s the native drink.

European Bison? Sure but they’re dying out. Polish Belarussian border and they’re so inbred now that most of the males are sterile. There are plans to cross breed them with the American version (not too far apart...both will cross breed with a cow.)

Although that plan has its problems. Can only go male cow to female bison, I think, and the bull has to be brought up with bison or it’ll be too afraid to do the biz.

So I heard once from a beefalo breeder, anyways.,

"European Bison? Sure but they’re dying out. Polish Belarussian border and they’re so inbred now that most of the males are sterile. There are plans to cross breed them with the American version (not too far apart...both will cross breed with a cow.)"

Not especially that I've heard of. Polish authorities are very against letting American buffalo into the country at all (according to a story I read a couple of months ago). There was a population bottleneck in the 20th century but the populations are viable if not completely independent (they're fed by rangers through the winter).

The (zoo) specimens I've seen are considerably smaller than buffalo (no bigger than a cow, maybe even slightly smaller) nothing like the behemoths of the great plains and built differently too, the females especially have a kind gnu-ish shape (without the horns).

I understand a maternal aunt of mine could not stand Chinese food for years because of a stomach virus that kicked in shortly after a Chinese meal.

As for myself...I have experience the effect but it has never been long-lasting. There have been foods that I avoided for months, maybe even a couple years, but the taste for them always returned after a while.

They never made me sick, so it may not be an example of the Garcia effect per se, but for three weeks once the only source of calories available to me was sardines packed in oil (don't ask). I was quite fond of them prior to this occasion, but I can't even stand to look at them today, all these years later.

"but for three weeks once the only source of calories available to me was sardines packed in oil (don't ask)"

I won't ask, but that doesn't mean I am not _highly_ curious ...

A guy I knew experienced the Garcia Effect misfiring-- he once stayed up all night drinking Mountain Dew and playing the PC game "Masters of Orion," and got horribly sick the morning after. It was the Dew that did it, but despite this, it's now the Masters of Orion opening scenes and music that cause him nausea.

The Garcia Effect (I didn't know the name before either) has been shown in organisms as simple as nematodes.

http://dimer.tamu.edu/simplog/archive.php?blogid=3&pid=2897

Euw... Southern Comfort. My first "binge drink." My only binge drink, if you get my drift.

Most horribly, the day I bought the SC was the day I bought Bob Dylan's Infidels (1983) on LP. I broke in the album and the bottle together.

Now, I love the songs "Jokerman", "Sweetheart Like You" and "Union Sundown". Did and do. But for several years after, I would always have to fight my gag reflex upon hearing the first strains of "Jokerman".

7-Up. On a really, really hot day at the Worlds Fair in New York City, in 1964 IIRC, my family ate lunch at the 7-Up pavilion, which served only one beverage. I can't say 7-UP was a novel item, but I didn't get soda of any kind often, and 7-Up was way too sweet for my taste. I was desperately thirsty, but it was definitely the wrong drink to go with hotdogs when you are overheated...

A science-teacher friend of mine toured the Jelly Belly factory, and blind-tasted a number of their "Bertie Botts" jelly bellies. Turns out that the one called "vomit" is a failed attempt at a pepperoni pizza flavor.

My wife and i were hit by a van many years back --- they found us 40 feet from the impact and she had severe brain damage and required a great deal of treatment.

Before we went out (we were dating at the time) she had made herself an Indian meal I had shown her, which was farina-based. She did it badly and the resulting food was pretty loathsome -- but she liked the dish it was based upon.

But since the accident she can't eat fartina or abide its being in the room at all. I can;t even have a mornig bowl of Cream-of-Wheat. It totally nauseates her. So interestingly unlike the alcohol or caramel sickness, the illness would appear not to have to be _caused by the food itself_ -- only the food and injury need to be proximate.

my garcia gastric no-nos are fried mozerella sticks and lobster bisque. the mozerella sticks are no loss. but my aversion to lobster bisque is so severe that i even find the color of the soup to be slightly nauseating (and it's a surprisingly frequent color in southern florida).

My sister and I both had a Garcia effect with rice crispie treats. We both got a stomach bug (I think) after a family gathering where a cousin had brought the treats.

I got over it about 20 years later. Don't know if my sister has yet.

A wide variety of liquors caused me to hurl during my college drinking days, so ever since then I've avoided drinking a wide variety of liquors in one session.

Actually, because of the era I went to college, my first guess was that the Garcia effect was a reference to Jerry.

Aftershock, or pretty much anything artificially cinnamon flavored. I can chew cinnamon gum, sometimes, briefly now.

My freshman year in college I did what many dumb freshman do: go shot for shot with my much larger buddies (200+ vs my 135) and ended up in the hospital. The only flavor I remember from them is Aftershock, and I can't even smell it without getting ill.

Also: artificial strawberry, because when I had my tonsils out as a kid, that was the flavor of the gas they gave me to put me out.

What's the name of the syndrome where once something gets you sick you have to tell everyone else about it?

What's the name of the syndrome where once something gets you sick you have to tell everyone else about it?

I believe that would be the dreaded "casual conversation with purely voluntary participation."

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