Be Excellent To Each Other

I asked on Twitter yesterday if anybody else suffered the skin peeling off their fingers when they chopped vegetables? I get it with all vegetables to some degree, but root vegetables, tubers and squash seem to be the worst. Butternut squash and sweet potato are noticeably bad for me.

The skin on my fingers goes white and bubbly then kind of sloughs off over the next few days. My fingers go numb and the skin goes white and weird.

My First World problem here is that I can't use the fingerprint recognition unlocking on my iPhone for about a week after preparing vegetables.

Its not just me, at least: seems one of my Twitter friends is affected in the same way by Squash.

What the piss? What's wrong with your hands?!

Upside: if you ever want to commit a crime, just peel a pumpkin first, they'll never find your fingerprints at the scene.

Get Russ to do it.

Also: leave the pumpkin on your hands. They'll be mighty confused by the DNA evidence.

It sounds like an allergic reaction - I would suggest checking with your doctor

I've looked online, and Wikipedua, Stackexchange and a few other sources seem to suggest it is a form of allergic reaction and contact dermatitis associated with various types of squash. I actually get it with many more vegetables, but squash and Sweet Potsyies are the worst.

I've actually never eaten either of these veg (I was preparing baby food) so it was a bit odd.

http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questi ... and-yellow

I've got loads of allergies, Zaphod, but I wondered if I stared to grow out if a few of them recently.

I have loads as well and it has varied a lot over time - as a child I had hayfever and small patches of eczema on my legs , but that went away for a long time then came back - but my allergies are more seasonal (pollen for example) and i dont have any specific things that i know trigger reactions for me like your squash example.

Still worth talking to your doctor about to see what they recommend.

Where do we go,
Where do we go now?

That sounds quite unpleasant actually. Can you wear gloves (latex/nitrile/whatever) while you're doing the peeling? I've been using disposable gloves whenever I do anything a bit grubby to try and minimise washing my hands too much (my hands get really dry and the skin cracks, especially as it gets cold, and moisturiser only works a little bit). Also, I don't really like getting my hands dirty and got used to wearing gloves working in the lab.

Folding clean washing also makes my hands a bit itchy and uncomfortable, especially pants & socks.