Does/Did Ringo have a food allergy? | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

He developed food allergies and sensitives as a result of his childhood illnesses, which included appendicitis at 6 (from which he developed severe complications and ended up in a coma) and chronic pleurisy at 13 (which saw him admitted to a sanatorium for two years). He was pretty much okay with the standard working class diet of the time. With The Beatles success, he found himself having problems with much of the more exotic fare that was suddenly available to them. He especially had problems with spicy food. Asked backstage at the NME Poll-Winners Concert (26 April 1964), "Do you have anything special if all of you went out to eat at once?" Ringo replies, "We eat steak usually if we go out. Steak and chips. Egg and chips. Beans. Bacon. Chicken."

Ringo and beans comes to the fore because of the suitcase of beans he took with him to India in 1968, though he wasn't only eating beans there. In the Anthology book he explains, "The food was impossible for me because I'm allergic to so many different things. I took two suitcases with me, one of clothes and the other full of Heinz beans (there's a plug for you). Then one morning the guys who were dealing with the food said, 'Would you like some eggs?' And I said, 'Oh yeah, sure,' and the next morning they said it again. I thought, 'Oh yeah, great - things are looking up.'

"Then I saw them burying the shells. That was the first of several incidents that made me think that it was not what I thought it would be. You weren't supposed to have eggs inside this religious and spiritual ashram. I thought: 'What do you mean, you're burying the shells? Can't God see that too?'"

unknown said
I believe his stomach issues would be the reason he became vegetarian. 

Actually it turned him off for a long time, because he found too many spices being used in vegetarian dishes, and his stomach couldn't handle spices.

Funny Paper said
Thanks for the information mja and others.  I guess my dim memory of an amorphous "food allergy" (as opposed to actual medical problems) and the "one type of beans only" was garbled long ago in the translation.

Does anyone know if Ringo now can eat normally without having to worry about spce and variety?

He does still have problems with spices and variety. He's also not great with vegetables. There's a great story from Hunter Davies in his book The Beatles, Football and Me. I can't find the book right now to give the exact passage(s), or date it, but it goes something like this: Hunter invited Ringo to dinner one night, and Ringo informed him that he was now a vegetarian. Hunter's wife went to a lot trouble coming up with a vegetarian dish for him, because it was something she wasn't used to cooking, but when he arrived he said that although he was a vegetarian he didn't really like vegetables and was there any chance of beans on toast!

Maybe that's part of the beans legend as well, that since becoming vegetarian beans on toast has become his favourite dish.