Islanders’ diets are being upended by an onslaught of alpha-gal syndrome, a tick-induced allergy to meat and dairy.

Martha’s Vineyard was already tick-conscious before the lone star species began to spread.Credit...Elizabeth Cecil for The New York Times

By Pete Wells

A former restaurant critic for The Times, Pete Wells followed tick-safety protocol while reporting this article on Martha’s Vineyard by tucking his pants into his socks.

Aug. 12, 2025

On Martha’s Vineyard, this was supposed to be the summer of the shark. As the season has gone on, though, great white sharks have been replaced as the Vineyard’s scariest animal. When islanders get together these days, they talk about their fears of an eight-legged creature the size of a grape seed.

ImageA person in a gray dress stands in the door of a farm stand.

Because so many islanders are allergic to meat, “it’s sort of supersized vegetarianism,” said Rebecca Miller, an owner of North Tabor Farm in Chilmark.Credit...Elizabeth Cecil for The New York Times

On the porch of the Chilmark General Store and at sunset-watching parties on Menemsha Beach, conversations circle ineluctably to the lone star tick, which after a single bite can leave people with a life-threatening allergy to most meat and dairy.

Known as alpha-gal syndrome, the condition is changing the way many people shop, cook and eat in a place long known as a food-lover’s retreat for its thriving independent farms and restaurants. These new habits may prove to be lasting, as some islanders who initially avoided beef and cheese temporarily, out of necessity, later give them up for good out of preference.

“It’s sort of supersized vegetarianism,” said Rebecca Miller, a farm owner who has the syndrome herself.

Last year, out of 1,254 tests for the allergy, 523 came back positive, according to laboratory data from Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. This was a stunningly fast rise from 2020, when only two out of nine tests were positive.

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A man in long pants and long sleeves stands in a yard. He is equipped with a lint roller and a white cloth at the end of a dowel.

Patrick Roden-Reynolds, a biologist who surveys tick populations, said that fear of alpha-gal syndrome keeps some residents from hiking, gardening and going to the beach.Credit...Elizabeth Cecil for The New York Times

“Alpha-gal cases are skyrocketing across the island,” said Patrick Roden-Reynolds, a state-funded biologist who leads the tick safety programs on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. He has spent much of the past few summers counting ticks in yards and teaching people to cut down on the risk of bites by, for instance, wearing clothing treated with repellent.

Residents have told him that worries about alpha-gal syndrome keep them from hiking, gardening and going to the beach. A few said they were moving off the island entirely, and while ticks aren’t the only reason, they are definitely in the mix.

“There are a lot of angry people, a lot of stressed-out people and a lot of fearful people,” Mr. Roden-Reynolds said.

Over the past three decades, alpha-gal syndrome has taken hold in a wide band of the United States from Oklahoma to Long Island, changing the lives and diets of people who come down with it. Its arrival on Martha’s Vineyard has been especially dramatic in part because its spread has been so quick, and in part because people come here to unwind in nature, not to hide from it.

The acres of undeveloped woods and waving grasses that make the island so alluring to celebrities and vacationers are also deeply attractive to deer and the ticks that feed and breed on them.

Tiny ticks on a lint roller are pointed out with tweezers.

Mr. Roden-Reynolds points out lone star ticks on a lint roller. Bites from even the tiniest specimen seem to be a risk.Credit...Elizabeth Cecil for The New York Times

A population that was already wary of deer ticks, which can carry Lyme disease, reacted quickly to the ascent of a new species. First spotted on the island in 1985 but seen in significant numbers only in the past few years, the lone star tick has become that scourge of beach communities everywhere: the uninvited guest who won’t leave.

After a walk in the woods three summers ago, Nina Levin noticed that the screen on her phone appeared to be moving. It was, in fact, covered with tiny lone star ticks. So was she.

Her walk had brought her into contact with a teeming cluster of crawling, biting arachnids known as a tick bomb. A few hours later, after she ate red meat for dinner, her stomach was in knots with what felt like food poisoning. A test confirmed that she had developed antibodies to the sugar molecule galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, familiarly known as alpha-gal and found in almost all mammals.

Her symptoms (“wildly unpleasant”) stayed away if she simply avoided red meat until a few months ago, when she was bitten by lone star ticks again. Now, she reacts to milk, cheese and other dairy products, too. This is particularly challenging for Ms. Levin because she is the owner and chef of a mobile pizza oven and a dessert trailer known for buttery pastries and soft-serve ice cream.

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A woman in a tomato-print dress leans against a yellow and white trailer.

Alpha-gal syndrome has left Nina Levin unable to eat the ice cream she makes and sells at her trailer, Ophelia’s.Credit...Elizabeth Cecil for The New York Times

“I’m not a big red-meat eater,” she said. “But the dairy is, like, tragic.” This summer she is selling a new vegan cruller made with coconut oil, a recipe she came up with at least partly so she could eat one of her own pastries again.

Islanders who come down with alpha-gal syndrome discover that it is much easier to find help here than it would be in many places on the mainland. There is an alpha-gal support group, alpha-gal seminars and spontaneous alpha-gal convocations in the checkout aisle.

“I was standing at the grocery store shortly after I got it, and four out of five people standing in line had it,” said Cassie Courtney, a Chilmark resident who has lived with the syndrome for two years. “We were all looking at each other’s carts asking, ‘What are you eating?’ ”

Some restaurants, like the takeout window at Menemsha Galley, hand out a list of alpha-gal-safe menu items. Nightly specials at Mo’s Lunch, a counter-service restaurant inside the Portuguese American Club in Oak Bluffs, are either vegan and dairy-free or can easily be modified, a direct response to the rise of alpha-gal, said Maura Martin, an owner and chef.

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North Tabor farm keeps plant-based butter and cheese on a separate shelf marked “alpha gal friendly.”Credit...Elizabeth Cecil for The New York Times

The rustic roadside market at North Tabor Farm, in Chilmark, now refrigerates plant-based butters, sausages and cheeses on their own shelf behind a slate sign reading “alpha gal friendly.” The farm’s prepared foods have changed, too.

“This year, the stuff we cook or create in our kitchen has been 100 percent vegetarian,” said Ms. Miller, an owner of the farm. “And a high percentage of it is vegan, too, just because there are so many people” with alpha-gal.

For people with extreme sensitivity to the alpha-gal molecule, watching what they eat is not enough. They also have to watch where they stand. One local man lost consciousness at a recent cookout after inhaling the smoke from burgers on the grill at a cookout, according to Josh Levy, a dietitian in Edgartown who now advises him.

Other patients have reported allergic reactions to brands of bottled water and white sugar that are processed using animal-bone char.

Both the troublemaking foods and the symptoms they induce — cramps, diarrhea, hives, swelling, asthma and, in extreme cases, anaphylactic shock — vary widely from one person to to the next.

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A coconut-topped cruller sits on a blue-rimmed white plate.

Ms. Levin developed a vegan cruller recipe in part so that she could enjoy one of her own pastries again.Credit...Elizabeth Cecil for The New York Times

“The hallmark of alpha-gal is that the reactions are consistently inconsistent,” Mr. Roden-Reynolds said.

Some patients find that their sensitivity clears up within six to 12 months. For others, it can linger, though exactly how long is one of many unknowns in the relatively young field of alpha-gal science. A number of people aren’t quite sure whether they have gotten over it or not because they’ve simply stopped eating meat and dairy.

“Some people say it’s the best thing that’s ever happened, and they’ll never go back,” even if their sensitivity vanishes, said Mr. Levy, the dietitian.

Whether temporary or not, the vegan boom has inspired some grocers to seek out more plant-based ice creams, cheeses and other products.

“They’re selling like crazy,” said Rosemarie Willett, who owns North Tisbury Farm & Market. Several times a day, customers who are loading up their grocery baskets break into impromptu conversations about life without meat and dairy.

“I feel left out at this point that I don’t have alpha-gal,” Ms. Willett said.

Pete Wells was the restaurant critic for The Times from 2012 until 2024. He was previously the editor of the Food section.

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