About
Life with alpha-gal used to mean explaining yourself every time you met someone new.
Alpha Gal Only is a community app for English-speaking people living with alpha-gal syndrome anywhere in the world — new friends, a date, or both. Made in the USA, built for six continents. Here, everyone already understands why you're asking the waiter about the fries.
Why it exists
A tick bite, then years of guessing.
Alpha-gal syndrome is an allergy to a sugar found in mammal meat and many mammal products. It usually starts with a tick bite, and reactions can arrive hours after a meal. That makes restaurants, shared kitchens, and new relationships complicated.
In the United States alone, the CDC estimates as many as 450,000 people may have been affected, and alpha-gal has now been reported on six continents. Most members were told it was something else first — IBS, hives, anxiety, "it's in your head." That shared history is on every profile, because it's often the first thing people bond over.
What we believe
Everyone here gets it
No eye-rolls about the questions you ask at a restaurant. Your allergy is a starting point for connection, not an obstacle to it.
Safety is the default
Adults only, private reporting, photos reviewed by real people, and guides for meeting up with an allergy that can show up hours later.
Food is still worth sharing
A diagnosis changes the menu, not the joy of cooking for someone. That's why three full cookbooks live inside the app.
The cookbooks
Written by the Alpha Gal Sisters.
All three cookbooks come from the Alpha Gal Sisters, the family behind Alpha Gal Family USA. After alpha-gal changed how their family ate, they rebuilt their favorite foods without mammal ingredients and wrote down what worked.
The Alpha Gal Family Kitchen Cookbook is a 30-day plan with no mammal foods and no nightshades: 111 meals, each with its own homemade sauce.
Mushrooms Instead of Meat spotlights one mushroom a day for 13 days, breakfast to dessert, with a fungi joke to finish.
Table for Two is the date-night cookbook: recipes for two, double-date recipes for four, and a drinks corner, every one mammal-free and dairy-free.
Who it's for
English-speaking adults 18 and over, anywhere in the world, who have alpha-gal syndrome or who love someone who does. Two plans: Basic Access at US$5.99 a month for the cookbooks, journal, and card; Full Membership at US$14.99 a month adds friends, dating, messaging, and meets.
Alpha Gal Only is a community, not a medical service. Work out your own triggers with an allergist. A severe reaction is an emergency: call your local emergency number (911 in North America, 112 across Europe, 999 in the UK, 000 in Australia, 111 in New Zealand).