A poppy-seed-sized pest is turning meat-lovers on Martha’s Vineyard into herbivores.

A spike over the last decade in the island’s Lone Star tick population has led to a rapid increase in alpha-gal syndrome, a severe allergy to red meat and other animal products. The ticks , which are also on the rise elsewhere in the United States, can transmit the sometimes-life-threatening allergy with a single bite.

And the condition is changing the way people eat at the popular Massachusetts tourist destination, among many other places.

The chef and owner of the Vineyard food truck You Enjoy My Vegan, who goes by Mufyn Love, said they’ve seen more people on the Vineyard seeking out plant-based food options because of alpha-gal. At the Martha’s Vineyard fair in mid-August, they said people they’d n

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