A tick that produces a rash similar to that of Lyme disease has spread to New Jersey, and it may produce some strange side effects that could impact your diet.

The lone star tick produces southern tick-associated rash illness, or STARI, that can lead to fatigue, fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there's another potential symptom that you may not have expected: an allergic reaction to red meat.

Thomas Platts-Mills, the director of the University of Virginia School of Medicine's allergy division, told nj.com that research shows that people who have been bitten by the tick have suffered a meat allergy called alpha-gal. "If you're allergic to shrimp, well, most people don't eat shrimp every day. So if you have a reaction to shrimp, you know it. People come in and tell us they're allergic to shrimp, and they're usually right," Platts-Mills told nj.com.

The publication cited one victim, Jerry Dotoli of Ocean County, who had gone to Florida for the winter and was beset by frequent hives accompanied by a ferocious itching "four times worse than poison ivy." Dotoli got a blood test and was told he had become allergic to meat, pork and dairy, with the possible culprit being a lone star tick.

The N.J. Department of Health says it does not keep statistics on how many people have been bitten by the lone star tick because the rash too closely resembles Lyme disease. But the Freehold Health Department estimates that up to 9 percent of the state's tick-bite cases involve the lone star.

Here is where the tick has been found:

In a New Yorker interview, Platts-Mills also cited a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that identified the cause of the tick-bite symptoms: The allergic patients had pre-existing antibodies to alpha-gal. A 43-year-old hunter came into his Virginia clinic claiming that he had suffered from three separate severe allergic reactions to eating beef, which contains alpha-gal. When Platts-Mills asked about ticks, the hunter revealed that his feet were covered with bites, according to the article.