Food Allergies - -
 

For starters, I am 78 years old - - -

I grew up in a rural area in southern Minnesota.

At that time, I only knew of one person that had food allergies - and from what I heard, her list was about two pages long.

Are food allergies more common now? And if so, what is your theory as to the cause(s)?

they seem more common to me. perhaps some is the chemicals we put into our grown foods.

I think there are a number of factors involved. There are a lot of good reasons for eating as local as you can because you become part of the natural biodiversity.

I think some of us can only tolerate so much of the pollution and environment around us and become more sensitive. I'm the only one in my family with "allergies" although most of them have terrible hay fever which is just a grass/pollen allergy. Dust mites and molds are the big things that bother me but I'm also allergic to down and am not supposed to ever keep birds or chickens much less down pillows. I have a few other problems but fortunately no food and very few plant based allergies.

For the most part, in order to react to something you have to be exposed to it first, so you may have been able to tolerate something like shrimp the first few times you had it, but you hit the overload point and your body reacted. Once it reacts, typically it continues to react, and you can have progressively worse reactions.

And then I think genetics come into play in a number of ways, the ability to digest milk and many other things. There are people who are very anti particular things, among them nightshade family plants (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant among others), or corn or soy. I think there is a lot to be said for their ideas in relation to ethnic groups but not a one-size fits all humans.

I think that's a lot of the problem. Plus all the processed foods we eat. My food sensitivities are kept under control much easier if I only eat whole foods and prepare things myself. Whatever is added to food in the processing is not good for me.

I'm hearing some of my children's generation saying they won't put a microwave in their house now. Remember when those first came out, we were cautioned about radiation possibilities? Think of all that has changed over the years--a lot of pre-made/pre-mixed artificially colored foods. Chemicals are added as preservatives for longer shelf life or transportation. Now our pots and pans have coatings to make them easier to clean but is that leaching into our food? More chemicals are being applied to plants and the roadside instead of simply cutting them off. Our ecosystem is also changing so there may be more in the air that we breathe and the products we use. We wash our clothes and immediately put more chemicals on the surface with fabric softeners!

I am seeing a lot of ads on tv about the weed chemical causing cancer it is in/on the food fed to animals and humans.
Recently I saw an article that tells people, what you put on your skin, gets your body. Who did not know that from all the ads for 'patches' on the skin for pain.

I am a widow on the family farm and DH did not use chemicals like big farmers do. We grew what we fed to our beef cattle and they also had a tub of vitamins/minerals to round out their diet. I really miss our good beef but get some from a friend.
Illinois, I make my own laundry soap from castle bar soap and use white vinegar in place of fabric softeners.
Yes, we are seeing way too much rare cancers etc and there has to be a connection to chemicals of any sort.

Don’t dismiss “bromate” that USA allows to be added to flour. I’ve been told Canada & Europe don’t add it. My friend winters in AZ & her Canadian neighbors bring flour from home. I see King Arthur flour sack says it’s “bromate free”.

From my observation, most people with food allergies (not mere sensitivities) are millenials.
My theories as to the cause are:

1. The trend toward formula for babies rather than breastmilk. Breastfeeding became less popular in the 80s and 90s as more women went to work, and as a result, more and more babies have had weaker immune systems.
2. Lack of outdoor play. Not only does Vitamin D (from sunshine) aid in digestion and immunity-building, so does activity. I think kids' bodies just are rejecting things that our generation's broke down just by playing outside a lot.
3. Overly processed foods.

There are 3 of us in my sibling group (me and two others) our parents have absolutely no allergies of any kind, not medicine, food or even hay fever. All 3 of us have severe and life threatening allergies to foods and medicine. All the allergies are different mangos, gluten, strawberries, peaches, seafood, citrus (and olestra a fat substitute not sure if that should be in the food catagory) are the combined food allergies we have. In addition to the serious ones some of us are also allergic to some different soaps and get body hives from them.

We were not raised in an overly clean environment (sometimes our environment was down right filthy by anyone's standards) we didn't have the luxury of being picky eaters, it was eat what was provided or not at all situation, we were not kept indoors, most of our youth was spent outside. I do not know for a fact but am pretty sure we were formula raised children. Nearly all our allergic reactions happened as adults or late adolescence.

The only allergy I can directly attribute to genetics would be mine to penicillin, even though my mother didn't have that allergy her mother did.

Is it possible that allergies have always been around but in todays world we are going to doctor way more than before?
We run to the doc for absolutely everything. Doctors are way more knowledgeable and we are diagnosed with all kinds of things. Maybe things that we had 50-75 years ago but with no diagnosis. We just worked around them.

That kid that could not run in PE class was called a weakling but in reality had severe allergies?

I never knew one child in my school years that had a nut allergy. Now it seems 1/4 of the kids in my grand's class has one. I think waiting too long for a child to be exposed to nuts,dairy, wheat, whatever, tends to have the body react to the foreign food in a harsh way. My kids got a tiny taste of peanut butter at a young age and every month after a bigger taste. Same with eggs. Kids of past generations were eating every day table food by the age of six month so I think the body adapted to handle it in the majority of kids.

I think maybe some allergies are genetic, or maybe they aren't allergies, just reactions to certain foods, and then there are true, life threatening allergies. My brother and I are "allergic" to fresh pineapple and fresh kiwi. I like the taste, but the resulting canker sores aren't worth it. DH and both sons cannot tolerate penicillin. One son cannot tolerate sulfa based antibiotics. We learned that the hard way with a frantic ambulance ride! I have a friend who says she is allergic to "everything", but has never had a reaction to anything! I have another friend that cannot be near certain kinds of seafood, and always has an epi-pen on hand, and I've seen him have to use it.

As to causes I think there are many reasons/causes. Allergy, immune deficiency, environmental, preservatives, chemicals, and a myriad of other factors. You are right though...I don't remember much talk about allergies when we were kids.

Yes I am a paramedic the word "allergy" is not well understood by many people. You can have an adverse reaction (canker sore for instance) when eating a particular food, or an adverse reaction to some medications, like headache when using nitro, but these are not "allergies". An allergy involves an immune response and can range from mild annoyance to immediately life threatening. If you have an allergy that is a mere annoyance you should never be complaisant and knowingly expose yourself to it b/c it is playing Russian roulette and can become life threatening at any exposure.

I'm 76 years old and have never had allergies. When I reached around 55 I did start to have some seasonal problems due to what I guess was pollen in the air. I did not go to the doctor to "analyze" my stuffy nose, running eyes & headaches during the season changes. Now I've "outgrown" those seasonal problems & have no allergies whatsoever. As kids we played outside all day long & well into the night. We always ate home cooked meals & never ate fast food. We went to a sit down restaurant about twice a year. I never remember us kids having to go to the doctor's office unless it was for the time my brother broke his arm & I got a huge wooden splinter in my behind while my brother was pulling me across the floor on a thin rug. :D I personally think a lot of allergies are caused by our environment, food additives & chemicals. To this day I still have fun with my daughter by telling her that I think the reason she is never sick/needing medical attention is because I caught her eating tree bark & dirt with she was little. :)

This made me smile so much! It reminded me of myself, and the 1st kid, 2nd kid syndrome. With my first, I thought for sure he would die if he fell, got dirty, ate something off the floor, you name it. Two years later, with his brother, I was like...is he still breathing...oh ok, everything's good. Fortunately, the younger one always led the older one to take chances, go for it, and be adverturous, despite my attempts to bubble wrap him!

I certainly agree that we have more issues today with chemicals and additives. I'd also like to bring up plants and herbs. Some of us just can't tolerate certain, strong smelling, or tasting plants. For example, if I eat celery, I'm taking a chance that it might cause me to wheeze, have a runny nose and make my eyes start to water. My mom was that way too. Anything with a intense, resiny character, like fresh oregano, can also cause my asthma symptoms to kick up.

I think that it's a complex medical issue, that they still don't have all of the answers to.

~ C

I lived with a lot of siblings and cousins. It's wonder we didn't poison ourselves. We would dare each other to eat all manner of things we found growing in the woods. I do remember we would never eat a mushroom, poke berry, or buckeye. We were told once they were poison and if we were dumb enough to eat one then we were dumb enough to die according to adults. I can't remember any child having a protective parent when I was growing up. In fact if we did get hurt, usually we got a spanking for it.