You seem to know something about this stuff, so riddle me this: when the hell did we start having all these severe food allergies?
I’m certain there have been cases of food allergies since the dawn of man, and a good friend of mine in elementary school had allergies to artificial flavors and colors. However, it’s just seemed that in recent years and decades this has really exploded, and the sensitivity to certain foods has become exquisite.
It’s as though the tiniest amount of peanut can cause somebody’s throat to close, just like only a tiny amount of urushiol (the active ingredient in poison ivy) can put bumps on my skin. It seems to me that these people live life walking on eggshells, with fewer friends, options and lovers. Is there anything being done to cure this stuff, and what the heck is causing it?
Nobody is sure what is the cause, but there are naturally lots of theories, from mom’s diet while pregnant, to GMO food, to people just being more aware of the issue and they are now tracking it (the first food allergy diagnosis was in the 1900’s I believe, but I bet it was there in Roman times, just not recognized).
As far as what kind of life they lead, pretty much like yours but they learn to avoid what they are allergic to. This means that there life partner avoids it too, so they are restricted to a partner willing to give up, say, macadamia nuts.
Peanut allergy CAN be lethal but usually the person gets a big reaction, or a little one, recovers and moves on. Some activists try to make you believe that any quantity is lethal, but that’s not true. My food-allergic friend has a reaction or two per year, usually in a restaurant where he’s been assured the PB&J sandwich is prepared away from his sandwich.
Activism- that’s one reason there seems to be more allergies, there are groups agitating for political solutions to a medical problem, and they push for laws. That’s why we have peanut free tables in schools, rather than teaching the kids how to avoid. Part of learning to avoid is learning how to find out what’s in food they did not prepare themselves.
Foodallergy.org is a reasonable place to go to learn about food allergy, they are an activist group so read with that in mind. At least they don’t have a “ribbon” (yet).
Fair question. I have a suspicion that some of the conditions may have been killing people for ages, but such deaths were attributed to "causes unknown". If 99% of the children with a certain allergy die of unknown causes before reaching the age of 3, the percentage of three-year-olds with that allergy won't be very high. Preventing 10% of those deaths would cause an apparent tenfold increase in the number of three-year-olds with the allergy. Further, the number of people with such allergies would quickly become greater the number who used to die each year (since most people who manage to avoid dying in a given year will be included not just in the next year's population, but also the year after that, and the year after that, etc.).
I don't particularly doubt that there are other factors at work also, but I think it's important to note that statistical factors may cause things to appear to be getting worse even when they're improving.