[bgill]

I grew up in peanut country. Everyone who had a patch of land grew peanuts. Kids would work the harvest. There was peanut dust everywhere. That was also during the time the government had free peanut butter so every school lunch tray had some sort of peanut on it. One day it would be a peanut butter cookie, the next would be peanut butter smeared on apple slices, the next a dixie cup of peanut butter and honey for the homemade yeast roll - yummmm! Not one kid was allergic to peanuts back then.

I'm not saying there aren't people who are allergic to peanuts, people can be allergic to anything, but I do not believe there are as many as parents make it out to be. These days, their precious little treasures are allergic to more things than what they're not. I'd like to see the stats on these allergies in countries where there are no helicopter parents and kids are still allowed to play outside in the fresh air.

[buffyt]

Could be all the chemicals in and on our foods. Hormones, insecticides, GMO, etc. The foods we eat today are not the same as the foods we ate in the 1950s. Remember how tiny strawberries and chickens were back then? Now everything is GMO and laced with chemicals and drugs.

[miss marmelstein]

I never knew anyone who was seriously allergic to anything as a kid. Maybe parents didn’t brag about it when I was a kid - helicopter parents love to brag about their kids problems. My parents were embarrassed by their children and so never spoke about them to anyone - which is how it should be!!!