Major 'Client' Drama
Dr. Gail Gross: What Parents Need to Know About Stress and Learning
A mom takes on children's allergies
Filed under: Health & Safety: Babies, Nutrition: Health, In The News, Going Green, Decor
A recent article in the New York Times struck a chord with me. It concerned a mom, Robyn O'Brien, her four kids--one of whom has a food allergy--and big business food companies. According to the research Robyn has done, she feels that food allergies are related to additives, genetically modified ingredients and all the things you can't pronounce that are in the foods we eat.
Robyn, who basically naysayed children with food allergies until her daughter was diagnosed with one after blossoming into a full allergic reaction after eating egg, says to throw out all those foods and try to eat organic, non-modified food whenever possibility and cost allow. Her mission is to educate the public about what she feels are the true causes behind food allergies in children--which according to her and to many other concerned parents with Internet access are well on the rise.
Where do food allergies come from? Do the things that cause food allergies also cause autism? Who knows for sure. The number of deaths from such allergies isn't even that clear. According to the Center for Disease Control, the CDC, the numbers of death due to allergies are drawn from "doctors' notions on death certificates." How very grim.
Robyn has a website you can check out to learn more about her beliefs, her cause and her products, which is AllergyKids.com. Whether or not she's right, or whether or not we believe her, follow her, it is true that at least the concern over food allergies has grown tremendously within the last ten years.
What concerns me more than the allergies is how people without them treat those who have them. I have a severe nut allergy, a deadly one, in fact. Yet this seems to have no bearing whatsoever on the waitstaff at a restaurant, caterers or anyone else who serves food. I've been served a nut probably fifty times. I have yet to die from it, thankfully, but that's mainly because I trust no one under any circumstances.
I've had family members who know I have an allergy accidentally serve me something with nuts in it anyway. Considering that my son could well have this horrible allergy, I am more worried than ever. As annoying as all of this business is for people, schools and teachers, playdates and all that kind of stuff, it's real and it's out there and we have to deal with it.
Robyn O'Brien could be right or she could be wrong, but at least she's out there doing something about it. And she got the attention of the New York Times so that's something! Of course, it could be because she mentions Rumsfeld....
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
1-10-2008 @ 8:46PM
Ethel said...Its pretty frustrating, my son had (another) reaction just before Christmas becuase of peanut butter on or in a cookie that I thought couldn't have peanut butter.... Stupid stupid stupid me. Somehow my husband has a really good awareness of peanuts - not what they'd be in so much as he can tell if something even has a trace without tasting it. I wish he could check everything my oldest eats, and he could sense flax seed as well as milk too. I don't know what caused the allergies in my boys, but I do know that their paternal grandparents both have food allergies and they were raised in an organic foods time (as in before WWII) and nursed. They raised my husband on organic foods before there was a movement in it, and he has food allergies to peanuts. I personally put the blame on cleanliness and not anything else, and people with immune systems that are primed for it - but I am not so sure the solution is letting your kids get every illness in the book either.
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1-10-2008 @ 10:29PM
Jennifer said...My mom is allergic to strawberries (it developed when she was 18) and we try to warn people. Well, we had my (now ex) in-laws to be over for dinner and my mom-in-law-to-be brought dessert...cheesecake with a sauce. I asked her before serving it if there were ant stawberries in it and she said no. Sure enough mom took one bite and she started to develope blisters in her mouth...I asked again and suddenly she remember that she used strawberry sauce to make the sauce. Uuumm...HELLO!!! It is amazing how disrespectful others can be when it comes to food allergies.
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1-11-2008 @ 7:04AM
Justin said...In my line of work I'm faced with children who have deadly allergies all the time. It angers me when I either see places that don't seem to have the slightest concern about it, or worse, people who just seem to scoff it off as being "In your head" or not actually from the nuts/etc and actually from some chemical/corporate BS.
These people seriously need a lesson in medicine and need to start realizing these allergies are all around us, like it or not.
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1-11-2008 @ 7:40AM
mamacheryl said...I feel bad for families that have allergy issues. It must be so hard to police what you all come in contact with. My family has been blessed with very few intolerances and no allergies to speak up, unless you count Christmas trees.
My comment on this post is that the argument against genetically modified foods struck a sore spot. My SIL, in her fervor against vaccinations, has also gotten on the no-genetic-modifications bandwagon. That's all well and good, but her reasoning for it is troublesome. The church that wrote the pamphlets and books that she follows believes that any genetic studies, testings or modifications are against God's plan and are an abomination.
Some science-related proclamations like that can be faith-based, which make the truth behind them faulty at best, or at least worth looking into more closely without the faith-based filter. I'll qualify this statement by saying I have no idea if that's the background the lady in the article comes from. It just reminded me of another anti-genetic modification debate that I've been exposed to.
I don't know what causes allergies. There might be an inherited component, it might be the increase in environmental pollutants. I'm not qualified or knowledgeable on the subject.
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1-12-2008 @ 12:25AM
Sabrina said...I don't really know what has caused the rise in food allergies...could be awareness, could be something related to human evolution...could be additived and genetic modification. No idea. I've heard a lot of persuasive arguments on each side. We have food allergies though..I'm allergic to coconut, DH is allergic to watermellon and mushroom, DD is allergic to cinnamon and bay leaves, and DS is allergic ot wheat, dairy, bananas, and citrus. I understand from the perspective of what a body is physically doing when it has an allergic reaction, but it's interesting to think of what the root cause of these things is though.
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1-12-2008 @ 12:38AM
Nicole said...You want something really weird?
I was nearly diagnosed with ADD/ADHD as a small child because I displayed all the symptoms of them. They wanted to put me on medication for it. Dad objected figuring that they'd try something else first.
They cut out all preservatives and most processed foods - mom (who was able to stay home) made her own mac 'n cheese, ice cream, beans, pudding, cookies, etc - nothing from a can or a package (except for bread because she refused to make bread).
And the symptoms went away. I still get migraines from things like powdered soups and processed powders. I feel fuzzy in the head as if I've taken a big shot of nyquil. I get cranky and my behaviour gets just awful.
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