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Nut allergies -- a Yuppie invention
Los Angeles Times ^ | 01/09/2009 | Joel Stein

Posted on 01/10/2009 9:19:49 AM PST by Responsibility2nd

Your kid doesn't have an allergy to nuts. Your kid has a parent who needs to feel special. Your kid also spends recess running and screaming, "No! Stop! Don't rub my head with peanut butter!"

Yes, a tiny number of kids have severe peanut allergies that cause anaphylactic shock, and all their teachers should be warned, handed EpiPens and given a really expensive gift at Christmas. But unless you're a character on "Heroes," genes don't mutate fast enough to have caused an 18% increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2007. And genes certainly don't cause 25% of parents to believe that their kids have food allergies, when 4% do. Yuppiedom does.

~snip~

Parents may think they are doing their kids a favor by testing them and being hyper-vigilant about monitoring what they eat, but it's not cool to freak kids out. Only 20% of kids who get a positive allergy test result need treatment. And a 2003 study showed that kids who were told they were allergic to peanuts had more anxiety and felt more physically restricted than if they had diabetes. "It's anxiety-producing to imagine that having a snack in kindergarten could be deadly," Christakis said. Remember, this is a demographic so easily panicked that, equipped with only circles and dots, it invented an inoculation to cooties.

~snip some more~

So bring back nuts to schools. If parents need to panic about a food, at least go with seafood allergies. Those fish sticks are disgusting.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: allergy; food; genx; nutallergies; nuts
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To: Trajan88
I don't recall one of my classmates declaring to be allergic to nuts...

It's a good thing nobody did because we'd know exactly how to make him miserable.
41 posted on 01/10/2009 10:01:49 AM PST by Thrownatbirth (.....Iraq Invasion fan since '91.)
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To: hc87
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_9yqV-mpGM

It explains it right here!

42 posted on 01/10/2009 10:03:38 AM PST by HomeschoolMomma (No thanks...I already have a Messiah!)
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To: martin_fierro

What the....

lolol

I had to right click that image just to know what the heck it was!

Just so you know. I always buy the extra crunchy Jif. Nothing less will do!


43 posted on 01/10/2009 10:04:25 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
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To: Responsibility2nd
I was diagnosed with a nut allergy in my 30”s. I used to eat the crap out of PB&J. Why I developed the allergy we have no idea. The onset was very subtle and took years. I was told by the doctor that repeated exposure would make the allergy worse. I made the adjustment in my diet to avoid nuts. For over 15 years I have been illness free.
I can tell if I eat something cooked in peanut oil because my mouth swells up. Worse exposure causes hives. I believe consumers should be made aware if a restaurant uses peanut oil. I also watch carefully menu items like salads etc because they sometimes have nuts.

Say what you want about nut allergies being a yuppie problem.
Medicine has come a long way in the science of allergy research, discovering common chemical compounds, natural and man made that do build up toxicity's in some people for reasons unknown.
But I do think people over react to everything that might harm a child. Those kind of nuts we should all avoid.

44 posted on 01/10/2009 10:04:37 AM PST by o_zarkman44 (Since when is paying more, but getting less, considered Patriotic?)
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To: HomeschoolMomma

They’re real all right, and from my own experiences, including anaphylactic shock, I wouldn’t wish them on anyone


45 posted on 01/10/2009 10:05:02 AM PST by 1000 silverlings (Everything that deceives also enchants: Plato)
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To: hc87

No... I disagree.

SPAM is made of Soylent Green.

I ate some Spam once. I am convinced of it.


46 posted on 01/10/2009 10:05:50 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
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To: Responsibility2nd

I grew up in schools where many kids stored their PB&J sandwiches in their desks in the classrooms then ate them sitting together in the cafeteria. I have flown on about 1,500 airline flights when the majority of flights they handed out nuts for snacks to everybody and those were usually peanuts. I have NEVER seen anyone go into any kind of nut-related alergic reaction in school or on airplanes.


47 posted on 01/10/2009 10:09:22 AM PST by Proud2BeRight
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To: Responsibility2nd

I like SPAM too. Never heard of a spam allergy! I think that is a “safe” food! Great fried with a little butter on a sandwich...can you tell its lunchtime!


48 posted on 01/10/2009 10:13:44 AM PST by HomeschoolMomma (No thanks...I already have a Messiah!)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Actually there is a problem here. Allergies are not a question of “no exposure or you are going to die”, except in extreme cases. A great many people have allergies so mild they aren’t even aware of them.

An excellent, yet odd case is celery. Celery is a very potent and odoriferous herb, that to most animals is about as strong as onion and garlic. But people, through some odd species quirk, can’t smell most of its odor.

Many people have a mild allergy to celery, getting just a mild throat irritation that quickly passes. However, it was discovered that some long distance runners, who after becoming very pumped up, would chomp down on a stick of celery and pass out with anaphylactic shock. The very simple solution was “don’t do that.”

But allergies can also change over time. If you have a mild allergy to some food, and eat a horse dose of it, or smaller amounts for a long time, it may increase your sensitivity to them. Conversely, if you have a more severe reaction to them, abstaining for a long time might reduce the allergic response somewhat.

A good example of this is severe “hay fever”, which is most likely due to a particular kind of tree pollen for a particular person. The very best treatment is to go somewhere without that pollen for a few weeks. But that is also mitigated because tree pollen cycles don’t usually last very long, so would be much diminished by the time you returned, anyway.

Importantly, allergies used to be defined by the allergen, but in truth they should be defined also by the individual response. Even though allergies are a reaction to particular organic proteins, people are able to have an allergic response to inorganic substances as well. So while technically they aren’t “allergic” to something, chlorine for example, their body still has an allergic response.


49 posted on 01/10/2009 10:14:13 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: HomeschoolMomma
Back in the good old days we who have the inherited problems with lactose and/or wheat would have been lucky to have been considered "a separate creation" ~ that way they'd not been plying us with grape juice and raisins (which also have chemicals that cause us problems). (And they'd definitely not been forcing us to Communion.)

A recent study in Finland reported that the genetic problem with wheat extends to at least 3.5% of the population in that country who have the genes for it (and there are now 11 different genes that can cause it). However, the problem with wheat usually only affects about 1.2% of infants and children.

Fortunately it's not really an allergy. Instead, our T-cells are already pre-programmed by the genome to treat wheat as a deadly poison. It's not, of course, but the genome doesn't know that. Lactose intolerance isn't an allergy either ~ it's just normal. Adults up until about 10,000 years ago had a full set of genes that enabled folks to handle milk up until they were 6 years old or so, and then they shut down lactase production. Normal adults can't handle milk, but mutants can (how's that for spin).

In the US, about 5% of whites, 25% of African Americans and virtually 100% of Asian Americans cannot digest lactose without the aid of lactase pills.With 7% of all Americans having some degree of trouble with milk, and another 3.5% having some degree of trouble with wheat, you have a nice chunk of the market (10.5%) that will NOT BUY products containing milk or wheat, or both.

Those of you with either problem know how terribly many things like that are sold in modern grocerystores. Even sodapop has wheat additives (called "modified food starch") ~ I'm down to one brand in one flavor because of that.

I'm starting a campaign to force "truth in labeling" on cornbread so that it only has corn in it, and Rice Krispies have only rice! And what's this problem with so many cooks who ruin perfectly good chili by putting in flour when there's so much cornstarch available.

BTW, there's another 40%+ of the population who have a fish allergy to one degree or the other. A few of them really get sick. Most don't.

50 posted on 01/10/2009 10:16:43 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Proud2BeRight

I always wondered about that. I keep seeing these “peanut free zone” signs for schools. Ummmm...what do these parents do on planes...do they not fly? Do they demand that no nuts be distubuted while they are on board? Can they do that? Would it be protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act? Would the airlines have to comply? Is the airline industry setting itself up for some huge class action lawsuit - no more peanuts?

Darn it...I am allergic to so many freaking things, the only thing I CAN enjoy is PEANUTS - I don’t want the lawyers taking away my PEANUTS!!!!


51 posted on 01/10/2009 10:19:54 AM PST by HomeschoolMomma (No thanks...I already have a Messiah!)
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To: justlurking
Regarding "toleration" levels, with wheat allergy (also called Celiac disease) the more under control you get your diet so you encounter less and less wheat, or wheat byproducts, the more sensitive you become.

So what had earlier been just occasional bouts of non-digestion turn into major problems from just running a knife blade through a piece of bread and then cutting something for yourself out of a non-wheat product.

However, that's good because then your T-cells are not murdering your intestines anymore and you probably won't die of bowel cancer (or some other equally ghastly problems).

The most common version of the gene causing the problem has been traced to Lappland. There are 11 other versions that are less common but seem to have arisen in different populations.

52 posted on 01/10/2009 10:23:24 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Responsibility2nd
Fish sticks ~ a lot of them on the market are actually surimi which is then covered in a thick paste of highly poisonous gluten (wheat batter).

Surimi is a pulp made of highy rinsed fish meat. I suspect the allergens in the fish are washed out.

Used to like them and then became entirely too sensitive to the wheat. The market doesn't yet have a corn meal batterd fish stick.

53 posted on 01/10/2009 10:29:06 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Responsibility2nd

I suffer a coughing reaction when eating foods that contain high levels of choclate. I have to wash it down quickly or it lasts for a long time.

Just to put things in perspective.


54 posted on 01/10/2009 10:31:07 AM PST by Balding_Eagle
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To: Responsibility2nd

I believe that in the past, many or most kids with severe, deadly allergies to common foods died before they were old enough to go to school. That’s why we never heard of them among our classmates.


55 posted on 01/10/2009 10:32:47 AM PST by Hepsabeth
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To: HomeschoolMomma
Check on your apple, pear and peach skin allergy though. This one is annoying, but eating an apple with the skin on give you welats in the roof of your mouth, AND welts in your intestinal tract (where, fortunately, you can't feel anything). A quick test is to answer the quesion "Do you ever get a small bit of apple peel stuck in your gum and it swells up due to the irrigation?"

If so, that's the allergy.

56 posted on 01/10/2009 10:33:53 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Balding_Eagle
If I were you I'd probably avoid chocolate. My dad's lactose intolerant. He avoids lactose. There is a pill available for those times he just has to have a milk shake. I, otoh, am allergic to many kinds of pollen. Maybe we should cut all the trees and pave over all the grass?

Why do some people think that society should compensate for their problems? Allergies, or whatever?

My brother has gone into anaphalactic shock from bee stings. He carries an Epi-pen. Or, we could demand that all bees must die. The whining just never ends.

57 posted on 01/10/2009 10:41:25 AM PST by saleman (!!!!)
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To: muawiyah

I can always tell a fellow celiac because they understand the diference between intolerance and allergy! Thus you know why I use the word “allergy” as to not to have explain over and over to the uninformed.

Here’s my favorite (as I am chowing down on a ridiculously expensive, tasteless, gluten free rice bagel - that looks like a normal bagel) “Oh, I thought you DIDN’T eat wheat!” SCREAM!!!!! Gets a little tiring after a while.

Don’t you want to scream at the reasearchers as they scratch their heads and try to explain the figures - Yes, its more prevalent in certain nationalities because it is GENETIC!!!! Yes, it only affects 1.2% children because they have not been exposed to wheat long enough to have the damage adults do! Teens are being diagnosed in the US at an alarming rate - look at the diets they eat - WHEATFUL!!! You are hard pressed to go down the grocery aisle and find a food that doesn’t have wheat in it!

You must have the same frustration I do. As far as your soda, check out the new codex alimentarius standards. Modified Food Starch -IF produced in the USA MUST come from CORN. However, if from another country - it is not the same standard.

And the Communion thing - former Catholic - understand that!!! One church will not make exception for a celiac family - forcing the family from the church, lawsuits, fear of going to hell because their child did not receive first holy communion!

Great corn bread - Chi-Chi’s Fiesta Sweet Corn Cake Mix www.chichissalsa.com. Can get it at your local grocery in the Mexican aisle. Mmmmmmm Gluten Free!!! Here I go - still haven’t had lunch!


58 posted on 01/10/2009 10:41:42 AM PST by HomeschoolMomma (No thanks...I already have a Messiah!)
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To: HomeschoolMomma
Similar situation ~ most airlines have banned peanut and peanut byproducts from their flights. They've replaced them with various baked/fried wheat products.

What I do is take my own stuff with me ~ usually packets of peanuts, and sometimes mixed nuts particularly with pecans and walnuts ~ they're really great, and people who aren't allergic to walnuts "fear them" ~

I was once on a United Airlines flight during one of those periods when they banned peanuts. I asked for peanuts (out of a variety of wheat based snacks) and told the stewardess I would just die if I didn't get peanuts.

She said "I guess you're gonna' die".

59 posted on 01/10/2009 10:45:36 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Responsibility2nd
"If it has anything to do with fish - forget it. Ain’t gonna eat it...But she will eat fish sticks."

Mrs. R2 is not alone in that:
I can eat the most humble of fish sticks with greasy (vinegar soaked) fries, and love it.
Anything else that had fins on it is off limits unless I'm really feeling daring.
Any waitress that I know will refuse my order on those rare occasions.

That said:
When young I reacted immediately to avocados, loved 'em, couldn't eat 'em.
Naturally, half the people I knew, relatives included, took that as a challenge to slip them past me to prove it was all in my head.
Well, it's been forty years and more now, and I find I can eat avocados;
guess they were right after all.

60 posted on 01/10/2009 10:47:46 AM PST by norton
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