Food Allergies Are On the Rise – Why?

All around the world the picture is the same – food allergies are on the rise. There are theories about why this is so but no real knowledge and no action steps for us to follow, so what can the average allergy sufferer do and what do you do as a parent.

The difference is striking, looking at the numbers in the table and in the chart we can see much more food allergy. Some possible reasons are

1.    more concern about counting the numbers
2.    lower quality food from the farmers
3.    food processors and packing
4.    environmental factors like pollution
5.    lifestyle factors

And if you can think of any others please leave a comment below.

It’s quite possible that better counting is going to pick up more cases. But it is stretching credibility to say that this is the whole story. It is also true that consumers are more “allergy aware” nowadays. In fact the “average Joe” puts just about any case of indigestion down to “food allergy” rather than its companion problem, food intolerance. So yes there are concerns about getting he numbers right but there is big problem here and it’s getting bigger.

Well this is documented. Modern farming practises are more efficient and the price of the efficiency is paid by the soil. If the minerals we all want in our food to build strong bodies are not in the soil they cannot get into the food. Year after year of greater yields means that the soil mineralisation is going down and down leading to lots of food being produced but with lower nutritional value.

A way round this is buying organic because it is produced along a completely different method and farming technique

This is optional! We’re all busy and pressured for time but the amount of packaged food we buy is often down to habit. Doing a check of the amount of processed or packaged food and some planning to replace it with simple veggies and fruit and healthy protein can really help us avoid a ton of chemicals added during packaging and processing. This could well reduce allergy symptoms just by itself.

This is more serious and more probable. On second thoughts the pollution story has 2 sides. One side is that obvious types of pollution – sewage outflow into clean water, smoke stacks and exhaust from vehicles is going down. There is huge consumer awareness of this and legislators and feeling the heat – so keep applying it eh?

On the downside there is a huge and largely unknown growth in chemicals in the household which are largely untested for their long term safety.

Chemicals like fire retardants in foam mattresses and cushions; chemicals like Scotch guard used to help keep curtains clean, chemical vapours from painted wood and walls and a well known one – the chemical coating on non-stick pans.

I don’t buy non stick pans because I do not want the exposure to the chemicals used. Simple. But many similar chemicals are used in disposable cups for coffee, linings of cereal packets and so on.

Keep it simple sweetie is I guess the watch word for a low pollution lifestyle!

Lifestyle factors are the ones most under our control. Yes we have work and family obligations but we control what we eat, drink, think and how we breathe, exercise and sleep.

And these are all powerful factors feeding into our health.

You might have expected me now to recommend a life of “Allergy free” food. Well there’s no such thing really as “Allergy free”. The best we can do on the avoidance front is to go for label reading and do the best we can to follow a “low allergy” diet. But my earl recommendations are to follow a nutrient rich diet.

A diet bursting with anti-inflammatory vitamins and bioflavenoids – a diet consisting g mostly of vegetables and fruit and protein and little packaged and tinned / canned foods.

Real food in short.

Years ago in a lesson on Nutrition the teacher told us as a maxim, “If it’s packaged it’s bad for you and if it’s on the TV it’ll kill you”!

Do I eat any packaged food? Yes, a little, but the bulk of my diet is nutrient rich fresh veggies and fruit and good protein. And it’s true that some kids have allergies to tropical fruit such as kiwi fruit and melons so we need to be “carefully persistent” with our choices of diet!

And I use excellent Anti allergy Nutritional supplements.

This is what I use…
•    a good quality multi vitamin and multimineral
•    Vitamin C – about 3 or 4 grams a day
•    Vitamin D – 1,000 IU
•    Flax oil – 1 teaspoon

You’ll notice that all these are anti-inflammatory, anti-allergy food supplements.

Other lifestyle factors we can go over on the blog soon. That’s all for now – do comment and let me know what you think and what you know!

BTW here is a link to a list of 130 of the world’s healthiest foods and  if we eat from this list or mostly from this list we can hardly go wrong!