donna723
Well-Known Member
Why are so many kids allergic to peanuts these days? I just don't get it!
Turns out, my 19 month old grandson, Ethan, is very allergic to peanuts! We're going to South Carolina for Christmas and this means a big change in grandma's cookie baking routine! Most parents and the day care are very careful not to give young children anything with peanuts in it or anything cooked in peanut oil. Somehow he got ahold of something with peanuts in it and his whole little face started swelling up. She had to take him to the ER! Ethan loves french fries and he had eaten some fries from their favorite takeout place - they were not aware that they cooked them in peanut oil! Very few places still do that because so many little kids are allergic to them now. Allison (my daughter) is a nurse so Ethan's in good hands, but it's a very scary thing. Now they have to read every label on every item they buy in the grocery store and ask in every restaurant to make sure they don't use peanut oil. And do they really list ALL the ingredients on those labels?
I just don't understand this! When I was a kid (back in the Dark Ages) there were NO kids who were allergic to peanuts. Our schools received huge shipments of government surplus peanut butter and our school lunches had peanut butter hidden in them somewhere almost every day. It was the same when my own kids, now both in their 30's, were in school - you never heard of a kid being allergic to peanuts so this has all come about fairly recently. Both of my kids had allergies but they were all environmental, no food allergies. So what has changed? Is it our current obsession with "clean" now where everything a child touches has been sanitized and sterilized and they have no resistance and react to everything?
Turns out, my 19 month old grandson, Ethan, is very allergic to peanuts! We're going to South Carolina for Christmas and this means a big change in grandma's cookie baking routine! Most parents and the day care are very careful not to give young children anything with peanuts in it or anything cooked in peanut oil. Somehow he got ahold of something with peanuts in it and his whole little face started swelling up. She had to take him to the ER! Ethan loves french fries and he had eaten some fries from their favorite takeout place - they were not aware that they cooked them in peanut oil! Very few places still do that because so many little kids are allergic to them now. Allison (my daughter) is a nurse so Ethan's in good hands, but it's a very scary thing. Now they have to read every label on every item they buy in the grocery store and ask in every restaurant to make sure they don't use peanut oil. And do they really list ALL the ingredients on those labels?
I just don't understand this! When I was a kid (back in the Dark Ages) there were NO kids who were allergic to peanuts. Our schools received huge shipments of government surplus peanut butter and our school lunches had peanut butter hidden in them somewhere almost every day. It was the same when my own kids, now both in their 30's, were in school - you never heard of a kid being allergic to peanuts so this has all come about fairly recently. Both of my kids had allergies but they were all environmental, no food allergies. So what has changed? Is it our current obsession with "clean" now where everything a child touches has been sanitized and sterilized and they have no resistance and react to everything?