Adult-onset food allergies are increasingly common, according to Jim Baker, MD, CEO and chief medical officer of Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE). “It was almost unheard of for an adult to develop a food allergy,” Baker says. An estimated 15 million Americans have food allergies, according to FARE and at least 15% of them developed those allergies as adults.
No one knows for sure why this is happening but because of COVID, are we hyper-sanitizing ourselves and our environment so much that we are not being exposed to germs, which makes our immune system overly sensitive?
So are we going to create a generation of folks allergic to our foods because we are teaching them to sanitize their hands and wipe everything down with a sanitizing wipe?
I always felt that we played with dirt and mud as kids and no one had peanut butter allergies. We even brought peanut butter sandwiches to school without thinking about it possibly affecting anyone.
The other reason why we are having more food allergies is the way food is cultivated and processed is very different from 30-40 years ago. Are our bodies trying to deal with all the chemicals in our food?
So I am dealing with figuring out what I am allergic to. I did a battery of tests, all came out negative .. so I know my problems are not from a virus or an exotic disease.
Food allergies can be severe, with shortness of breath, tightening of the throat, or it can be subtle and be mistaken for something else. According to Candana Sheth, RD, a dietician specializing in food allergies, “It’s your immune system fighting food as if it’s an enemy.”
Unfortunately, testing for food allergies means a battery of skin or blood tests and the results have a 60 percent false negative result. So it is up to us to try, then eliminate foods to figure out which foods we should avoid.
Through trial and error, I have figured out that I am affected by eating anything with wheat. I wasn’t allergic to wheat when I was a kid and lived off of bread, making peanut butter sandwiches whenever I was hungry (or will admit to pouring condensed milk on bread). But I am convinced that the method currently used to grow and harvest wheat, by spraying the field with glyphosate to ripen the wheat for harvest is a possible cause for my reaction to wheat.
I tried bread in Japan, Korea, Thailand, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, France, Norway and Denmark, and was able to eat it without my body reacting to it. That has made me think that possibly whatever is being done to American wheat is what is affecting me.
There is a difference between food allergy and food intolerance. A food allergy occurs when the body’s immune system reacts adversely to the proteins in certain foods. A food intolerance is when the body simply cannot digest specific foods. You could get abdominal cramps, diarrhea, skin reactions and respiratory problems such as difficulty in breathing, runny nose or a swollen throat.
During an allergic reaction, the immune system produces compounds called immunoglobulins that recognizes a “foreign” protein when it’s ingested and triggers a release of chemicals to fight off the invader, all within minutes or a few hours of eating the offending food. The chemicals release histamines, that are responsible for producing everything from a rash to a runny nose. In the most severe cases, an allergic reaction can escalate to anaphylaxis, a life-threatening reaction that involves the heart, lungs, kidneys and blood vessels.
Almost 90 percent of allergies are confined to eight foods: milk, eggs, soy, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish. The problem is that any of these foods could be present in sauces and even shampoos. So if you are at a friend’s home for dinner or at a restaurant, you can politely inform the host or waiter of your food allergies and they can inform you there is something that you should not eat.
Email Audrey Wilson at audreywilson808@gmail.com.