Food allergies,

Food allergies and sensitivities are a terrible health condition to deal with. If a person has an allergy to a specific food they can become deathly ill if they are exposed to it, accidentally or not the results are traumatic. Hundreds of thousands of young parents choose to raise their children on diets free of some of the most common allergy foods, peanuts, red meat, gluten and dairy products. Instead of finding out naturally if the children are sensitive or allergic they choose to simply avoid the possibility entirely. I wasn't raised that way. I think I was exposed to almost everything, including but not limited to dirt and a not so tasty bug or two. Limiting certain life experiences seems to be an ever increasing trend.

Listening to a program concerning health issues related to food allergies and sensitivities the other day I heard another side of the story. It seems a majority of those in the health care and research concerning these allergies have found that the upsurge in allergies is a result of growing up in such a sterile lifestyle. In other words: by not being exposed to a variety of food throughout our lives we put ourselves in jeopardy of not being able to tolerate those very foods. After thinking about that premise it sounded like simple common sense.

Many medicines and vaccines are made with small amounts of the offending germ or flu bug. We accept a tiny bit into our systems and our natural defences develop into a tolerance of sorts and we don't get sick from it. It's easy to transfer that same theory to our ability to process food.

According to much of this research, our desire to protect our kids and keep them safe from everything appears to be the cause of many of our most serious problems. They say we are protecting our kids into ill health, we are raising them to be weak and delicate instead of able to deal with life as it comes so they have to be protected all their lives. What an eye opener.

I've seen movies that portray the human experience as a form of evolution ending in a mindless, weak, sickly society that requires a caretaker for even the smallest need. I wonder how true those science fiction movies will become?..........I kinda like the dirt thing. I had a lot of fun doing it and my mom got some pretty funny pictures too.............................Joe