Food Allergies Rising| Ignorance Ensues

I use this picture for FPIES awareness. This is the picture that changed our lives. Our daughter had always thrown up and we never knew why. This day after her breakfast was her most severe FPIES attack.

In recent years there have been increases in food allergies and with that increase we’ve seen a ton articles like this.  I’ll sum the article up for you.. The woman is complaining that children without allergies cannot bring “the lovely, homemade, buttery, gluten-stuffed cake.”

My birthday is in the summer and it was a rare chance that I would get to celebrate my birthday at school.  I probably brought cake in once or twice thanks to the kind teacher who celebrated the summer birthdays all at once.  That day we would eat crap, get full, feel sick, and head home with a sugar high.  When my daughter goes to school she’ll have a list of foods that she cannot have and I’ll most likely end up making all of her lunches, even when there’s a party.  Luckily we have no anaphylactic allergy reactions and we’re just battling FPIES, even so that can make her ill and send her to the ER resulting her to be sick for a week to a month afterwards.

Carina, (woman who wrote the article above) you ARE selfish, inconsiderate, and completely uneducated about allergies obviously.  For you it’s simple to say “I understand the problem with allergies because I have allergies; I’m allergic to egg whites. The difference is I don’t demand egg-free items when I go to parties or to work events. I don’t always get to eat what people are serving, but I certainly don’t demand that my friend make me a separate cake for me on her birthday.”  However your “understanding” is more of a misconception.  YOU can avoid the food, whereas a child in a classroom will feel left out and upset about not having what others are oohing and ahhing about.  I honestly could care less what other children bring in for their birthdays and would bring in my daughter something special so she could celebrate also, but schools have these rule for a reason.   The school isn’t punishing your child, they’re protecting EVERYONE, including themselves.  YOUR CHILD CAN HAVE CAKE, celebrate that.  This is where your ignorance continues, just because a child doesn’t have an  anaphylactic allergy reaction doesn’t mean they don’t have pain and suffer from a certain ingredient.  If cake is THAT important to you – have you ever thought of throwing your child a party?  End rant!

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FOODS ALLERGIES NOW?

• our food supply – how many chemicals can you fit into one product?  read your labels.. for example; bread should be no more than a couple of ingredients that you SHOULD know and if not make your own.
• no more germs – do you constantly wash your hands?  have hand sanitizer ready to go when needed?  wash your hands when needed and don’t overdue it.  we need germs to keep our immune system going.  we’re too clean we’re seeing more super bugs and NEW allergies like FPIES as a result.

In my opinion our food sources have changed so much in these recent years and we really don’t know WHAT the heck we’re eating.  Vani, Food Babe has brought to light many companies including Subway using azodicarbonamide, (PLUS there’s over 500 products that also contain this chemical) Chick-fil-A and many other companies are using  antibiotics, Kraft using preservatives and food dyes, and many of these companies ARE planning changes.   Unfortunately there’s not many fast food places you can go to eat and just IMAGINE having to take your child somewhere to eat if they have a food allergy.  I’ve been to expensive restaurants to find out only a fraction of their ingredients are actually fresh.  My daughter has a nice variety of foods she CAN eat, but guess what?  She can’t eat half the chemicals that are loaded into what some consider edible food.  Her body rejects the said food within hours and goes into shock which results her having allergy and flu like symptoms a week AFTER.

I often think if all this “food” had stayed pure would we not have this much of an allergy epidemic?  Can most of us not cook a balanced meal with fresh ingredients anymore?  The fact is we are our own advocate in all of this.  If we keep buying, they’ll keep supplying.  I’m hoping more of the companies follow after the big names that are making changes and I hope the big names continue to make these beneficial changes to their products.