Reply to What the heck do I pack for lunch when every place we go is "nut free"?!?!?

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Reply to "What the heck do I pack for lunch when every place we go is "nut free"?!?!?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We have to figure out what is causing this so that we're not tiptoeing around every flipping ingredient. This was not going on NEAR to this extent until recent years.[/quote]

There has been documented evidence that the number of people with food-based allergies has risen significantly over the last 2-3 decades.  The reason peanuts are so noteworthy is that roughly 50-60% of the documented cases of deaths from food allergies annually are from peanuts.  Why is still under debate.  One common theory holds that our over-sanitized culture and over dependence on cleanliness means that we have decreased the number of contaminants (dirt, germs, bacteria, etc) that we are exposed to and over the last few generations this has caused our immune systems to essentially atrophy and so more people are reacting to allergens than in the past.  For more details, Google "Hygiene Theory Allergies" and you'll get a lot of studies, and discussion around this theory.  Another less-common theory is almost the exact opposite.  It holds that we have so over-chemicalized our society that we are poisoning our immune system.  So, air pollution, coal/factory pollution, water pollution, pesticides, long-term excessive smoking (and second hand smoke), etc all contribute to overwhelming our immune systems. Some of these are the same people who believe that we need to avoid pesticides, GMOs, etc.  Either way, many scientists agree that in general our immune systems are weaker than they were 20-30 years ago.[/quote]

It's got to be the former, because nut allergies also cluster in middle- to upper-middle class homes, which tend to be farther from pollution sources.

I firmly believe we're sewing the seeds of our own destruction with anti-bacterials.[/quote]

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