Is This Causing Your Kids’ Peanut Allergy? by Joan Kent, PhD
Peanut allergies in children have quadrupled in the last 20 years. But peanuts aren’t the only foods causing problems. Allergic reactions in kids to many foods have become epidemic.
Most sources blame toxins in foods, including growth hormones, pesticides used in farming, and additives in processed foods that were never there years ago.
In fact, those additives don’t appear in the same foods when they’re sold to other countries. Those countries simply won’t tolerate them in their foods.
But Could Something Else Be to Blame?
With that evidence, I won’t deny these possible causes behind kid’s allergic reactions. Yet it’s also possible that something more obvious, and just as toxic, is behind the reactions.
Could the increase in food sensitivities be due to the inclusion of sugars in so many foods? Kids eat sugar all day / week / year in its “standard” forms — cookies, ice cream, candy. And they consume it in other foods to which it’s been added.
I’m wondering if this constant exposure to sugar has compromised kids’ immune systems and made them more susceptible to allergies and food sensitivities in the first place. It’s not as far-fetched as it may sound.
Lots of Literature Points to Sugar
Before I began my doctoral research and had to narrow my studies to stay within my field of psychoactive nutrition, I had done much reading on food sensitivities and the various ways they can occur.
One way to develop a food sensitivity is apparently to consume that food together with a food to which you’re already sensitive.
Another connection is with sugar. For example, I recall reading one researcher’s theory that reactions to eggs were common because they’re eaten with orange juice (and/or pastries) in the morning. Many adults and kids are sensitive to sugar; many don’t realize it.
Yes, it’s only one example, but plenty of others exist.
What About Repeated and Constant Exposure?
Do your kids eat sweetened cereals? Not just Fruit Loops. How about supposedly healthful cereals like granola? It’s loaded with honey and dried fruit. Are trending sugars — like agave, maple syrup, coconut sugar — creeping into your child’s diet day after day?
And which other foods are your kids eating in the same meal as those sugar-containing foods? Have they ever had a reaction to one of those other foods?
Again, I’m not denying the toxic-chemical theory that most people blame for food sensitivities. It’s likely that is one significant cause.
But I can’t ignore how much sugar kids eat — both in junk food and in so-called healthy foods that are loaded with sneaky sugars that moms don’t necessarily believe are bad. In some cases, those sugars have developed reputations as health foods, so mothers feel okay about feeding them to kids and giving them more every day.
My recommendation is to remove sugar from your kids’ diets and see if the food sensitivities come under control. Even if they don’t, your kids will be healthier for it overall.
Obviously, getting rid of sugar can work for adult diets, too.
If you’d like help reducing sugar in your diet, I specialize in that — and in making it easy. Just visit LastResortNutrition.com and grab your free copy of “3 Mistakes People Make When Trying to Quit Sugar.”
Brought to you by Dr. Joan Kent, best-selling author of Stronger Than Sugar: 7 Simple Steps to Defeat Sugar Addiction, Lift Your Mood, and Transform Your Health.
