I've often wondered about this, both statistically speaking and in the real world: when it comes to food allergies, where are the minorities? Through my Allergic Girl blog I can only recall two emails that I've received from people identifying as African-American who stated that they have food allerg...
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I wonder
Anonymous
Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 10:54 PM
I wonder as I read the various "theories on food allergy" in conjunction with discoveries such as a vaccine made with heat treated lysteria (bacteria that we have done our best to irradicate) combined with the food protein and given to food allergic dogs - if we haven't out designed our worlds? I mean they give plumpy butter (peanut butter and vitamins) to starving children in Africa who are only months old - and they DO NOT have food allergy. I wonder if we've overly cleaned our environments, vaccinated our bodies, irradiated our food, sanitized everything we eat, breath, touch - while also toxifying it with plastic, soot, pollutions, pesticides.... - all things only the industrialized can afford. And in this process our bodies have nothing left to fight - the immune system is akin to a stimulus starved genius running amuk in the computer system that he/she is merely paid to enter data into. Now, there are many luxuries that I adore, safety's I appreciate - but in the back of my mind I keep wondering if the growing group of food allergic folk - are the people paying for all these things.
I also wonder - finally, if your quest to find minorities with food allergy should take on 2 fronts - those minorities in developed countries versus those same minorities in emerging countries. I know for certain of 1 African American woman who I met who has life threatening shellfish reactions - and I live in the US - and we just struck up a conversation in the store. And I know of other 'minorities' with food allergy - all state side.
I wonder as I read the various "theories on food allergy" in conjunction with discoveries such as a vaccine made with heat treated lysteria (bacteria that we have done our best to irradicate) combined with the food protein and given to food allergic dogs - if we haven't out designed our worlds? I mean they give plumpy butter (peanut butter and vitamins) to starving children in Africa who are only months old - and they DO NOT have food allergy. I wonder if we've overly cleaned our environments, vaccinated our bodies, irradiated our food, sanitized everything we eat, breath, touch - while also toxifying it with plastic, soot, pollutions, pesticides.... - all things only the industrialized can afford. And in this process our bodies have nothing left to fight - the immune system is akin to a stimulus starved genius running amuk in the computer system that he/she is merely paid to enter data into. Now, there are many luxuries that I adore, safety's I appreciate - but in the back of my mind I keep wondering if the growing group of food allergic folk - are the people paying for all these things.
I also wonder - finally, if your quest to find minorities with food allergy should take on 2 fronts - those minorities in developed countries versus those same minorities in emerging countries. I know for certain of 1 African American woman who I met who has life threatening shellfish reactions - and I live in the US - and we just struck up a conversation in the store. And I know of other 'minorities' with food allergy - all state side.