By Sasha Moedt (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 28, 2012
The identification of food allergies in our population is increasing. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food allergies in children under 18 increased by 18 per cent from 1997 to 2007. What’s the cause of this? Your grandparents were never in “peanut-free” classrooms; even your parents weren’t.
What are food allergies, exactly? Health Canada differentiates between food allergies and food intolerances. “In allergic individuals, a food protein is mistakenly identified by the immune system as being harmful,” Health Canada states, while “food intolerances are more likely to originate in the gastrointestinal system and are usually caused by an inability to digest or absorb certain foods, or components of those foods.” Another category of food sensitivities is chemical sensitivities: the reaction to chemicals that occur naturally in food, or are added – caffeine, for example.
Canada Health cites the most common food allergies to be peanuts, eggs, tree nuts, wheat soy, sesame seeds, sulphites, seafood and—most recently—mustard. This list of top allergens can be used as a guide to prevent the possible occurrence of allergic reactions when preparing food for large groups of people. Or, if you’re a bit of a maniac, you might have the opposite intent.
There are no certainties in the medical world explaining the sharp increase in reported allergies. Yet, there is no sharp increase of peanut consumption to match the huge rise of peanut allergies. For example, in an article written by Caroline Hadely in the scientific journal EMBO, China and some African countries consume about the same amount of peanuts as North America does per capita, but the rates of peanut allergies are much lower. We could blame manufacturing for this: here we tend to eat them dry-roasted, while the Chinese, for example, boil or fry them.
But, there is one correlation that we can’t deny: with more awareness, there will always be an increase in diagnosis. Though the cause of the increased rates is not entirely known, food allergies are easily recognized and diagnosed in North America, which may not be the case elsewhere.
Allergies are generally something people discover and diagnose in their childhood. Yet for an unknown reason, some people develop allergies later in life. If you have an adverse reaction to a food, how do you know if it’s a food allergy? There are instructions for “self-testing” online – but the medical world warns against this. Health Canada suggests people immediately consult a dietician or doctor.
Self-diagnosing is quite cumbersome, and can easily have false results. It is impossible to tell whether it is allergies, food intolerances or chemical sensitivity. Failing to identify a serious allergy could have bad results. Alternatively, you could omit food out of your diet with great inconvenience needlessly. A doctor would perform a basic blood or skin prick test, with generally reliable results.
The identification of food allergies is increasing, but that doesn’t mean the amount of food allergies themselves are. Four per cent of adults in Canada have allergies. If you notice an adverse reaction to a certain food, get it checked out; the improvement in your quality of life is absolutely worth it.
