Food Allergy Advice for Kids: Don't Delay Peanuts, Eggs
By Sumathi Reddy, March 4, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324662404578334423524696016.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324662404578334423524696016.html)
Yup.
Which, okay... I can recall getting into HUGE altercations with some people over this between 2 and 8 years ago, and even then, I just couldn't wrap my head around why prenatal and neonatal avoidance was being preached so hard.... it was never evidence based in the first place, and the theoretical underpinnings were so murky and inconsistent that it NEVER made any sense to start with.
This is part and parcel, I think, with newer recommendations to avoid allergens ONLY to the degree necessary to avoid reactions. That takes nerves of steel, I know... but it's important for some subset of allergic kids unless you WANT to develop a super-low threshold.
Yeah. I thought so. NOBODY wants that. Nobody.
If you: a) do extraordinary things to avoid the allergen (like, WAY past reading labels) and b) you've never seen any evidence of sensitivity to cross-contamination, contact with known contaminated surfaces, or anything else like that...
then you might be doing more avoidance than is wise. Definitely a mixed bag, to remove things that are well tolerated.
The reason that I think this is related? Because both things are related to the underlying mechanistics of emergent allergy, vs. sensitization, vs. tolerance, vs. desensitization, and how they all relate to one another.
It is quite complex, that picture.
"Avoid" isn't simple advice, and it's great that it's starting to be recognized as maybe not universally GOOD advice, either.
This needed dedicated thread related to sourcing tree-nut-free PEANUTS:
Sources for (tree)NUT-free peanuts (http://foodallergysupport.olicentral.com/index.php/topic,6901.0.html)