Illness due to Food Allergy?

[squids]

Sorry to hear of your hospitializaton after the Iron Chef show...

Lovely to meet you, so to speak! Love the show...I enjoy watching the classics, but have never been one to learn from books. Your shows have been great for those of us who learn better from different methods, and your humor sure helps me to remember! But I'm getting off topic here....

What I'd like to know is if you're encountering more people with food allergies these days, and to more items than in the past? I had been aware of the prevalence of peanut and lactose allergies, but since I was diagnosed a few years ago with many, many food allergies, I've noticed I am encountering more and more people allergic to things I never would have suspected. And more and more people with other auto-immune conditions as well.

You mentioned the cause of your illness to be a migraine in your blog on your website, but mentioned a possible food allergy in this forum. Do you have any known allergies to food; How do/would you adapt your recipes; and have you also noticed this trend? (maybe its all the pesticides and chemicals we've eaten over the years...in addition to the HFCS!)

Thanks!

squids

[Alton Brown]

Squids, it’s hard not to notice the increase of food allergy/intolerance in our population. My daughter has a mild peanut allergy and she has problems with soy products as well. I not an allergist nor am I an epidemiologist but I do suspect that the problem stems from over-exposure to certain products via processed foods which I generally hold to be evil. But again, this is just a hunch on my part.

My problem with oysters isn’t an allergy but an intolerance developed in my late twenties.

As for lactose intolerance, I have a theory that it is an evolutionary process. People of North European extraction are typically the only people on Earth who are not lactose intolerant to some degree. As we move on to a more diverse diet, I suspect those of us that fall into that group are simply coming into line with the rest of the planet. But then again, I could be wrong.

A