Why are there so many allergies?

I was reading an international paper the other day and noticed, with alarm, how in recent weeks, the UK and the US have been recalling so many food items from their supermarket shelves. The reasons are related to either the risk of allergens or of choking on plastic fragments from the containers breaking and accidentally getting mixed in with the contents of the packaging.

For example a brand of ice cream was recalled due to the risk it could cause a severe allergic reaction because it didn’t list the ingredients properly and could contain milk, soya and nuts (specifically pistachio and peanuts). A certain brand of crisps was also being recalled over a potential allergy to milk.

A brand of deodorant sticks was recalled in the US because they contained trace amounts of Benzene, which was causing children to get high, and because Benzene is a potential cancer risk. But to be clear, Benzene is not an ingredient found in deodorants. It is, however, produced during the pressurisation process of the cans in which they are sold, but in this case, something went wrong during the process.

Pieces of plastic were also found in some packages of a brand of precooked chicken resulting in a potential choking hazard. Also recalled for a similar reason in the US was a brand of pre-cooked sausages after several customers said they found pieces of white plastic in them. The particles were such that there was a risk of laceration to the throat. A brand of yoghurt was also recalled for the same reason: pieces of plastic from the packaging.

I absolutely understand the need to recall food items because of the risk of foreign particles in them, or because the ingredients in the packaging are incomplete and may contain allergens. But I do have a hard time understanding recalling certain items, or not serving items to other people, because they contain a certain ingredient that someone in the vicinity may be allergic to it even though he or she is not being served that item. There’ve been instances of passengers on planes demanding that the airline not serve any types of nuts because they were allergic. Or of schools not serving certain dishes due to the risk of cross contamination of ingredients during the cooking process because a teeny tiny percentage of kids are allergic.

One wonders why there are so many allergies to milk, nuts, sesame, fish, shellfish, peanuts and eggs. The milk allergy especially baffles me. Surely a baby’s first taste of food is milk?

The most likely culprit for rampant allergies appears to be improved hygiene over the decades leading to fewer infections. Another is the lack of Vitamin D in the diet and lack of proper exposure to the sun. If children aren’t fully covered up they are covered in sunscreen which prevents the formation of vitamin D. Parents are also not giving their babies trigger foods during the weaning process. Doing so would help the child’s body get used to that food.

It’s important to note that our ancestors didn’t have food allergies or, if they did, they were extremely rare. Many adults will vouch for the fact, just as I do, that when they were at school, they didn’t know a single classmate with an allergy. An allergy to pollen was around but it wasn’t very common. According to food experts, something clearly has gone wrong with people’s bodies. In the old days, even an allergy to pollen or dust was extremely rare even though the air was of poorer quality then than it is today. Even though the air we breathe is cleaner now, allergies to airborne particles are higher.

One possible cause of most allergies is delaying the introduction to allergies into the body. The earlier in life an allergen is introduced to a child, the more chance there is of the child’s body learning to tolerate it. Instead, for some reason parents are overprotective of their children’s eating habits.

Allergies also appear to be more prevalent in urban societies where children spend more time indoors and are not exposed to the sun or the environment, as opposed to those living in the country.