My cynicism on gut health started to wane in 2012 when we moved the family to the US. I lived in the US for a year when I was 5 years old and was really looking forward to giving my children a similar experience. You don’t remember a huge amount at that age but one thing I did remember was peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches. I had them every day for school and loved it. Still do!
I was in my late 30s at the time and it was in the first month that I raised my first eyebrow in relation to gut health. I went out for lunch with my new team a was slightly stunned when one of the guys started panicking because he didn’t have his EpiPen. Thankfully someone else at the table had bought theirs, so everyone could relax. Except for me. I was a bit stunned as to why a quarter of the people at lunch needed an EpiPen on hand to get through the meal. Turns out that peanuts were the culprit.
What got me thinking though, was that these two guys were in my generation. When I was growing up in Australia, I didn’t know anyone in primary school or high school that had a peanut allergy, but here I was sitting at a table with two people my age that had nut allergies. Turns out this wasn’t a random occurrence and nut allergies were pretty common. What I found even more surprising was the next generation was developing allergies to a whole raft of different foods. Around this table at lunch, I found out that their children had allergies to eggs, shellfish, mushrooms and even peas.
I left it at that, we enjoyed our nut free meal, but I did walk away from that lunch thinking about a few things...
- What’s so going on over here that could be causing those allergies?
- Thankfully, It’s not just the peanuts!
- But what the kids going to have for lunch?
