Month: February 2013

One current theory about why people are having so many food allergies and sensitivities has to do with something called the “hygeine hypothesis”. The hygeine hypothesis states that the current state of cleanliness in the western world, which includes not just frequent bathing and sanitary water, but also vaccines and antibiotics, has left us with immune systems that don’t work correctly. There are two theories about how this happens. Both may be true and neither may be true. The research is not conclusive. Both are controversial. The first theory is that the human immune system needs multiple actual illnesses (not just vaccines) to be experienced by a certain age in order to learn how to properly distinguish between an invading bacteria or virus and a harmless protein. The idea is that human beings are designed to get sick as tiny babies as part of developing their immune systems, sort of like exercise and gravity develop muscles and that our emphasis on vaccines, antibiotics, and good hygiene is preventing our babies from getting the illnesses that they need to set up their immune systems. The second theory is called “leaky gut” Leaky gut states that for several reasons including caesarian delivery, maternal use of antibiotics, child use of antibiotics without subsequent probiotic use, parasite free water, and plain old handwashing that we put our bionome out of whack and our...

What I don’t like about this piece is that it ignores the obvious trigger of antibiotics not followed by proper probiotics or fecal transplants, but otherwise its pretty good. The antibiotics thing is something I noticed personally. When I was six years old my appendix ruptured. It took a long time to realize what happened and I had peritonitis. So I got penicillin injected four times a day for three weeks. From that day forward I ate like a truck but remained skinny as a rail, I all but stopped getting taller and I had problems in the bathroom. For my son it was a series of ear infections that led us to penicillin. Then he got sick. I have friends from India who tell a similar tale. A family has four children. Two stay in India. One goes to America. One goes to Australia. The grandchildren in Australia and America get food allergies and celiac and autism. The ones who remain in India with iffy water do not. The article describes a similar situation in Finland and Russia. Same DNA. Finnish kids have money and great medical care…and autoimmune disease. Russian kids have less money and dirtier homes and one fifth the rate of autoimmune diseases. Here is the thing. In America we also know that autism is linked with wealth. What do affluent parents do that broke...

The Sunday Magazine section of the New York Times will be featuring an article called The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food. It is a very long article and it will probably make you angry, but it is well worth the time to read. Having scientists for parents and family members means that unlike virtually every other kid I know from the 1970s I did not grow up on processed food. Our bread went bad, our peanut butter had three ingredients and lunch meat aside from turkey was banned. We ate frozen yogurt back in the day where to get frozen yogurt you needed to take a carton of yogurt and put it in the freezer. Interestingly as I got to high school I discovered that I could not stand the taste of most true junk food. Sure I liked deep fried chicken, flourless chocolate cake, barbecue sauce, popcorn and plain unflavored potato chips just fine. But the truly processed foods that kept for months I could not stand. I found them overwhelmingly salty, sticky sweet, and creepily unpleasant. Lest you think me some food saint, I ate plenty of unhealthy food in college but I did not like “fake food”. I remember the first time I ate macaroni and cheese made with margarine and from a box. I literally vomited. I say this because I think that it...

I have a love hate relationship with the trendiness of gluten-free. Gluten free hit the New York Times Magazine two weeks ago and the Sunday Styles section this week. Its official. I, a middle aged mom accountant who lives in a Chicago suburb, am officially trendy. Of course no one told my closet. Or my music collection. Which is still on CDs. And if you plan to tell my friends make sure they don’t have any coffee in their mouths. I don’t want anyone to choke or spit coffee on you. On the one hand I am thrilled to be able to eat at more than three restaurants without becoming extremely ill. I am glad to have my choice of gluten, dairy and corn free cake mixes. I am glad that people, at least in big cities, can find food that I can eat and have me over without killing me or feeding me plain salad…no croutons, no cheese, no dressing. That said, I find the whole idea of eating this way without a medical reason a bit weird. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think anyone over the age of three should have dairy. I don’t think processed food is healthy for anyone. I always ate organic, whole foods. I also think that wheat as we used to know it is long gone and there is an argument...