6 years ago, I lived in ignorant bliss. I fed my daughter well, we ate a balanced diet, but I wasn't about to be the hippy serving organic, sprouted chia seed muffins or ripping the skittles out of her hand. Like the rest of us, I knew high fructose corn syrup was not so great and all those unnatural colors have to be... well... unnatural.
In 2005 I gave birth to a very healthy, 10 lb. 5 oz. baby boy. He was absolutely beautiful and continued to grow on my breast milk. He got bigger and bigger at a rate that would have him beating up his older sister in no time! Then... it stopped. He just stopped growing and went from being in the 100th percentile to the 75th, to the 50th, 25th and by the time he was 3 was in the 5th percentile. Nobody knew why. He also started bruising easily, had strange vomiting spells and complained of foot and hand pain. At age 4 he had been poked, prodded, scoped, medicated more than most 18 year olds and we still didn't have any answers. At this point, he was miserable - the vomiting spells had turned into full blown migraines. Nothing compares to your 3 year old hiding under a blanket, unable to look at light, vomiting every 15 minutes for 2 days. We spent thousands of dollars on medications, tests and ER visits. Eventually my sister and a good friend, both suffering from migraines themselves, suggested cutting out milk and gluten. I had no idea what gluten was, let alone where to find it. After taking the gluten and milk out, he made a major turn around.
Just to make things more interesting, when my third son was born it was very clear that he was allergic to several things. While his brother's intolerance is in his digestive system, causing inflammation and nerve pain, Baby #3 has an allergic reaction. This means that when he eats milk, wheat, all nuts, eggs (thankfully, he has since grown out of this one) he breaks out in hives and/or vomits.
Unfortunately for my budget, once you start educating yourself about food in the US, you can't avoid change. I could very easily feed my kids jello and prepackaged, "allergy friendly" food but I really believe that would just be putting a bandaid on the problem and encouraging the issues on a broader scale. It's not an option to eat real.
Below are some various facts, links and videos I find interesting and want to share.
- In 2007, approximately 3 million children under age 18 years (3.9%) were reported to have a food or digestive allergy in the previous 12 months.
- From 1997 to 2007, the prevalence of reported food allergy increased 18% among children under age 18 years.
- This increase is in all children under 18, it is not the old wives tale of 3 and under. Kids are being checked in to the hospital with new allergic reactions as teenagers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rixyrCNVVGA&feature=youtu.be
http://www.robynobrien.com/
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