Children’s
Food Allergies
Food allergies affect between
5% and 7.5% of all children, whereas only 1% to 2% of all adults
are affected. So parents, be encouraged. This means your children
may outgrow their food allergies.
But those figures may surprise
you - doesn’t it seem like many more people complain of food
allergies? That’s because we must differentiate between a
true “food allergy” and “food intolerance”.
What’s the difference
between food allergies and food intolerance?
“Food allergies”
are usually due to an imbalance in the immune system. The immune
system mistakes a food for a harmful substance, and causes the cells
to make antibodies called “immunoglobulin E”
to fight it. This releases chemicals and histamines. The symptoms
can be:
Mild: Skin rashes or hives, mucus buildup,
short-lived swollen eyes or lips
Worse: Symptoms like swollen tongue and throat
leading to breathing problems sometimes mistaken for bronchial
asthma, or persistent vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain
Deadly: Severe anaphylaxis (complete throat
closure with shock).
“Food intolerance” doesn’t involve the immune
system. The most common example is lactose, which is milk sugar.
The lactose intolerant person lacks an enzyme needed to digest it.
Frequent symptoms are bloating, gas and abdominal pain, but there
still may be an overproduction of mucus. Since some symptoms can
be part of both food allergies and food intolerance, it is hard
to tell the difference.
For example, “celiac disease”,
which may cause extreme pain and dysfunction after ingesting wheat,
is a full-blown allergy to wheat. But “irritable bowel”
(alternating constipation and diarrhea), where wheat just doesn’t
digest very well, is a food intolerance.
Both can have underlying
causes
Food allergies and food intolerance
can be caused by not enough “good” stomach bacteria
to help digestion; parasites, yeast infection, or “leaky gut”
(tears in the intestinal lining which allows food particles out
into the body, often leading to reflux). Unfortunately, treatments
like epinephrine spray for asthma-like reactions, or acid reflux
medication for heartburn, don’t get to the root problem. Dependence
on the medication can result.
Furthermore, especially in children,
there can be adverse personality side effects.
Food allergies and food intolerance can cause children to be moody,
irritable and hyperactive. Cases of children’s food allergies
or food intolerance where children exhibit irregular behavior have
even been misdiagnosed as ADD/ADHD. The pity of this is that children
are placed on medication without looking for a deeper source.
Common Food Offenders
These items commonly cause food
allergies with mild to severe symptoms:
- Milk (generally cow’s milk)
- Soy milk and/or soybean products
- Wheat
- Peanuts (whereas fine with other types of
nuts)
- All nuts
- Shellfish or all fish
- Food dye
- Citrus or melon fruits (strawberries the
most common)
More likely to cause food intolerance:
- The lactose only in milk and other dairy
products (stomach ache, mucus buildup)
- Sugar (headaches, hyperactivity then “crashing”,
mucus buildup, yeast infections)
- Wheat, oats, bran fiber, white rice (these
contain “gluten”, a sticky substance that holds
them together causing digestive problems).
- Chocolate (headaches, hyperactivity, lactose-related
symptoms)
- MSG, soy sauce (headaches, pounding heart,
tingling of lips and tongue)
- Pork products (digestive upsets and delays,
nausea)
- Corn (constipation)
- Beans (flatulence, usually brown beans)
Anything children eat every day for long
periods of time can produce food allergies or food intolerance.
How to prevent attacks
This can work for either food allergies or food intolerance:
- Keep a record of what they ate or drank before
a reaction.
- Eliminate one thing at a time so you can
be sure of the cause.
- Replace dairy with brown rice-based products:
rice milk, ice cream, and cheese substitutes are available at
health food stores.
- Replace wheat and oats with millet, brown
rice and other grains. Hot cream of rice can replace hot cream
of wheat cereal.
- Eliminate sugary foods and drinks, sugar
substitutes, high fructose corn syrup, honey, molasses, sucrose.
Again, there are delicious sugar-free products at health food
outlets.
- For fiber, serve fruits with skin, green
or red beans, lentils, vegetables. Sweet potatoes are great
sources of fiber – often containing 5 more grams than
a dish of spinach!
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