SC - OT (slightly) - food allergies

[Stapleton, Jeanne]

> >It makes you wonder about how people historically must have survived, 
>with
> >food allergies -
>
(a theory)
>every day servival
>was hard enough, so the body did not process as many allergies, now
>because the modern era  has made it easier to stay healthy, so to
>speak, the body has more time to recognize " foriegn bodies" and
>reject them.

Not being an allergist or allergy sufferer, the following is pure 
speculation.  Perhaps someone knows enough to encourage or crush the 
following lines of thought:


Allergic reactions come about after exposure, some taking more exposure than 
others, right?  Is it reasonable to think the non-nobility weren't exposed 
to enough variety often enough for an allergy to fully develop. People with 
allergies to common foods that developed with short exposure probably died 
in childhood. And the death of young children to sudden illness was entirely 
unremarkable to them, though when we see the numbers we cringe.  Part of the 
rise in diagnosis could be just because we can prevent children dying of the 
reaction at an early age.

Someone else mentioned that eating locally produced honey is sometimes a 
treatment for allergies. I assume that the non-nobles ate locally produced 
grains, meats and vegetables almost exclusively.  Could it be that one is 
less likely to be allergic to foods raised in the same environment one lives 
in? If so, then less opportunity for allergies to be activated in that class 
of people in that time.  Depending on how any particular noble household 
procured their foods, ditto.

Nobles having enough money and the interest in purchasing foods from far 
away, or who travelled, may have been exposed to enough variety often enough 
for allergies to develop.  Though would they have associated the illness 
with the food?  Or to bad air, or to the rigors of travel, or just to 
general liklihood that one would get sick for no definable reason.

I have from somewhere got the idea that children are more susceptible to 
developing allergies. Would wealthy children living at home have been eating 
the same things that wealthy adults were with the same regularity?  Or would 
they more often be fed simpler fare and the risk of developing allergies 
therefor controlled?  The victorian idea of some foods being "too rich" for 
children is what I have in mind, there are foods that are "nursery foods".  
Would wealthy children fostered in a household be served the same food as 
the lord and other adults of importance?  Or would they be fed more simply 
and cheaply, either as cheaply as the servants or somewhere between the two 
extremes?  Same result as before, less risk of developing allergy is not 
exposed to as wide variety of foods at a young age.



Bonne





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