as a kid I tested allergic for several substances, and I remember weekly shots for a couple months for the worst of them to try to give me immunity to them. Only one was a food allergy, and I have never had a food allergy reaction from anything. Bees, a little bit, but not food.

a single person with a peanut allergy until the last 10-15 years. When I was a kid, everyone ate peanuts. I'm inclined to believe that peanuts and some other food allergies might be related to pesticides and herbicides that are now being used. Most of the peanuts consumed in the U.S. are now one of the most pesticide-contaminated snacks we eat. The USDA Pesticide Data Program found 8 pesticides in peanut butter.

Peanut crops are often rotated with cotton and the soil could still be contaminated with pesticides and herbicides not used on the peanuts. I buy organic peanut butter and sometimes some of the companies have to import the peanuts, because often there is a shortage of organic peanuts grown in the U.S.

Of course there's also 100% peanut butter, then there are ones mixed with palm oil, and other mixed with hydrogenated oil. I even see on occasion ones labeled entirely in foreign languages - Cyrillic alphabet, and one of the Middle East.

We have allergies to peanuts? The rest of the food chain has hundreds of substances that weren't consumed 40 years ago. Could be just peanuts interacts with some of them in some people. You know the culprits - high fructose corn syrup, artificial dyes, triglycerides, mono phosphate.

Peanuts as I recall also are susceptible to some type of fungus that creates an aflatoxin. Wonder if anyone investigates these things nowadays.

Food chain remains a mess. Glyphosphate in everything now, even some organics. Blueberries were a staple crop. Midsummer were cheap and good. Now? Scarce, expensive. And the ones from Peru are bitter.

I've only eaten unhydrogenated peanut butter for decades now. I've gotten to the point where I try to eat the least processed food I can find.

I did read something about peanuts being vulnerable to fungus due to the humid climates that they are grown in. As a result, it can result increased usage of fungicides on top of the up to eight pesticides already used on the crops. It doesn't take a genius to predict that there could be consequences to all these chemicals in our food.

The chemicals that are dumped on most crops in this country cause massive allergic reactions. The desensitization protocol above is the same we have used with sulfa drugs for decades. Pray no one has an idiosyncratic reaction and dies.

and then read that just prior to harvest, the wheat is often soaked with glyphosate to make it easier to harvest. There are so many food allergies these days, some of them life threatening, it must be about more than the actual food.

I can understand the desensitization method, but yes I would fear an adverse reaction.

I read an article a few years ago about a family of six with serious food sensitivities, mostly gluten and dairy. They moved to Bolivia and their food allergies disappeared.

Not at all uncommon.

I’m not sure how many pesticides were in use in those days, I’m sure that some were but I would be hard pressed to accept the theory. Not ruling it out completely, but it would require considerable proof to me.

You are now the first person I have heard of who had a peanut allergy back then. I was a child in the 1950s and seriously, I never knew anyone who was allergic to peanuts. It would appear that you are actually allergic to peanuts, not the chemicals used, as many of the pesticides and herbicides used today weren't around back then.

My point is that peanut allergies have become so commonplace today, that there are possibly other factors involved.

I can imagine it must have been a nightmare for you as a child, as peanuts are included in so many foods that children eat.

likely combinations of multiple factors for others. Yes, growing up in a society that was unfamiliar with food allergies and peanut allergies was challenging. As more has become known through the years awareness of peanut/food allergies has increased and I would suspect that to be at least a portion of making them as you say more commonplace.

It could be a combination of awareness and environmental factors. We still have so much to learn. I don't envy anyone having to double check the ingredients of everything they eat or drink. It must be very stressful.

and what to avoid. I tend not to be too adventurous in my diet, but I am hardly starving.

when we have to and there are more important things in life than adventurous diets!

Peanut allergy is almost unheard of in Israel.

Because of Bamba.

https://forward.com/scribe/373352/how-israel-beat-peanut-allergies/

Thank you. I like the attitude of increased allergy awareness instead of banning foods that some people are allergic to.

It brings to mind, the belief that people with hay fever are advised to eat locally produced honey to expose them to the pollen that might trigger an attack.

And recently discovered Sprouts Peanut Butter Puffs. Not no carb, but pretty low. If you like PB, they are incredible. Better than Bamba.

https://shop.sprouts.com/product/48781/sprouts-peanut-butter-puffs-4-oz

to several other foods. For some reason, I developed an adult onset allergy to lentils and pumpkin seeds.

as well. Some of the ones I had as a kid have seemed to have passed, but diet can be a challenge and one never ever takes any home made baked items from an unknown source (as I'm sure you don't as well).

that some people develop allergies as an adult and sometimes outgrow childhood allergies. I wasn't allergic to cats until I was an adult and it became a very severe allergy as time went on, enough to result in hospitalization more than once. Also I wasn't asthmatic until I was an adult.