We live very fast-paced lives these days and the idea that the family sits around the dinner table every night to discuss the day and experience a home-cooked meal is no longer integral to our lives. Those of us who have children of school age are constantly moving them from activity to activity, whether to a dance or sporting events. Thus, the evening meal has become an ordeal of what can we eat and how fast can we finish our food. While this change in our lifestyle can be explored sociologically to study the impact it’s having on the family, our focus today is only on the ever-increasing notice that food allergies are increasing in both children and adults. When we ate at the kitchen table as families, we knew all of the ingredients of the food we were eating. Today, that is no longer the case.
In our car, we eat food we purchased at a fast food drive-through window or at a restaurant. If we do sit down while we are out, we are picking items off a restaurant menu where there is a brief description; but rarely is there a complete ingredients list. In each instance, we could be ingesting food items that could cause an allergic reaction. Eight food groups actually account for 90% of all food allergies. Those groups are eggs, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, wheat, and soy. One might wonder after looking at this list, what’s left to eat? However, the allergic reaction to a food can be localized to a gastrointestinal problem or to a severe anaphylactic shock that can be life threatening.
Listen to your body; and if you experience any discomfort consistently after particular meals, pay attention and find out the cause, most likely through a visit to an allergist. Whether we eat to live or live to eat, how we experience our meals is critically important to maintaining our health.
