First Product That Claims Prevention of PA

[GoingNuts]

I believe my kiddos were Born This Way.

Both received their allergens via breast milk.  One outgrew his allergens, one didn't.  They both had eczema (the one who didn't outgrown was much more severe) and asthma as well.  Horrible seasonal allergies.  I was unknowingly poisoning DS2, and he was a total mess - croup, wheezing, constant sinus infections, yada yada yada. 

I shudder to think what would have happened if I had introduced his allergens directly. 

[Janelle205]

We were probably a little more aggressive than most people with introducing foods than other people (even typical people), but I got the impression from the doc that we were seeing at the time that it as much a result of eating a more varied diet as it was intentional.  He started eating nuts (as peanut and other nut butters mixed into baby cereal) somewhere around 5 months.  (And we kept it up, mainly because he really does not like bland food.  Weird baby.)  Hard boiled eggs and soft cheese were some of his first 'pick up' foods.  He was eating shrimp and other shellfish at 9 months.  But who knows if it helped - maybe he will still have food allergies eventually - mine were adult onset (though I did have symptoms to a few as a teenager) and are mostly weird.

My brother and I were both formula-fed, though I had breast milk for a bit as a baby.  He developed a corn allergy at 2 or 3 - I'm sure his formula had corn in it.  I was on soy formula and am allergic to soy now.  But we also grew up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by corn and soy fields, drove around these places frequently with open windows during harvest, and played out at the remote location of my grandma's business, which involved farming support (anhydrous ammonia) and was surrounded by fields.

I won't be giving new baby a packet full of 9 different powdered allergens.  From what I have seen, the science is barely there on peanut, and isn't there at all as far as I know for other allergens.  If the child has a reaction, then you have to consider whether it is one of the 9 things in the packet, plus however many ingredients in whatever you mixed it into.

Places like Israel, where peanut based foods are more common for young kids (though DS only loves the Strawberry bamba) have fewer peanut allergies.  But what if all we end up doing with these 'prevention' products is creating a new most prevalent allergen.  Non top eight allergies suck.  Labeling is better than what it used to be, but it is not awesome. 

[gvmom]

As a sort of aside..... with regard to the whole Bamba, peanut allergies and Israel..... I've been trying to find something (article of some sort) that has everything in it, rather than multiple things in multiple places....  but ... Israel may not have the same prevalence of peanut allergies, but they've got a sesame problem.  There is a lot of stuff out there about their sesame allergy problem.  So, it isn't like they are devoid of anaphylactic food allergies.  Their main one is just different than the one in the US. 

It does make me wonder though, given how much people in the US are asked to believe the validity of "hey, you should feed your kids peanuts early because Israel has Bamba and their kids don't have the same prevalence of PA"....   

Does anyone know if Israel has a public health policy pushing early introduction of sesame because of the findings of any study like the LEAP study?

and

Does anyone know if there is some sesame Bamba product marketed in Israel, or powdered sesame, sold to parents telling them to mix it into baby food so that kids there don't develop sesame allergies?

It would be interesting also, if there were some sort of discussion by people living with food allergies in Israel, and what they would say if someone from the US told them to just feed their baby sesame really early so they don't get the allergy. 

[GoingNuts]

Sesame is referred to as "the peanut of the Middle East".