This is very interesting. Last year OFM reported that allergy researchers at Guy's Hospital had suspicions that the advice to parents of small children may be causing allergies rather than preventing them, and according to this article (pdf) in October's Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology there is now evidence that children who eat few or no peanuts when they are babies are 10 times as likely to develop peanut allergy later in life.

Now, where food meets illness you can usually find academic research to prove any thesis you like - as the food / health industry knows so well. But this report, from scientists in Tel Aviv and London, looks pretty convincing. Peanuts are a much-used weaning food in Israel. Between 8 and 14 months old the average Israeli baby eats 7.1 grams of peanut monthly. The average British baby eats almost no peanuts at all - after all, for some years official government advice has warned parents of young children away from them.

The researchers questioned more than 5000 school-age children in each country, and found that the rate of peanut allergy (PA) was 10 times as high in Britain. They conclude:

These findings raise the question of whether early
introduction of peanut during infancy, rather than avoidance, will prevent the development of PA

Of course, the default position of many food lovers is that food intolerance is chiefly in the mind anyway. My mother stoutly maintains that no-one in the early 1970s had allergies because no-one had thought of them yet. But I once ate a curry with my PA-prone friend Sophy in a pub in Castle Cary - and shortly afterwards watched her start to swell and then choke (I nearly fainted - the staff got her to hospital). Now I tend to take these things more seriously.

But obviously, excessive worrying can cause or exacerbate illnesses. There's been a sharp rise in the incidence of measles in Britain chiefly because of parents put off the MMR vaccine by fantastical bad publicity in certain mid-market tabloids. We're a nation obsessed with food allergy - the TV nutritionist Patrick Holford claims that 50% of us suffer from it in one form or another.

More sober (but not quite so business-friendly) science suggests that our obsessive cleanliness around the house is destroying too much bacteria, and thus stopping children from developing their immune systems. I know a doctor who insists that children should be allowed to pick their noses - and eat it.

Gross, but it makes sense. There's lots of evidence that you can develop tolerances to things you ingest early. Children who have worn nickel-based braces on their teeth are less likely to have an allergic reaction to cheap earrings when they get their ears pierced. It's thought too that children who encounter wheat before they are six months old are less likely to develop the common gluten allergies later.

Did Sophy's mum stop her eating peanuts when she was a kid? No. But is there any other feasible explanation for the rise in food allergies? 1.8% of British children are now prone to PA, and the rate for that and other allergies is going up relentlessly.

So, if there's a chance that you could inoculate a child by exposing them early to foods that might cause problems, might this be a model for foodie parents who want to produce their dream child - the kid who'll eat anything? It would have a pleasing logic. Does this seem to ring true in your experience?

Is there a WoM infant out there we could experiment on? A dozen oysters for baby, please!