January 21, 2006, Robyn O’Brien remembers the day like it was yesterday, “It seemed like an ordinary day. The baby was fussy, so I put her down for a nap. The next thing I knew, her face looked like a swollen, red tomato, and I had plunged into the midst of a childhood epidemic I barely even knew existed.” Baby Tory’s bloated, puffy red face and nearly swollen shut eyes were diagnosed by the O’Briens’ doctor as a severe allergic reaction, probably to the scrambled eggs she had sampled for the very first time earlier, at the breakfast table. Fortunately, Tory responded almost immediately to the antihistamine the doctor gave her.
O’Brien learned that day that although any food can trigger an allergic reaction, some 90 percent of all food allergies are triggered by the proteins in eight foods: eggs, cow’s milk, wheat, soy, fish, shellfish, peanuts and tree nuts, such as walnuts, almonds, or Brazil nuts. The doctor also told O’Brien that a child’s first allergic reaction to a food is almost always the result of a second, third or even later exposure to that food’s protein. Even though this was the first time Tory had ever eaten eggs, she had been exposed to eggs months earlier when she received a flu vaccine which had been grown in eggs. At this point, O’Brien’s mind was filled with a myriad of unspoken questions like, “Great, my daughter can’t eat, she can’t get vaccines …. What is going to happen to this kid? Will she out-grow this? How had such ordinary foods – the foods of my childhood – become so dangerous?”
O’Brien had so many questions she began searching the internet for answers, answers that the doctors just couldn’t give her. THE UNHEALTHY TRUTH: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It by Robyn O’Brien is the result of all that searching. It’s a first-person story as shocking as it is inspirational, that reveals the alarming relationship between the manipulation of our American food supply and the increase in dangerous allergies and other illnesses in our nation’s children. Although perfectly gifted for the quest, O’Brien is not the typical candidate for an anti-establishment crusade. She is a Houston native from a conservative family, a married mother of four with a B.A. from Washington and Lee University and an M.B.A. from Rice University. A former equity analyst for AIM Investments, O’Brien was not someone who gave much thought to the danger of toxic chemicals in our food – that is until the day her youngest daughter Tory suffered a violent allergic reaction to eggs, and O’Brien’s world was turned upside down.
When O’Brien first started the task of cleaning the chemicals out of her family’s diet, she found the task completely overwhelming, after all, as a mother of four children all under the age of seven, she had no time, plenty of picky eaters, and a limited budget. O’Brien shares her plan to get started, “The first step is realizing that each of us is going to make the journey in our own way. For some of you, the first step will be to turn a detective’s eye on the labels at the grocery store and choosing one type of additive to reject, such as aspartame or Yellow Dye Number 5.” Still others might prefer to commit to making only one change each week or one change each month. O’Brien recommends choosing something that seems small enough, and easy enough, that you can actually picture yourself doing – and that won’t break the bank. O’Brien advises, “So do what is going to work for you, avoid what seems like too much trouble, and trust in yourself and in the process. That’s the only way it’s going to work for you anyway, so why not start out by feeling calm and in control?”
On The 700 Club, author Robyn O’Brien shared with co-host Kristi Watts some easy, budget- friendly ways to decrease or eliminate toxic food chemicals from your child’s favourite foods. Following are those shared ideas along with additional, creative alternatives to some very familiar everyday foods.
Today, one out of every three American children suffers from one or more of the four conditions that are now being called the “new childhood epidemics” – allergies, asthma, ADHD, and autism. According to the AllergyKids Web site (www.AllergyKids.com), in the last twenty years alone, these specific four childhood illnesses have increased dramatically:
• 400% increase in Allergies
• 300% increase in Asthma
• 400% increase in ADHD and
• an increase of between 1,500 and 6,000% in the number of children with autism-spectrum disorders.
With 20 million children now affected by at least one of these maladies, the focus of AllergyKids is to inspire parents to protect the health of their children with food allergies. AllergyKids’ goals are to make it easier to identify a child with life-threatening food allergies by using AllergyKids’ universal symbol for food allergies (a fluorescent green, octagonal “stop sign” with a black exclamation point in the center) and to provide comprehensive, independent research that will empower parents to make the healthiest food choices for their family.
As the first independently funded, food allergy organization, AllergyKids highlights previously undisclosed research addressing the recent introduction and engineering of allergens, proteins, food additives, and dyes into the U.S. food supply and the impact that these novel proteins, chemicals, and allergens have, especially on the health and well-being of women and their children.
To help identify and protect the 10 million American children with food allergies, AllergyKids founder, Robyn O’Brien, invites online readers to download any or all of the AllergyKids forms to help create awareness of food allergies in their children’s schools. Topics include: Food Allergy Alert form, letters to give to the child’s principal and teachers, Allergy Kids Safe @ School Program, and Allergy Kids Safe @ School Teacher Training Guidelines.
Fact Resources
Material in this edition of A Closer Look is taken from the book THE UNHEALTHY TRUTH: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It by Robyn O’Brien with Rachel Kranz.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Robyn O’Brien, author of THE UNHEALTHY TRUTH: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It (Broadway Books 2009), is also the founder of AllergyKids, www.allergykids.com, which raises awareness of food allergies in children and provides alert systems to prevent allergic reactions. In addition, O’Brien serves on the advisory boards of numerous child-advocacy organizations. A former equity analyst for AIM Investments, she also gives “green” presentations to a variety of Fortune 500 companies. O’Brien lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband and their four children. To learn more or to contact O’Brien about giving a presentation or interview with your organization, please visit her Web site: www.robynobrien.com or www.allergykids.com.
Rachel Kranz is a novelist, nonfiction writer, and playwright who lives in New York City. Her most recent novel is Leaps of Faith.
Note: Before beginning any new health regimen, it is important to consult your family physician or health care professional first. The information given in this issue of A Closer Look is for your consideration. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Before starting or stopping any exercise routine or nutritional supplementation, please consult your family physician or health care professional about any contraindications that would make doing so inadvisable.