Not all that convincing. The "mucky kid" hypothesis proposes that kids living on farms have healthier immune systems because their immune systems get challenged more frequently.
Drinking raw milk is a silly idea, and families that are silly enough to let their kids do it are going to be silly enough to expose them to other threats.
Claiming that having foolish parents makes the kids that survive the experience healthier isn't exactly persuasive evidence that drinking raw milk confers particular benefits that outweigh the obvious risks.
I never heard of peanut allergy until ~20 years ago. I was born in 1940 an I don't remember anyone having allergies or asthma when I was a kid. Had the measles, chicken pox. Brother had the mumps. A kid a couple of blocks over had polio and that was about it.
Born in 1940 also. I had ALL the aforementioned diseases, including polio, plus pneumonia and scarlet fever, all in a one year span (1947)... but ate peanut butter as far back as I can remember, without any reaction... yummy ;-) ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
+1 We never heard of any of the modern allergies like being allergic to perfume or to other people. You even get kids that freeze when they see a dog !!
I had asthma as child (late 1940s). I wasn't told I had asthma at the time
- I just had nightmares when I couldn't breathe.
It seems to have been a pollen allergy, and stopped when my lungs got large r. My youngest brother had allergic eczema and grew out of that too.
The way the immune system works you can end up allergic to practically anyt hing - the noble gases may be an exception. The "mucky kid" hypothesis sugg est that if your immune system doesn't get enough real threats to keep it b usy, it will invent a few false threats to get enough exercise.
There is a world of difference between unpasteurised milk and unpasteurised cheese though. The latter through having a culture inoculated into it has zapped most of the potentially nasty bugs that might have been present at low levels in the original milk. Even so it isn't a good idea for immune suppressed people to consume unpasteurised soft (or hard) cheeses - there is still a risk of Listeria etc.
I agree that unpasteurised cheeses generally do taste better than pasteurised ones but you have to accept that there is a slight risk. The risk from drinking unpasteurised milk is at least an order of magnitude higher though.
In much the same way that drinking weak beer protected you from dirty water back in the days when sanitation was not understood.
"Cheese" in America seems to come in rubbery uniform rectangular slices with a limited choice of colour and no flavour whatsoever.
Not sure I understand the reference to helicopters.
I do think that the obsessive compulsive cleaning sterile environment and modern fad for chemical smell removers in the home may well be contributing to the growing allergy problems. The developing immune system isn't being challenged enough by real pathogens in a super clean environment and so picks on the wrong targets as a result.
The problem is now that there are so many processed foods containing a trace of peanuts in them including a lot of baby foods. The irony is that in countries where peanuts are commonplace eating a decent amount of them whilst still very young doesn't seem to cause any problems.
With Brie it is usually a little over a month but you can stretch that to 60 days. We have tried for decades now and the only stuff that tastes really good says "Imported" on the package. There is some ok American Brie but just ok and not "Whoa!".
There is always a risk. Just like I could crash and burn on my mountain bike, considering the trails I use. OTOH if I didn't do it I'd soon look like a blimp and die from some cardiovascular whatever.
By "helicopter parents" we in America mean parents who are constantly supervising and babying their kids, hovering over them all the time. It is often sickening. For example, here they are carted to the school bus stop but then mom keeps the _in_ the minivan until the bus shows, engine running. So the kid won't catch a draft of wind and get the sniffles or whatever.
I rode my bike to school, distance about five miles. Through a ... ... forest. "Modern" parents would get nightmares just thinking about that.
Exactly. Some folks don't understand this and there is the problem.
That's what I am saying the whole time. Early exposure is often the only way to have a good allergy resistance in the population. That doesn't always work when you grow up on another continent. For example, I am super sensitive to poison oak which we just did not have in Europe. However, weaning a human body from that sensitivity isn't as easy as with other reaction tendencies, it's not really an allergy but a chemical in the plant (urushiol).
There also was never a complaint about allergies against dogs, cats and so on. People just didn't have that. However, Fido als was not bathed every week which is really bad for the health of a dog's skin. We did have one kid who had asthma but he grew out of it. Scary though. Some of that might be attributable to air pollution which was quite bad when I grew up. So some things have become better. Parenting hasn't IMO.
You do find that some things are different. In the UK the most common allergy is to grass pollen but in Japan it is pollen from the tree cryptomeria. A side effect of replanting post WWII and not maintaining the forests for timber production - far too many old trees now.
formatting link
Very few people are able to tolerate it safely. Toxicodendron is a strong hint that it is a nasty branch for family Anacardiaceae.
formatting link
Same problem with Japanese lacquer from the lacquer tree which has sap containing urushiol. Apparently lacquer workers do eventually become desensitised to it (or give up) after a very painful apprenticeship.
It is the plant CW equivalent of mustard gas in terms of the damage inflicted on human skin cells.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.