Robyn O’Brien is the author of “The Unhealthy Truth”, and a contributor to a recent book called “Healthy Child Healthy World”. She is also the mother of a seriously egg-allergic child. In fact, her daughter’s anaphylaxis changed her whole world on one memorable day, after feeding little Tory scrambled eggs.
After her experience, O’Brien realized that her child would never be completely safe around food. She designed a symbol to help parents of allergic children: a green stop sign with an exclamation mark on it. This symbol has become part of the product line that she offers on AllergyKids, a website for parents of allergic children.
O’Brien isn’t just a smart parent who wants to help other parents deal with their children’s food allergies: she also has some ideas regarding why our kids are developing allergic disease at astonishing rates. Her theory is that our food supply is being manipulated by Big Food Business. She argues that additives, genetic modification, hormones and herbicides are wreaking havoc on the vulnerable bodies of children. Most leading researchers and allergy advocacy groups don’t support her theory, but that isn’t stopping O’Brien.
According to the New York Times, O’Brien can lead you on a trip from Kraft macaroni dinner to the genetically-modified seeds of agribusiness giant Monsanto and move straight to Donald Rumsfeld’s connection to the sweetener aspartame, while showing how all these things are related.
While many experts have concerns about genetic modification and how this could affect our food supply, most are not linking these foods to an increase in allergies. One has to wonder though: if I’m allergic to frogs and frog genes have been inserted into my tomato, isn’t it possible that I could have an allergic reaction? Allergies are all about the proteins in our food, and our genes are what program cells to make proteins. This does not seem a big leap - although this doesn’t explain how food modification could be causing allergies.
O’Brien argues that everyone should throw out as much non-organic processed food as possible. Organic is the only way to ensure that you are not eating GMO (genetically-modified organisms). Get rid of food that includes artificial additives of all kinds. Don’t eat meat raised with hormones. Most importantly, don’t eat food with any ingredient that you can’t pronounce or don’t know what it is.
This is good advice, no matter who you are.
O’Brien believes she has unearthed a huge conspiracy which is making our children sick. She says, “These big food companies have an intimate relationship with every household in America and they are making our children sick.”
Source: New York Times
