fear-mongering and food
"Peanuts in pregnancy may lead to allergy!" But, the article concludes, "thus far no recommendations have been made that mothers avoid eating peanuts during pregnancy." But the headline screams, "Hey, pregnant woman, if you are at all going to be a good mother now you can't eat anything containing peanuts, add that to soft cheeses, and oh, right, lunch meats, oh, and soda and all sugar-sweetened beverages and food dyes... Basically you can just eat organic, free-range lamb and brown rice..." (The data on allergies and why there is an increase is beyond confusing it seems. Start solids late, no start them early, avoid the foods altogether, no start them early! As an aside, I am looking forward to speaking about feeding at the AFAA of Minnesota Food Allergy conference in Minneapolis on the 17th, and will try to find the allergy doc gurus to get some of their thoughts on the changing recommendations re kids and food allergies.)Or the article that hyped up pretty bad research on the dangers of sodium so they could spend four pages on a spread showing ways to reduce sodium (in Real Simple magazine.)Chocolate sundae solution? Add more ice-cream!Donut solution? eat a donut hole...Not kidding. That advice was given in all seriousness. I suppose it is simple to just eat less of the salty item. (FYI, an exhaustive Cochrane review found very little evidence around the hyped dangers of sodium.)Or the call I got from the mom who was waiting to feed her home-made lasagna to her toddler because she read an article online about too much meat causing kidney failure. (I have to wonder if PETA didn't hack into that website.) I reassured the mother that if her son was healthy, did not just run a marathon in 100 degree weather and didn't eat 12 pans of lasagna he would be fine. Well, I said it in a nicer and more thorough way, but my point is she had an unnecessary worry from reading an unnecessary article and it was messing with her mind and her feeding.I suppose my rambly point this morning of the last day before school starts of a week with no camp, and spotty childcare- is that our culture has added food to the list of things to be afraid of. Every parenting magazine, every nightly news ("What is in your kid's lunchbox that could kill them? Tune in at 11!") every other magazine from Newsweek to Real Simple wants to scare you into buying their products or watching their show/advertising. So, the next time Woman's Week, or Family Fun has a story about scary food or feeding issues, please, skip it, recycle it ASAP, take a deep breath... (An old post on "threat level orange" and fear and feeding)Do these stories scare you? What worries you? Is it justified?