{"id":61054,"date":"2016-06-19T00:09:57","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T07:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=61054"},"modified":"2016-06-19T00:09:57","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T07:09:57","slug":"young-cultivators-merit-badge-food-allergy-awareness-beginner-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/61054","title":{"rendered":"Young Cultivators Merit Badge: Food Allergy Awareness, Beginner Level"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<span style=\"color: #800080;\">The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.farmgirlsisterhood.org\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/span><\/span><\/a>,<span style=\"color: #800080;\"> now with\u00a06,962 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20149,905 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #339966;\">Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/10477\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">former life<\/span><\/span><\/a> \u2026<b>\u00a0<\/b><b>\u00a0<\/b><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>For this week\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.farmgirlsisterhood.org\/badges-fk-food_allergy_awareness.asp\"><u>Farm Kitchen\/Food Allergy Awareness Beginner Level Merit Badge<\/u><\/a>, I researched a common malady (at least these days, it seems to be) amongst the population: food allergies.<\/p>\n<p>Being blessed with the constitution of a horse with a cast-iron stomach lining myself (I hate to brag, but ya know it\u2019s true), I was appalled at my findings, and at what these poor men, women, and children go through just to \u2026 to <em>eat<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_61700\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-61700\" class=\"wp-image-61700\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/9381646836_e3cc17ab7c_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"360\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-61700\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Jameson Fink via Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Some things I found that made me cluck like a mother hen having a hissy fit:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Researchers estimate that up to 15 million Americans have food allergies.<\/li>\n<li>This potentially deadly disease affects 1 in every 13 children (under 18 years of age) in the U.S. That\u2019s roughly two in every classroom.<\/li>\n<li>The economic cost of children\u2019s food allergies is nearly $25 billion per year.<\/li>\n<li>According to a study released in 2013 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food allergies among children increased approximately 50% between 1997 and 2011.<\/li>\n<li>The number of people who have a food allergy is growing, but there is no clear answer as to why.*<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Hmmm, said I, as I sipped my whole cow\u2019s-milk latte and munched on a coconut-and-peanut-butter cookie. These were depressing statistics indeed. I tossed back a handful of almonds and walnuts as I pondered.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/cookies-1520a.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-61059\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/cookies-1520a.jpg\" alt=\"cookies-1520a\" width=\"360\" height=\"396\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2026 And came up with no clear answers. If the experts weren\u2019t sure what was causing all these allergies, I likely wasn\u2019t going to find the conclusion either. Unless, of course, the experts weren\u2019t looking in the right places? Could it be we weren\u2019t necessarily allergic to the foods themselves as much as we were allergic to the pesticides, herbicides, chemicals, and processing that were used in supplying these said foods? It bore more thinking about, as I bit into a juicy strawberry and washed it down with some shellfish.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_61709\" style=\"width: 370px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-61709\" class=\"wp-image-61709\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Crab_Claws_and_Sweet_Corn_9636932271.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"239\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-61709\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">photo by Ralph Daily via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What? I eat according to what I\u2019m reading. So sue me!<\/p>\n<p>Next up in my merit badge earning was finding out which foods my neighbors and friends were allergic to, and then finding examples of them at the grocery store.<\/p>\n<p>Me thought this would be a snap.<\/p>\n<p>Me thought wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out my gal-pal, Midge, is allergic to (of all the weird things to be allergic to) the lowly potato.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, I thought to myself as I dunked a shrimp in a wheat batter and prepared to fry it in peanut oil, how hard can it be to avoid a spud?<\/p>\n<p>Granted, a life without fries or chips is not the highest quality of life I can think of, but really? It can\u2019t be <em>that<\/em> hard to avoid a \u2018tator.<\/p>\n<p>Ah, my naivet\u00e9 had struck again. Potatoes are a common ingredient in all sorts of foods you\u2019d never suspect. They&#8217;re used as a thickening agent in all sorts of things, even in candy. Say what now??<\/p>\n<p>Well, color me red.<\/p>\n<p>Mmm, red potatoes. (Sorry, Midge.)<\/p>\n<p>I really was feeling sorry for my food allergic friends. This badge was getting depressing, girls. My only hope was the belief that some intrepid farmgirl out there was going to find an answer for this on-the-rise epidemic, and quick.<\/p>\n<p>Hungry peeps everywhere are standing by.<\/p>\n<p>*Statistics found at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foodallergy.org\/facts-and-stats\"><u>Food Allergy Research and Education<\/u><\/a>.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with\u00a06,962 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20149,905 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane\u00a0 Wondering who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/61054\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/61054\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}