Peanuts and peanut foods bring together the three most important decision factors for everyone to make better food choices – nutrition, cost, and most importantly taste. However, there are myths out there that can bring on skepticism and lead people to think that they should sacrifice their favorite peanut foods for other foods that they mistakenly think are more nutritious. We’re here to provide clarification to some of the myths out there.
ATLANTA (Jan. 6, 2017) – The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), issued clinical guidelines Jan. 5 to support health care providers in early introduction of peanut-products to infants to prevent the development of peanut allergy. The new Addendum Guidelines for the Prevention of Peanut Allergy in the United States, supplements the 2010 Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Food Allergy in the United States. The impetus for the development and release of the NIAID Guidelines was the ground-breaking Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) study, published in 2015, and co-sponsored by the National Peanut Board.
We probably all know someone who says they are allergic to certain foods or even food groups. To prevent a reaction from occurring, they steer clear of potentially harmful allergens. Certainly, food allergies are very real and should not be taken lightly because they can dramatically affect quality of life and can be life-threatening.
More than 98 percent of school-age children can enjoy peanuts without any issue and food allergies can be safely managed in schools while still making them available to non-allergic students.
Anyone who enjoys eating peanuts holds the hope that one day peanut allergies will be a thing of the past. For decades, researchers, food scientists, inventors and others have tried to find a solution to the peanut allergy problem.