According to the Food Standards Agency, estimates suggest that about 5-8% of children and 1-2% of adults are affected by food allergies in the UK. The recent headlines about fatal allergic reactions, such as that of two Pret a Manger customers, heighten the impression that food allergies are more commonplace.
So is the impression that they are increasing correct and what is causing it? And what has gone so wrong with our bodies that we might be killed by something as seemingly harmless as a sesame seed?
In his article in the Observer last week, The School of English’s Vybarr Cregan-Reid looks at the environmental factors that have contributed to the rise of this largely modern phenomena.
Dr Vybarr Cregan-Reid is a reader in English and Environmental Humanities at the School of English
His latest book, Primate Change: How the World We Made is Remaking Us is published by Octopus