The National Center of Health Statistics which is part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a study of food allergies in children.  The highlights of the study are:

• In 2007, approximately 3 million children under age 18 years (3.9%) were reported to have a food  or digestive allergy in the previous 12 months.
• From 1997 to 2007, the prevalence of reported food allergy increased 18% among children under age 18 years.
• Children with food allergy are two to four times more likely to have other related conditions such as asthma and other allergies, compared with children without food allergies.
• From 2004 to 2006, there were approximately 9,500 hospital discharges per year with a diagnosis related to food allergy among children under age 18 years.

You can find the entire report at their website.  I hope that this will lead to more funding of autoimmune disease research.  After all allergies are a result of our bodies autoimmune system being out of wack (a technical term ).  

While I am on the subject of autoimmune disease, I highly recommend the book pictured. This is one of those books that I had a very difficult time setting down.  The author has a personal connection with the issue and as a reporter, she knows how to research a topic.  This combination makes for a great book, IMHO. 

You can click on the image to purchase the book from Amazon.com

You can find more information about the author at her website.

The problem is cost.  This stuff is not cheap and does not keep very long.  Toddlers don’t have big stomachs either, so my suggestion is to freeze some after you open it.  This should help to save you some money.

I am looking for help with content and general organization of the site.  If you have suggestions for topics, categories, or tags, post a comment to this post.  Brainstorming I’m thinking about: recipes, restaurants, items at grocery stores, tips for substitutions in recipes, stories from parents of toddlers describing their experience, etc..