The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson,

and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

Can exposure to non-primal foods actually help?

Are we short-changing ourselves by complete elimination of potentially

allergenic or sensitizing foods like wheat, peanuts, or dairy?

Do we become even more sensitive to, quote,

bad foods by avoiding them entirely?

This question stems from two things I recently encountered. The first

was a recent re-watching of the Princess Bride. The second was the recent peanut allergy study.

If you haven't watched the Princess Bride yet, go do it. The book is also good, because a small

spoiler is coming. The hero Wesley spikes the wine he and the villain Vitsini are sharing with Iocaine powder,

a fictitious, ultra-lethal poison that kills instantly.

But because Wesley has spent the last several years ingesting incrementally larger doses of the poison,

he has complete resistance

to its effects. Both men drink. Only Vietzini dies. What else can this apply to, I wondered.

Then there was the study last week describing a new way to prevent food allergy in kids.

Feed them the offending foods during infancy.

For years, we've been told to avoid potentially allergenic foods

when introducing solids to our babies.

Stick to supposedly safe stuff like rice cereal.

But this paper and several other recent findings

turns that old advice on its head.

...