Plantar’s walnuts has a new warning not to feed them to children under six.
Ummm, why? Is this more allergy hysteria? What will happen? I don’t get it.
Nut allergies, I guess, or maybe some foodborne pathogen they may tend to pick up from soil (walnuts are gathered after they fall to the ground).
It’s my understanding that walnuts are nutritionally rather beneficial for kids - high in protein and Omega fatty acids.
As I understand it peanuts cause allergy to it if fed too early to children.
May be the same for any other nut available.
I think it’s most likely a choking hazard thing. Our youngest daughter (almost 7 now) is allergic to peanuts & tree nuts, which was discovered when she was 1.5. By the age of 6, kids have almost certainly eaten peanut butter, various candies, brownies, etc. etc., so any nut allergies have probably already been discovered by then.
There’s all sorts of theories of how kids develop nut allergies. Our daughter had a reaction the first time she ate peanut butter, so it certainly wasn’t previous exposure in her case.
I don’t think it’s pathogens either - toddlers have pretty rugged digestive systems, and are probably eating dirt on occasion. Plus their vomit reflex hasn’t been tamed by social restrictions yet, so they’ll bring up anything that disagreed with them pretty quickly.
I thought allergies are caused by lack of having exposure at an early age, the body later on doesn’t know what to do with it.
There’s been no study that says “Here’s an absolute cause of peanut allergies”. Not giving young children peanuts has been correlated with an increase in peanut allergies, but there are plenty of exceptions. There are lots of theories - whether or not the mother eats nuts while pregnant, ultra cleanliness in homes which leads to immune systems reacting to the wrong events (certainly not our daughter’s case), how soon the child is introduced to nuts, etc.
We really have no idea, although you can find people adamant that they possess the One True Knowledge of allergies. Problem is, their One True Knowledge directly contradicts someone else’s One True Knowledge, and none of them is well supported by the current evidence.
I’m very curious as to the answer to the OP. It doesn’t make sense for any of the reasons so far speculated: choking hazards are usually limited to the age of 3, not 6. Botulism risks fade by 2 years old, when the GI tract becomes an aerobic environment. Allergies don’t seem to be prevented if you postpone exposure until any age in particular, but 6 seems very high for even conservative non-exposure proponents, who usually say to avoid exposure to common allergens until 1 or 2 years old.
Has anyone emailed Plantar’s yet?
BTW, I really hope it’s Planters walnuts. “Plantars Walnuts” sounds like an extremely painful & disfiguring foot condition.
I bet it’s a CYA thing.
Apparently no one really knows what causes allergies. When my highly-allergic daughter was a baby, doctors said to avoid allergens to let the immune system mature. It turns out that was a wild guess, and maybe you’re supposed to do the opposite. But nobody actually has anything solid.
I saw a couple of sites online that suggest it’s a choking warning. While non-food items like toys lose their “choking hazard” warnings at the age of 3, that’s mostly because kids over 3 aren’t going to constantly shove toys into their mouths. Kids older than 3 can still choke on food, though I don’t think a walnut is the ideal shape for a kid to choke on. Peanuts and hot dogs, sure, but not walnuts.
Even that is the case, a walnut is encased in a tough outer skin, and then a hard shell. I can’t imagine they are dirtier than any other raw food.
Don’t know what form of walnut they are talking about. Walnuts in the shell could be a hazard if a piece of shell is swallowed, the sharp edges may do damage to a small child. Whole shelled walnuts (usually just halves anyway) could be large enough to be a choking hazard.
I think dangermom is right, it’s mostly CYA.