- and what we can do about it.

Robyn O'Brien is an American mother. She is also a mother of children with allergies, something American (and South African) children appear to be suffering from at an alarmingly increasing rate. And Robyn wrote a book about why.

Her delvings have led to her being called the 'Erin Brokovich of the food industry' because she exposes the hidden dangers in the apparently 'safe' ingredients we feed our children and families.

1 out of every 3 American children today has allergies, asthma, ADHD or autism. There has been a 400% increase in allergies, a 300% increase in asthma, and a 400% increase in ADHD in the last 20 years.

What has changed? Robyn traces this allergy epidemic directly to our food and our food supply. If you're anything like me then you are already very much aware of the unhealthy relationship between the manipulation of our food and the parallel increase in food allergies.

Almost everyone I know has a family member who is 'wheat intolerant', 'lactose intolerant', has asthma or reacts to colourants. Whilst many people still fail to see the relationship, or don't want to recognise it, our food is very much responsible for many of these reactions.

Robyn O'Brien goes on a food crusade and uncovers the relationship between Big Food (corporate food) and Big Money (because, guess what, there is a very strong association). She does so with a vengeance, and she makes sure that she has unearthed as much research and evidence as she can muster, because some of her accusations could land her in fairly hot water.

The reason? Well, Monsanto (renowned for suing farmers should their crops (seeds) even vaguely represent Montsanto's patented versions) for one, features very prominently in Robyn's research, as does the FDA and the American government.

Surprised? I wasn't. Let's not forget that this wealthy giant corporation is behind aspartame (sold in 2000), genetically modified soy, corn and potatoes (sound like the fundamental food staples of the world? They are!), and that's to name but a few of their 'products'.

Robyn looks at studies on food, who funds them, and why non-industry funding is so important. Here's an extract about aspartame from her book:

“...that 92% of non-industry-funded studies, eighty-two of them, identified one or more problems with aspartame. And of the seven which found aspartame innocuous, six were conducted by the FDA, an agency which, ..., has virtually installed its own revolving door to welcome past and future executives from the food industry.”

Here's another from a chapter entitled 'The allergy detective hunts down the corn allergy':

“Besides genetically altered soy and milk, I was now on the trail of another genetically modified product – corn. I discovered that about 80% of the corn grown in the United States is genetically modified (it's a pretty similar state of affairs here in South Africa - ed). Since corn is the largest US crop, that's a lot of altered genes!

It's also a lot of corn. Corn growers are always on the lookout for new places to sell their product, and corn is currently used in a wide variety of food products – cereals, peanut butter, and snack foods – as well as in many nonfood products, including vitamins, aspirin, toothpaste, hairspray, deodorants, baby powder, cosmetics, and the ethylene often used to ripen fruits and vegetables.”

The wake up call that will ring true with many South African moms, is that our market is pretty similar to that of America (we're practically their 'back yard', and South Africa is still the only country in Africa to welcome GM food). We might not have quite as many processed foods (yet), but moms here need to become as savvy about reading food labels and understanding just what's in their food.

We also do not know which foods contain GM (genetically modified) foods in this country, although GM foods are supposed to be labelled soon. The major downside to the ruling about labelling our foods GM when they contain GM, is that the department of Agriculture is responsible for determining the thresholds and technical requirements of the new regulations.

Everyone should educate themselves about what foods could contain GM because the government is not hell bent on pointing it out to you.

Fundamentally, Robyn's message is about the GM industry. She believes that the manipulation of proteins that happens when food is genetically modified is responsible for allergic reactions in children. She doesn't arrive at this hypothesis without taking you along a long road of discoveries and searches first, and in the end, her arguments are more than plausible.

And I marvel at her ability to simplify the rather mystifying and certainly daunting task of explaining why much of our 'food' is unhealthy for us – from the milk we drink (laced with RBST and other chemicals) to the processed foods on which many of us grew up, but which today are riddled with genetically modified soy and corn products that weren't there before.

The only aspect of the book that jarred, was the author's former naïve belief that food producers have one's best interests at heart, and her apparent lack of confidence to present her story without having to constantly refer to her background (a former equities analyst with a Fulbright grant). Her argument is well researched and interesting enough, not to need the extra amunition.

If you are even vaguely concerned about what is happening to our food and want to know more about its effect on allergies, or if you have children, then getting a copy of 'The Unhealthy Truth – how our food is making us sick and what we can do about it' is written for you.

Read more about genetically modified food on urban sprout

Read about rbst in our milk

Read more about Monsanto

Order the book on Kalahari.net or Amazon

Read more about allergies on AllergyKids.com