The Dangerous Myth of “Building Tolerance” to Food Allergies

"Just eat a little every day and your body will get used to it” is common advice given to people with food allergies and sensitivities—but repeating something often does not make it safe or scientifically sound.

In this episode, we explore the complicated intersection of parenting, food allergies, health myths, and internet misinformation. As always, we approach the conversation through personal experience, honest opinions, and a commitment to understanding the facts behind the advice families receive.

We begin with a personal story from our home. Frequent baby spit-up, vomiting, diarrhea, bloating, and skin problems led us to question whether dairy was contributing to our children’s symptoms. Removing milk was not a health trend or a casual parenting decision. It was an attempt to improve their quality of life, and the changes we observed were difficult to ignore.

From there, we discuss why parents are often pressured by relatives, friends, and even well-meaning acquaintances to reintroduce foods for calcium, nutrition, or supposed “tolerance.” We examine why that advice may be especially risky when someone has a true food allergy rather than a digestive intolerance.

We also break down several conditions that are frequently confused online, including IgE-mediated food allergies, lactose intolerance, non-IgE reactions, and autoimmune diseases such as celiac disease. These conditions can cause overlapping symptoms, but they involve different biological processes and require different approaches to diagnosis and management.

The conversation also covers why allergic reactions can be unpredictable and why casually consuming small amounts of a suspected allergen at home is not the same as oral immunotherapy, or OIT. Medically supervised food-allergy treatment involves structured dosing, careful monitoring, and guidance from qualified allergy specialists—not simply “pushing through” symptoms on your own.

We also talk about the possibility that repeated exposure may continue triggering digestive, skin, or inflammatory symptoms rather than helping the body become stronger. Most importantly, this episode is about personal agency: recognizing patterns, taking symptoms seriously, asking better questions, and making informed healthcare decisions for yourself and your children.

If you have ever second-guessed what you were seeing because someone told you to ignore your instincts or “just keep trying,” this conversation is for you.

Subscribe to Steel Roses, share this episode with a parent or friend who needs a fact-checked perspective, and leave a review answering this question: What food or health myth have you heard so often that it started to sound true?

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everybody, this is Still Verses Podcast. This podcast was created for women by women to elevate women's voices. I hope everyone is doing really, really well. I have a little bit of a hot button topic that I'm going to approach today and see how

Fact Checking In A Misinformation Era

SPEAKER_00 0:15

I do with it. I did some research because I wanted to, I know how I violently feel, but I I wanted to have some, you know how I feel about having facts, and I wanted to have some facts behind me because I really don't want to be part of the problem with misinformation that is online. There is a gross, and I actually mean the word gross. I don't mean like large, I mean like gross, the disgusting amount of misinformation on the internet, including what was it? My husband just recently told me. Oh, he I think he said something to the effect of like, I forget, it was something that he saw on TikTok and then he regurgitated it to me. And I was like, that's not right. And he's like, no, it is. And I'm like, I'm telling you, you need to look that up. And sure as I'm sitting here right now, he looked it up and he was like, oh, all right, fine. And I'm like, I told you you need to fact check. So this is one of those moments where I do want to reassure all of you, when I opinionate here, I I'm gonna opinionate, but I'm I'm always, always, always going to give you the facts. And even if it's contradictory to my opinion, a little bit like this research

Kids, Dairy Symptoms, And A Mom Hack

SPEAKER_00 1:14

brought up. So my daughters, when they were little, used to throw up all the time when they were babies. Babies throw up, yes, they throw up all the time, but it was just like constant. Like, I mean, I got to a point where pro mom tip, if your kid wets the bed a lot, or if your kid is puking a lot, even when you have babies at night and they're not puking a lot, I used to layer their beds when I would make them. So I would on the base of the mattress, I would put doggy pee pads and I would cover that with a sheet. And then I would line the line that mattress again with doggy pee pads, and I would line that with a sheet again. And I did it, would do it like three or four times because ultimately, if there was an accident on that bed, one, it's not hitting the mattress, yay. And two, all you have to do is bundle it up, put it in a plastic bag, or throw it in your washer if you're blessed to have a washer in your apartment or whatever, and deal with it. But it doesn't get everywhere. You can contain the mess. Pro mom tip of the day. Contain the mess. So anyway, my girls threw up all the time. And it was like a constant thing: diarrhea, throwing up, etc. There was a certain point where my husband said to me, you know, I think they're allergic to dairy. And I was like, they're not allergic to dairy. I'm not allergic to dairy, you're not allergic to dairy, thus, they're not allergic to dairy. And he was like, No, I don't know. I think they're allergic to dairy. We went back and forth like this for a few months. Now, now, let's see, how many years? Now, 16 years later, I have come to know that when my husband has an inkling about something, even if I disagree with him, it's best that I check into it. Because nine times out of 10, he is correct. And then I have to fall on my sword and say I was incorrect, which I don't like to do. So, anyway, he's telling me if they have a dairy allergy, I'm telling him, no, you're crazy. And this went back and forth for a little while until ultimately I decided, you know what? Let's just take them off dairy. I forget what the catalyst was. There was a catalyst. I think it was again the throwing up was a lot, but also the neighborhood deli down the street. I used to walk down there for milk. And the last time I bought milk, like actual dairy milk, I got three gallons down there, walked them home, got them upstairs, went to go pour the milks for the bottles, and it came out chunky, like in strips, like in streams. It was disgusting. I walked that one gallon back down to the street. I was like, hey, this is bad. Can I grab another one? Yeah, go ahead. I grabbed another one, came home with that fresh gallon, opened it up, started to pour it again, chunks and strips. I went back down. I went back down two times. By I got to the the second time, brought it home, chunks. I was like, this is forget it. I was like, I don't even care. I'm just dumping it. I dumped it. I opened up the other two in there, same thing. Was coming out and it was really weird. I've never seen milk do that before because you know when milk sours, it's it's clumpy and you can smell it. This wasn't like that. It was I went to go pour it and it was coming out in this long, almost like hair. It wasn't hair, but it was this long strip. It was the it was a very weird situation. So I was like, forget it. We're done, we're not doing milk anymore. We're gonna go non-dairy. So we switched over to at the time almond milk. And we made the transition to almond milk, and ultimately we got them off bottles pretty quickly after that. Anyway, again, my husband pushed that. He's pretty good at all these things. Um, so he pushed that. So in this time when I'm getting them off of milk, I'm testing things out because I don't really know what they can and can't have, right? Because they're little. So we get them off that straight dairy. Like, can is yogurt still okay? Yogurt's still okay, yogurt they can digest pretty well. What about ice cream? No, ice cream is a no-go unless they're we're at home because they're gonna go to the bathroom. So, okay, now I know, I know what the parameters are. They can they can tolerate certain dairies, they can tolerate cheese, but they cannot drink milk. They just cannot. Something in the milk that really just agitates them. Ice cream too, can't really do a lot of it. They can have a little bit, but then that's it. They really can't go past that, a very small portion. So we get them off dairy. And my one of my aunts came to visit and she said to me, we were talking about it, and I said, No, the kids don't have dairy anymore. I don't do that. They had an allergy. And she said to me, No, well, she said, Oh, okay, well, you're supposed to introduce the dairy to them little by little because they really need calcium. And in order for them to grow, you know, healthy and strong, they need calcium. So you have to reintroduce it little by little to uh to break this allergy. And I was like, What are you talking about? They're allergic. I'm not gonna give them dairy. No, no, no, you're supposed to reintroduce it to them little by little so their body will adjust to it, and then it's not an issue anymore and they can have dairy. Now, all I could think of in my head was my cousin who was a co-host here, who has celiacs. That's all I could think of in my head as she was talking to me, because I'm like, but you don't understand, like, there is an allergy here. And if I continue to introduce the allergy to them, they're gonna consistently be vomiting, they're gonna consistently have stomach pain, they're going to have diarrhea. Like, this is going to happen. The other thing that happened after that I stopped giving them dairy was they completely debloated. The girls were like little chubsters, and then all of a sudden they weren't anymore. I very strongly believe it was the dairy. Now, I didn't get this medically verified. This was all Dr. Mom verified, but we all know Dr. Mom is typically, I'm gonna be honest, correct. I can tell you a lot of stories about how Dr. Mom is correct, but I won't do that here because that's not what this episode is. So I was really skeptical about this. The idea of introducing an allergen to my kids when I knowingly know that it's gonna hurt them. My aunt said, Oh, I did it with your cousin, she couldn't handle dairy. I just introduced it to her every single day until she stopped having a reaction to it. But in my mind, I was like, well, but if she's allergic to something, even if she stops having a strong reaction to it, like diarrhea, doesn't it mean your body is still rejecting this thing? Like, doesn't it mean at some point something is gonna come up and bubble to the surface because you have been introducing an allergen to your body consistently? Like, for example, and I don't know if this is a good example or what, but I had pets growing up. I had dogs in the house. When my husband and I first got moved in together, we got kittens for my stepkids. And then we had cats all the way up until 20, well, 2021 really, but we had cats, and at a certain point, I started to develop asthma from it. And the doctor told me it was prolonged exposure to an allergen, thus the asthma. Okay, so with this logic of celiacs and with this logic of my cat allergy, I'm like, I don't want anything worse to happen here, right? So I'm gonna remove this allergen. But it really bothered me. Now I've heard other people say this besides my aunt. So my aunt tells me this, and I'm like, you're old, you don't know what you're talking about, all due respect. But I was like, you're older, you're from a generation that didn't know anything about these things. I'm not gonna take your advice. But then I heard someone else say it too, that was a little bit younger than me, and I'm like, this can't be right. Like, this can't be right. And the the person who said it to me recently, I was like, I'm not, no, this can't be right. So I'm skeptical.

The Truth About Building Tolerance

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So now I look it up because I want to share this with you guys, but I don't want to misinform you. So once someone has a genuine food allergy, they should not deliberately keep eating small amounts at home to build a tolerance. Allergic reactions can be unpredictable. A person who previously had only itching or mild hives could have a much more serious reaction another time, including anaphylaxis. So this is like, I mean, think about the peanut allergy, right? You're not gonna, your child has a peanut allergy, you're not gonna give them a little scoop of peanut butter every day, are you? No, it's very severe. There is a medical treatment that may sound similar called oral immunotherapy. It involves carefully measured, gradually increasing amounts of an allergen, but it is performed according to a specialist directed protocol, is not simply eat a little every day. An OIT can itself cause serious reactions, does not necessarily cure the allergy, and patients usually must continue avoiding ordinary servings and carrying an epinephrine, an epipen. One correction to my concern: repeated exposure does not necessarily create a gradual buildup of permanent permanent bodily damage or guarantee that the allergy will worsen over time. The immediate concern is that each exposure creates another opportunity for an unpredictable and potentially severe immune reaction. Some pe some repeated exposure can also contribute to ongoing symptoms such as gastrointestinal problems, eczema flares, or inflammation, depending on the condition. True food allergies, so immune system reaction can cause hive swelling, vomiting, problems, faintness and anaphylaxis, food intolerance, usually digestive, such as lactose intolerance and uncomfortable but typically not life-threatening. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition in which continued gluten exposure damages the small intestine. Small amounts are not considered a safe way to build tolerance. Early allergen introduction in babies, introducing foods such as peanuts early before an allergy develops may reduce allergy risk in certain infants. This is prevention, not treatment or someone for someone already reacting. So then I said, but wouldn't it poked again? I prodded again, but wouldn't the immune response over time gradually worsen as well, showing up as inflammation, sore joints, skin issues, stomach issues, et cetera? It can cause repeated or ongoing symptoms, but does not automatically mean the immune response will steadily become worse or cause generalized inflammation throughout the body. It depends heavily on what type of allergy or immune condition that the person actually has. With a classic IgE-mediated food allergy, exposure usually causes a distinct reaction within minutes to a few hours, hive, swelling, vomiting, wheezing, throat symptoms, dizziness, or anaphylaxis. Future reactions can be more severe, milder or similar. There is no reliable pattern of gradual worsening. The dose, illness, exercise, alcohol, medications, and other factors can change the severity. Repeated small exposures may nevertheless cause recurring stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea, rashes, or eczema flares. Actually, the twins had issues with their skin too. And when we stop the dairy, it improved their skin. Persistent symptoms of exposure is frequent enough that the person never fully recovers, potentially chronic inflammation in certain specific allergic conditions, such as eosinophilic esophagitis, where food-triggered inflammation can eventually narrow or scar the exophagus. But chronic joint pain and vague whole body inflammation are not typical proof of an ordinary food allergy. Plus, I'm gonna be honest with you, my skepticism seems justified. So I wanted to read through this because I really wanted to make sure what I'm saying here is accurate.

Avoiding Triggers To Change Health

SPEAKER_00 11:19

So my suspicions were not to continue to introduce a food allergen to my kids or to myself at this point, knowing that it's gonna cause me a problem, knowing that it's gonna cause issues later on down the line. Now, on a larger scale here, you could also course-correct family disease with this information. If you know that your child is allergic to dairy, but nobody in your family has been diagnosed with a dairy allergy, most likely someone else has a dairy allergy and they just don't know. And I would bet money that that person probably has health issues. Now, I will point something out now too. My family, my immediate family has chronic high blood pressure. They have chronic high cholesterol. Everybody's on medication. I'm the only one. I am not in the greatest shape of my life, but I do eat pretty healthy. I avoid the food allergens that I know are gonna disrupt me. Dairy is a big one for me. Processed bread, processed like wheat. I'm not gonna say gluten because I don't think gluten is really a thing for me, but I know certain things like I cannot eat pasta. I can't, you know, there's certain things I just cannot consume because it just makes me feel like crap. I follow my gut here. If I don't feel good after I eat it, I am not gonna continue to eat it just for the sake of eating it. That doesn't make any sense. You can effectively change the course of your health. It does not matter if your whole family has heart disease. That doesn't matter. What matters is what you're putting in your body. If your whole family has heart disease and everybody's consuming steaks and sausage every single day up until they find out they have heart disease, I'm gonna be honest with you, you could probably avoid heart disease. Like it, the methods are there, but it is not something that is promoted by the healthcare industry. I'm not even gonna go down that path. You know, you know how you know how deep I could go here. But dieting, and I don't mean dieting, I just mean a good, clean, healthy diet where you avoid the interior of the store and you just shop on the perimeter, that's your ticket. That's your ticket to a healthier life. And same with our kids. If we notice the allergy, remove the allergen allergen. Like, let's go, let's do this better. And if somebody is pressuring you to continue to introduce the allergen to build tolerance, flat out tell them, like, no, like this is this information is not correct. Now, they quote here, like when I search this up, they do talk about an oral immunotherapy protocol where people will do this. I don't know what case somebody would do this in, though. If you know this is bothering you, then why even go down that path? You like it that boggles my mind. Look it up. I I really, really want you guys to look this up. This is interesting stuff, and it actually is really helpful to know because especially, I mean, for yourself, not even if you just have kids, not even if you have kids, like for you, your husband, like anybody, you want to be able to make the best, best health decision possible. And the only way you can do that is by staying informed. I hope you all enjoy this episode. This one's been on my list for a little while too, because it really irritated me. I am very grateful for all of you, and I hope I see you on the next one. Take care.