Why are there so many allergies?

I was reading an international paper the other day and noticed, with alarm, how in recent weeks, the UK and the US have been recalling so many food items from their supermarket shelves.

- Birjees Hussain

The reasons are related to either the risk of allergens or of choking on plastic fragments from the containers breaking and accidentally getting mixed in with the contents of the packaging.

For example a brand of ice cream was recalled due to the risk it could cause a severe allergic reaction because it didn’t list the ingredients properly and could contain milk, soya and nuts (specifically pistachio and peanuts). A certain brand of crisps was also being recalled over a potential allergy to milk.

A brand of deodorant sticks was recalled in the US because they contained trace amounts of Benzene, which was causing children to get high, and because Benzene is a potential cancer risk. But to be clear, Benzene is not an ingredient found in deodorants. It is, however, produced during the pressurisation process of the cans in which they are sold, but in this case, something went wrong during the process.