Like, I suspect, a number of foodish types, I’ve tended to be a bit dismissive of food allergies. I’d hear reports of school-wide peanut butter bans and unapologetic parents canceling play dates because there was milk in the house and roll my eyes. I’ve been tempering this attitude, though, as I discover that a number of my friends and people I care about bring their own food allergies to the table, often without me even knowing it.

My buddy Ross, one of the most badass guys I know, takes a lactase pill before we go out for pizza so the cheese doesn’t bring about the extreme discomfort of lactose intolerance. My friend Briana has a much more severe anaphylactic reaction to dairy, where even a soy latte that’s been prepped with a spoon that previously touched cream sends her to the emergency room.

And then there are my friends John and Amy Jane, whose boy Jonas is one of the most awesome six-year-olds you’ll ever meet. The kid loves superheroes and will fight you in a duel to the death in imagined gunfights, provided you’re willing to run through the muggy streets of Philadelphia to do it. He’s got a quick wit, as you’d expect if you know his folks, and a fearless attitude. The only thing that keeps him from being an otherwise normal kid, and what keeps his parents a little more on edge than most, is his severe dairy allergy. Amy Jane is raising money for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network and wrote a funny and moving piece about her son. Even if you can’t contribute to her goal, I hope you’ll give it a read.

Food allergies are a bit mysterious. They are often caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors that lead to the body rejecting, sometimes violently, the very things we put in to nourish it. They can be caused by the introduction of new foods at a very young age — milk, eggs and nuts before the age of one can lead to allergic reactions. Sometimes they linger for life, sometimes they disappear after childhood, sometimes they show up in adults.

They can be caused by the crapshoot of genetics and how well you picked your ancient ancestors. The ability to produce lactase, the enzyme that breaks down the lactose sugar found in milk, is actually the exception, not the rule, in human adults. Scandinavians and most northern Europeans do ok with dairy, but those numbers drop as you go south; people of African descent are more than twice as likely to be lactose intolerant than tolerant. ¹

We seem to hear a lot more about food allergies these days than ever before and that, too, is mysterious. It may be that we’re better at spotting them, it may be that we as a species haven’t caught up to globalization, it may be that there’s something about our modern approach to diet and food production that is causing a noticeable uptick in food-related allergies. Like other modern afflictions, though, food allergies suffer from a lack of understanding and awareness. I hope you’ll consider supporting my friend Amy Jane as she tries to raise a little money but more importantly awareness about her awesome son and his decidedly unawesome allergies.