Dalia asks if peanut oil before age 2 can sensitize and cause later
allergy, then is this a food we shouldn't be giving babies until they
are over two? I would say "yes".  I don't know where I got the
advice, but I always understood that peanuts (in all forms) should
be avoided for the first few years.  It is also a food some
breastfeeding mothers need to watch.

Currently peanut butter is vitually unattainable in Australian shops
because we have recently had a massive nationwide recall due to
contamination with salmonella.  Children particularly have been very
sick, often with repeated episodes of  bloody diarrhoea.  Their
mothers unknowingly kept feeding them with the contaminated product!
They eventually traced it to mice droppings in the peanuts, but I
think the real problem is that the peanut butter is not cooked (much
or at all?) in processing so it is easy to contaminate.

Ros Escott
[log in to unmask]