--- title: Eating Eggs and Peanuts Early Lowers Risk of Food Allergies description: Food allergies have doubled in recent years, but evidence suggests that feeding kids peanuts and eggs early reduces risk canonical: https://time.com/4501203/peanuts-food-allergy/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-20T15:04:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:42:49.470Z article:section: Health og:title: Eating Eggs and Peanuts Early Lowers Risk of Food Allergies og:description: Food allergies have doubled in recent years, but evidence suggests that feeding kids peanuts and eggs early reduces risk og:url: https://time.com/4501203/peanuts-food-allergy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf99625a7521258d/6988a6ca428a9efb7fcd4525/peanuts.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Roasted peanuts og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Eating Eggs and Peanuts Early Lowers Risk of Food Allergies twitter:description: Food allergies have doubled in recent years, but evidence suggests that feeding kids peanuts and eggs early reduces risk twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf99625a7521258d/6988a6ca428a9efb7fcd4525/peanuts.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Babies Should Eat Eggs and Peanuts Early to Avoid Food Allergies  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 20, 2016 3:04 PM UTC  Getty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Sep 20, 2016 3:04 PM UTC When babies eat certain foods early in life—the kinds so many end up allergic to, like eggs and peanuts—they’re less likely to develop allergies to those foods later on, finds a [new analysis](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jama.2016.12623) published in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_ (_JAMA_). This is relatively new thinking. Not so long ago, in 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that allergenic foods be kept away from infants until they were at least a year old, and often older. That warning was especially strong for those with a family history of allergies. But, as an editorial published in the same issue of _JAMA_ points out, in the next decade, food allergy prevalence nearly doubled in the United States. That advice has been amended, and newer evidence has shown that introducing foods earlier is actually better for preventing food allergies. The authors of the just-published study reviewed all of the available evidence on the topic and included 146 studies in their final analysis. They found evidence of “moderate certainty” that introducing peanuts early, between ages 4 and 11 months, is linked to a reduction in the risk of developing a peanut allergy. Eggs, too, showed this association when they were introduced between ages 4 and 6 months. Early introduction of another common allergen, fish, was also linked to less allergy—possibly due to the anti-inflammatory effects of omega-3s—though evidence for this link wasn’t as certain. Early introduction didn’t seem to make a difference for autoimmune diseases, at least according to the available evidence; eating gluten young wasn’t associated with the risk of developing celiac disease. Exactly why is a question researchers are still exploring. “It is not clear that it is the specific early introduction of an allergenic food that renders immunological protection, rather than the accompanying increased diversity in the diet that occurs as a by-product,” writes Dr. Matthew Greenhawt, an allergy and immunology specialist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, in the accompanying editorial. More research is necessary to figure out the ideal amounts of these allergens, the optimum times of introduction and the reasons behind the link. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4501203/peanuts-food-allergy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4501203/peanuts-food-allergy/"},"headline":"Babies Should Eat Eggs and Peanuts Early to Avoid Food Allergies","datePublished":"2016-09-20T15:04:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:42:49.470Z","description":"Food allergies have doubled in recent years, but evidence suggests that feeding kids peanuts and eggs early reduces risk","url":"https://time.com/4501203/peanuts-food-allergy/","keywords":["Diet & Nutrition","diet","Peanuts","allergies","celiac disease","allergy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf99625a7521258d/6988a6ca428a9efb7fcd4525/peanuts.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf99625a7521258d/6988a6ca428a9efb7fcd4525/peanuts.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Roasted peanuts","caption":"Roasted peanuts","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/dietnutrition/","name":"Diet & Nutrition"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4501203/peanuts-food-allergy/","name":"Babies Should Eat Eggs and Peanuts Early to Avoid Food Allergies"}}]}] ```