> There was a period of a few decades (I guess still ongoing, really) where parents sheltered their kids from everything. The hygiene hypothesis is not impossi

> There was a period of a few decades (I guess still ongoing, really) where parents sheltered their kids from everything. The hygiene hypothesis is not impossible, but evidence for and against it is questionable. But anyway, for peanuts it's not the hygiene. It's a much more complex mechanism that retrains your immune system from using the non-specific rapid-response allergic reaction to the T-cell-mediated response. The same method can be used to desensitize yourself to poison oak or ivy. You need to add small amounts of them into your food, and eventually you stop having any reaction to urushiol contact with the skin.