Food Allergies and Whale Meat

(from "ISANA" No. 8, 1993)

Tomoyuki Chiba
 Pediatrics Tokyo Medical College


In recent years, researchers in a variety of disciplines and opinion leaders have reported on a great many physical and mental disorders in children. One of these disorders relates to allergies. According to a recent study by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, one in every three people in Japan is afflicted with some form of allergic disorder. Listed as possible causes of the increasing number of allergic complaints are: (1) changing natural environment - air and water pollution; (2) changing housing environment - high-rise buildings, aluminum-sash doors, and windows; (3) changing living environment - air conditioning, household pets; (4) changing eating habitats - a food distribution system that has led to the disappearance of "seasonal" foods; (5) increasing complexities of social structure - various types of stress; (6) proliferation of chemicals in the environment - cosmetics, agricultural chemicals, and drugs.

Allergic episodes are believed to be triggered by a complex interaction of hereditary factors known as the "atopic constitution" and environmental factors. Efforts are being made by allergy specialists and others to elucidate the pathology of allergies and alleviate their symptoms. Following a series of studies in this direction, it has become widely accepted that foods play a major role in triggering and aggravating allergic reactions.

In Japan, the high-protein and high-fat diets of the postwar period have greatly improved children's physiques. These diets, however, have also heightened their susceptibilities to allergies, so much so that "food allergies", which involve hypersensitive reactions to ingested foods, have become a major health problem. Among common foodstuffs, milk, eggs, and soybeans are regarded as three major allergy-causing agents, or allergens. The basic treatment for allergy sufferers involves eliminating these foods from the diet and substituting other foods in their place until the body develop a tolerance to the allergens and they are able to consume these foods safely. Many of the foods that cause allergies, however, provide important nutrients, and it is often very difficult to find adequate substitutes in serious allergy cases.

We, thus, turned our attention to whale meat. For older generations of Japanese, whale meat elicits fond recollections. I myself remember having whale meat in school for lunch. We conducted a study by interviewing mothers who had given whale meat as a substitute food to their children suffering from allergies. The results convinced us that whale meat was an excellent food for treating allergic disorders.

Unfortunately, since commercial whaling has been banned, whale meat is no longer readily available to the general public. We tried various possibilities, but it was very difficult to obtain good-quality whale meat at a reasonable price.

We had almost given up on whale meat when we heard about research whaling. With the hope that we might be able to receive an allocation of whale meat, we went to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and made an appeal. We handed in a request for a low-price allocation of whale meat and were introduced by an official to the Institute of Cetacean Research. Fortunately, the response to our petition was favorable. However, we were a little concerned when we learned that the minimum unit of transaction was one ton. None of us had ever thought of purchasing, preserving, and selling a whole ton of whale meat.

The problem, though, was somehow solved, and we were able to offer our patients good-quality minke whale meat. The hospitalized children were hesitant at first about eating this type of meat, but soon came to like it a great deal, which pleased us staff members.

At present, we distribute whale meat to those who request it. Children who suffer from food allergies, however, are dispersed throughout the country, and many mothers are not aware that they can obtain whale meat at a reasonable price from us. Nor do they realize the progress we have made in our efforts to make it available.

Subsequently, we met with members of the Canadian delegation to the IWC and appealed to them for a renewal of commercial whaling in the interest of helping allergy victims. The effort was not successful.

However, since we hear that whale stocks are increasing each year, we anticipate that the moratorium on commercial whaling will be lifted in the near future. We greatly appreciate the efforts being made by all parties on this matter, and hope that further steps will be taken to promote the consumption of whale meat and to increase its supply, not just to provide substitute diets for allergy victims, but also to meet the demand for whale meat as a health food.

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