What is the importance of food families?
It has long being known that if you react to one member of a biological family, there is an increased risk that you might react to other members of the same family. This does not mean that if you react to beef, you will react to all other meats, but it does mean that if you react to beef, you are more likely to react to all other beef and cow products including dairy products. Another reason for considering food families is that the continual ingestion of several foods from the same family can lead to the development of sensitivity. For instance, relying heavily on vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and turnip, could lead to the development of an sensitivity to that whole food family (brassica). These statements are true statistically, but need not be true for any one individual.
