anyone have a kid with food allergies?

[scrappinsweetie]

gabe is allergic to milk and eggs and soy (but the allergist said to just keep the soy at the level we have it and do not add anymore soy to his diet. so no soy milk for milk.) i am really struggling with recipes here. anyone able to point me in some good direction or have some they are willing to share?

[lauren grier]

check out the organic/natural sections in your local market.. mine is loaded with stuff that ce can eat. He's on a modified gluten free diet- plus allergic to dairy (and was at one point allergic to rice not fun- and some other minor things that don't really impact anything lol). Anyway.. they have a TON of allergen free lines out there- baking supplies, and snacks etc. Makes it way easier on mama :]

[scrappinsweetie]

i am going to do that but i will be honest, we dont' even have a natural food store here! we live in rural ks and it is going to be a pita!

[lauren grier]

this is just in my regular market :] I don't go to the whole foods type places.. too dang expensive! lol

[meganmecrazy]

Aaron is allergic to tree nuts, spirulina (which they have been putting in more products lately) and we are about to find out more when he goes to the allergist in the next couple months.

As far as milk, what about Rice Milk or Almond Milk. HERE (http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/free_food_allergy_recipes.html) is some recipes for kids with food allergies.

[scrappinsweetie]

yes, rice and almond milk is doable but the issue is finding it here. walmart does not carry it and i am going to check with the only other grocery store (dillons) and see if they have it. thanks for the link, i am off to check it out!

[Darcy Baldwin]

You might want to check with some of the farmers in the area for goat & sheep milk as well. Oft times a milk allergy is generally confined to the cow variety. You'll be able to do cheese that way, as well! Our oldest grew out of his milk allergy, but we still tend to eat more goat/sheep cheese than that from a cow because we love it!

[Emmy]

check out "sofie safe cooking" on amazon. It's pretty good. I've also had great luck with vegan cookbooks - I particularly The Joy of Vegan Baking.

The best thing to do to adjust to eating with allergies is to change your mindset about 2 things:

- the majority of foods you eat need to be whole foods. There are tons of things your son can eat - fruits, veggies, hummus, pita bread, ritz, graham crackers, bagels, dry cereal, oatmeal, some granola bars, fruit snacks, chicken, hamburgers, etc, etc etc. The thing is - most of them will be whole foods, not prepared foods.

- you need to cook from scratch. You aren't going to find muffins or doughnuts or read to eat stuff that he can eat unless you drive to a specialty store and even then it's going to be really expensive. If you cook everything yourself then you should be able to adapt.

Oh last tip - my boys are calling - check Amazon's grocery section, when I first started out I bought snack stuff from there by the case cause I could get it shipped to me.

[Emmy]

Darcy - that surprises me. What I've hard is that goats milk is so close in composition to cow that most people allergic to one can't have the other. I've never tried goat milk with Sam though.

[lauren grier]

Darcy - that surprises me. What I've hard is that goats milk is so close in composition to cow that most people allergic to one can't have the other. I've never tried goat milk with Sam though.

I'm pretty sure it depends on t he severity of the allergy and what exactly is the trigger. Obviously they all have lactose in them.. ~ so if that is an issue it's still a no no.. but most true milk allergies are to the milk proteins~not he milk sugars.. so then you can cross and try different animals milks.

[lauren grier]

oh and yes... emmy had a good point. I'm pretty sure the fact that I am a vegan makes it easier for me to deal with things ^_^

I will say though.. I barely ever bake anything, and kids don't NEED cupcakes, and donuts, and cookies, and all those other things. It's about finding alternatives-- donuts are bad bad anyway :)) I wouldn't let ce eat them even if he didn't have his allergies.

[Darcy Baldwin]

We were able to transition Connor right to it and never had a problem with him at all. But the minute we gave him cow's milk, it was instantaneous. Granted, his was a bit different since it was an allergy that disappeared with age. It took awhile longer for him not to react to eggs (which I can still never figure out why they seem to be lumped together when they aren't remotely alike LOL). But he's allergy free now (as far as food is concerned LOL)

[lauren grier]

I just remembered the name of one of the product lines @ my market..

http://www.enjoylifefoods.com/index.php they even have cookies ^_^ if you really want those lol (ce has tried the cookies, he approved :p ) their products are gluten free, soy free, dairy free, nut free, casein free foods

eta: you can buy them online & there is a store locator

[Emmy]

Yeah my understanding was that the milk protein in cow's milk and goat's milk are extremely similar.

Sam's allergy is highly severe though.


I think avoiding eggs is harder than milk because of the baking. Sam seems to have outgrown his egg allergy now so I can bake muffins or cookies more easily now.

[lauren grier]

yeh my brother was allergic to eggs.. tres suckage..

oh that link I posted-- is also egg free ^_^ I forgot that in the list. I'm not 100% sure that ALL of them are egg free.. but they'll say it obviously. I just clicked a random cookie and it was vegan -- so no eggies.

[lauren grier]

Yeah my understanding was that the milk protein in cow's milk and goat's milk are extremely similar.



lol yeh tbh I never really looked into it cause ce isn't allergic to soy ^_^ my understanding is very vague

[scrappinsweetie]

thanks girls. i do do 99% of my cooking from scratch. i rarely buy boxed stuff. but we are farmers/ranchers and therefore eat a lot of meat, potatoes and gravy...LOL you know the not good for you supposenly stuff. we eat a lot of meatloaf and meatballs too which are both made with egg and milk so i am looking to use gelatin for the eggs and rice milk for the milk in them. the allergist told me about using non-flavored gelatin in place of the eggs.

[Emmy]

You will like the sophie safe cooking book - it's very basic recipes.

To bind your meatballs you can use flaxseed and water (grind flaxseed then whip it up with water in your blender). There is no real sub for gravy sadlly. :p

You will want to find a "butter" that you can use to bake or cook with - I think Earth Balance is the best tasting one out there. Smart balance light is also good but can't be used for cooking the way Earth balance can.

I have subbed apple juice in pancake, doughnut and muffin recipes instead of milk and it tastes pretty good. One warning - if you sub vanilla flavored rice milk in a baked product it tastes weird!

HTH

[scrappinsweetie]

what about regular rice milk? aaron just found vanilla flavored and reg. flavored at a town about an hour away and he picked up one of each.

[Emmy]

Use the regular in something to bake and drink the vanilla. The vanilla flavor baked tastes sort of burned - it's weird.

[Darcy Baldwin]

Yeah - definitely don't bake with the vanilla LOL Flavored milks also tend to be a lot sweeter, which can also cause problems.

And I second the recommendation to go with flax seed and water for egg replacement. It's cheaper than gelatin, but it needs to be stored in the fridge. But it's SOOOOOOO healthy for you, and works great. You can get it at Walmart - it's in with the flours, and it's about $2 or less for a big box that will last you quite awhile.

[scrappinsweetie]

ok, i will check out the flax seed. is it hard to use?

[amandabarugh]

what about regular rice milk? aaron just found vanilla flavored and reg. flavored at a town about an hour away and he picked up one of each.

I'm fairly certain that unless you have a small Walmart that they should carry Rice Dream. I've bought it there before, and I also live in a small, ruralish town. We don't have a milk protein allergy, but Ian does have intolerances to citrus, kiwi, and peanuts. He will break out in rash, almost immediately, in the diaper area that then spreads to the rest of his body. He also have sensitivities to avocado oil if it sits on his skin for too long, but he has really sensitive skin. We have to be really careful what we wash his clothes, especially his diapers, in.

Also, coconut oil can be substituted for butter in cooking and baking recipes. Banana can replace egg, or so I've been told by my vegan friends. I just use flax seed like everyone else, but that's only for a few recipes. We are egg eaters here.

[Darcy Baldwin]

ok, i will check out the flax seed. is it hard to use?

Nope - not at all :) It's already ground, you just mix it with water (the directions are even on the box) and use it as an egg substitute. I also put it in just about EVERYTHING I can. It's great for omega-3 fatty acids! I just sprinkle it on top of oatmeal, put it in meatballs/spaghetti sauce, baked goods, smoothies, etc.

[scrappinsweetie]

hmmm i didn't think about coconut oil for the butter. anyone tried that? i know applesauce can replace egg in baking as well or is that oil it replaces, ugh i can't remember..LOL

[amandabarugh]

hmmm i didn't think about coconut oil for the butter. anyone tried that? i know applesauce can replace egg in baking as well or is that oil it replaces, ugh i can't remember..LOL

I use coconut oil all the time! :)

[scrappinsweetie]

ok, so you use it just like butter when cooking? say i am saute veggies, do you use it for that or just in baking?

[Darcy Baldwin]

Applesauce can replace oil. I'm not sure if it's a good enough binding agent to replace egg.

Coconut oil definitely works to replace butter, and it's becoming a new hot thing - lots of people are starting to use it. I can't get past the idea that it's coconut anything :P lol So I haven't tried it.

[scrappinsweetie]

ok, a stupid ? here but i looked on the brand of spaghetti, macaroni, and lasagna noodles that i use and none of them contain egg but they are processed in a factory that uses eggs. he was not highly allergic to egg (a 9 and the scale went to 19 or 20) but she said to try to cut out using eggs. if i cut out the milk in those recipes using the products do you think it is ok to go ahead and use the noodles?

[dana]

my daughter has peanut/tree nut allergies ... but compared to other allergies i feel like it's not too difficult to deal with that!

this blog (http://www.foodallergymama.com/) has a bunch of yummy recipes that are dairy, nut and egg free (and it looks like she says soy or rice milk in lots of the recipes, so that should work) ... she lives in my neighborhood right next door to one of my friends ... i've had the 'chocolate' chip cookies - they were AWESOME!! and totally dairy/egg/nut free :) she also has a cookbook (http://www.amazon.com/Food-Allergy-Mamas-Baking-Book/dp/1572841028/) that will be coming out soon ...

[scrappinsweetie]

thank you for posting that! i am off to look at it now :)

do you girls think that anything that says soy milk can be replaced with rice milk with no problems?

[lauren grier]

ok, a stupid ? here but i looked on the brand of spaghetti, macaroni, and lasagna noodles that i use and none of them contain egg but they are processed in a factory that uses eggs. he was not highly allergic to egg (a 9 and the scale went to 19 or 20) but she said to try to cut out using eggs. if i cut out the milk in those recipes using the products do you think it is ok to go ahead and use the noodles?

if he's not severely allergic you could try it... just to see how he reacts etc. As long as he doesn't have like a life threatening reaction to these things imo it's ok.

[scrappinsweetie]

ha! he doesn't have life threatening for any of the ones listed. fact is we are on a 6 week trial to see if it actually makes a difference. she wants him off for 6 weeks then we can start adding back in and see if there are any symptoms that we notice or if the stuff we are dealing with is from the other allergies like trees and molds, ect. he starts allergy shots at the end of the this month for that stuff.

[Leila]

I don't really have much to add. Devin's got minor allergies to strawberries and mustard, both of which are easy to avoid. JP grew out of his milk allergy and seems to have outgrown his soy allergy too. He started goat's milk at age 2 and drank it until he was 5 with no problems.

Recently though, we had a missionary in our area who had several severe food allergies including dairy, fish, wheat, nuts and beef. In my search for recipes, I stumbled onto this site Cooking Allergy Free (http://www.cookingallergyfree.com/). When you register, you tell them what the allergies are. Then when you plug in a recipe, it'll tell you if any allergens are present in the recipe. They also have a bunch of recipes up already, so you can search by ingredient (say chicken), and it will tell you which chicken recipes are safe/not safe.

[scrappinsweetie]

thank you leila. that site looks pretty cool :)

[scrappinsweetie]

well good news to report. he actually likes the vanilla rice milk!!!! one hurdle down, now to tackle more...LOL i am at least happy he will drink it and get part of the vitamins he needs :)

[Emmy]

I would not hesitate to use stuff that "manufactured in the same facility" if his allergies are minor. IF he likes the vanilla rice milk you are half way there - that's the hard part! :)

[MissKim]

Not sure where you are in KS, but Wichita has a couple of Whole Foods. I swear our Walmart here has soy milk, too, but maybe it's because we're in Wichita, and there's a higher demand for it.

[dana]

I would not hesitate to use stuff that "manufactured in the same facility" if his allergies are minor. IF he likes the vanilla rice milk you are half way there - that's the hard part! :)

i agree ... we do this with nut products - no problems so far :) our allergist said it was our decision, but that the risk was low that we would get a nut and that we would drive ourselves crazy if we took everything out of her diet ... also, we have the epi-pen at all times just in case ...

[lovely1m]

One of my nieces had allergies to wheat, gluten, eggs and I forget what else (I am just her aunt, didn't cook much for her as a baby) and my sister lived in a very rural area. She had to drive to buy all the stuff my niece needed. Maybe you can talk your local store into carrying the things you find work best for you? My niece outgrew her allergies though. I can't imagine how hard it can be. Its bad enough in my house with me being a vegetarian.

[CA Dreamer]

My sister makes ice cream with rice milk for her son and also makes some cakes/cookies that he is able to eat. I can get her recipe if you like.

[scrappinsweetie]

that would be great! Thank you for offering to do that :)