Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Regarding Food Allergies


Considering Those with Food Allergies — Life As Mom

     I can't count the times that a scenario like this has happened:
     We are eating away from home, or having a potluck in our home, with food prepared by others. (I usually don't expect others to cook around our family's allergy issues, as they can be quite complicated. I just make enough and then if there are other things there that are "safe", then it's a bonus!) Someone will overhear me telling an allergic child "No, you can't have that, it has _____ in it." The someone will ask, and I will explain what my child is allergic to. Well-meaning someone will then say "I made this ___ and it doesn't have any ___ in it." and then offer a piece/spoonful/helping to my child. The last time it was cookies that didn't have milk. (and if you're reading this, it wasn't you- we were far away and it was someone we've never met before or since! (0; ) My child smiled a huge sparkly smile and almost took a bite. I stopped her and asked, truly interested because I'm always on the lookout for new substitutes to use in our allergy-free cooking adventures (for example, using Crisco won't work for the ones in our family that can't have corn or soy. I usually use coconut oil.), "What did you use instead of butter?" and the answer was: "Oh! Just butter! That makes the best cookies!" I agree, it makes great cookies! But butter is MILK! When you're not used to thinking in allergy-mode, you think of milk as the white stuff in a plastic jug. If you didn't pour white stuff from a plastic jug into your cookie dough, then your cookies don't have milk. But when you're thinking in allergy-mode, there can't be any butter, the chocolate chips can't have "butterfat" or "whey" or "lactose" listed in the ingredients, and so on.

     I have a friend whose son is VERY allergic to peanuts. To the point that if there are 2 pans of brownies, one with peanut butter, one without, sitting side by side (the sans-peanut butter ones being graciously provided to accommodate his allergies), and someone unwittingly mixes the serving forks, and his non-peanut butter brownie is put on his plate with the peanut butter brownie fork, he gets a fast ride to the ER, and that family's day of socializing is over.
     When you're in non-allergy-land, their refusal to eat what you are sure you didn't pour milk into, or stir peanut butter into (did you know that a lot of pre-made chicken nuggets are fried in peanut oil? Or that fish sticks have milk in them? and that canned tuna has soy?) isn't about them not trusting you, or not believing you. They're not trying to be rude. But there are a lot of things that just aren't worth ending with you saying "I didn't know", or finding out that little Johnny or Susie mixed up the serving forks.
     I don't always accept offers to cook or provide food for our family, because unless I know you are familiar with just how much you have to read the labels and decode the names of the ingredients (did you know that maltodextrin is derived from corn? and that baking powder has cornstarch in it?), sometimes it's just not worth it. Sometimes I do, especially if I know what you're making, and I'm familiar with the way you usually think about food, and sometimes I don't.
     I'm still wondering what to do about the potluck situations like the one we had a while back: It was a crowd of 30-40 people, most of whom were strangers. I planned all "safe" foods for our family, and figured we could walk through the buffet line that was set up, and only take things from our own serving dishes. It would have worked, (I think) except for the sweet old lady who  "helped me out" by adding 2 sticks of butter to both my lima beans and my mashed potatoes, and prebuttered all the bread I had baked with no milk. She really was sweet and trying to help, but we ended up with a few hungry children, and had to leave early to feed them.
     What would you do?? Please, let me know in the comments!

13 comments:

  1. My dad has food allergies, and my mom will just take food for him, even to family gatherings. It's enough that he won't go hungry, but he can also supplement if there is something okay that others have made.

    I think it's an overall problem with our pre-packaged culture that we often have no clue what's in our food. We're detached from what we put inside ourselves. I had NO IDEA about baking powder!

    We figured out that our Bamm-Bamm is allergic to tree nuts (not life-threatening, thank goodness). Certainly very low on the annoyance scale compared to other foods, but it's definitely made me more vigilant.

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    1. So you did nail it down to nuts? Did his rambles by our garden and chicken house help narrow it down? :0) I'm glad that now you know, and that it's in a time/place that more are aware of allergies, so that you *can* avoid! That's what I keep reminding myself- what if we were dealing with this 50 years ago? That's when packaged food was becoming so prevalent, but, as far as I know, food allergies/sensitivities weren't on the radar like they are now. Now we have choices, even in packaged foods!

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    2. He did NOT get worse after crawling around the chicken coop, so that was a good sign. I'm too nervous to test it definitively, but I'm pretty convinced he allergic to both walnuts and pecans. It's the only thing that fits. But his rash got so bad that I can't bear the thought of inflicting it again :(

      Have you been to Whole Foods yet? They seem to have a TON of food for special diets. Not sure if the price is right, but there's definitely selection.

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    3. Yay! I'm glad he didn't get worse from the crawling around- that would've been miserable. Walnuts and pecans will be easier to avoid :0) What we've done before with elimination diets, rather than re-expose to what we think we've narrowed it down to, is just keep avoiding that food, and make sure there's exposure to other things. If he gets no more rash after avoiding those nuts, then I'd say it's safe to say that's what caused it. Then, later, you can try re-exposure. With one of ours, who had a really fast "hives" reaction, we waited about a year before re-exposure. They still got hives. We waited another year, tried again, and no hives! Some allergies are outgrown. Of course, there's always Dr. testing too, if you want to do that to be sure.
      Thanks for the reminder about Whole Foods! I'd forgotten that it was being built... I'll have to add that to our agenda for our next field trip day :0)

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  3. Oh dear Shannon. I do miss you and wish we could get together and giggle about these things together. You're the only other person I know that goes through these things as a multiple-allergy household. I've learned a few helpful tips, we should share ideas. By the way, have you tried palm shortening yet for those cookies?
    I had a sweet old lady want to give me a sample of something she fried up. She assured me it was free of the list I told her of the absolute no-nos. As I was putting the first bite in my mouth I asked with amazed interest how she managed to batter it so well without the eggs. First bite in-"Oh, well of course I used eggs to batter it, how else?" I confirmed with a grateful smile that it was delicious, but that I'll give the rest to my eldest. Then quickly went for my Enzymedica supplement.

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    1. Oh Amanda! WHAT do we do with these sweet people?!?! When I was a vegetarian and someone served me chicken noodle soup that they had picked all the chicken chunks out of, I had the option of graciously accepting their hard work, even though it was against my preferences. But this is different! Once, when we only knew of the corn allergy, someone served us a Mexican supper, and proudly showed us the organic corn chips they had found for our corn-allergic person, sure that since they were organic, they would be ok! I felt so bad for refusing, and they WERE hurt/insulted... HOW do we handle this? Or the people who assume that if the (egg, milk, corn, carrot...) is cooked, then it's safe? Thankfully, so far, my children that have known allergies are aware enough of the "hidden" allergens and other people's unawareness to double check with me, and often to tell a grown-up "that has milk in it" (right, Janelle? (0; ) I still feel bad for shooting down their efforts, though.

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  4. glad it wasn't me! so no ideas here... just makes me thankful for no food allergies which i take for granted. well, walnuts but that's nothing compared you all yours!!! xoxo

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    1. Nope, not you! :0) I've been so grateful for the way yomelt *me* see the ingredients labels, sometimes it's hard to be sure a person who is assuring me that they checked and it has no milk is remembering to look for all the names milk can be under (caseinate, whey, lactose, lactic acid...), and I'm not worried that you'll get hurt feelings either :0)

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    2. wow autocorrect! How did "you let" become "yomelt"??

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  5. You know how people always label their dishes for ease of cleanup? Perhaps you could label each of your dishes...

    "prepared for allergy specific children"
    EVENSONs

    Don't take the cover off until you're ready to serve. It may take you "guarding" said dishes until distribution.
    I always appreciate your input and/or bringing food. It takes the guesswork out of it for me. =^}

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  6. How about getting some partitioned plates with lids. You could prepare each child with allergies their plate before you leave home and just label them with their names.

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  7. Both good ideas - thank you! :0)
    I'm always glad when people come up with thoughts like these, helps me to realize that not everyone is insulted by our seeming "fussiness" over food :0)

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