Any one else dealing with food allergies?

I am allergic to dairy and shellfish. My son has crones. I would look into vegan cookbooks for dairy free and egg free. There are several cookbooks that do the top 7 allergens. You might be able to find them in the library since gluten free and vegan are popular right now. Good Luck.

I have a lot of allergies, including the ones you mentioned, while my daughter has some different ones, and my son is a vegetarian on top of that. :-)

What has helped me.
1. Often not books. Barring a few books (like nom nom paleo), allergy friendly blogs have been MUCH better and more useful. Most cookbooks I've found are really kind of bleh. I totally agree that vegan recipes are great for trying to avoid eggs and dairy, but often have wheat ingredients. And that paleo is good for no wheat and dairy, as has been said, but can have eggs.

But cooking for your allergies AND others, it gets more and more difficult to find recipes that are workable. You often end up with so many substitutions that a particular recipe ends up nasty or unusable. Or you end up having to eliminate everything that made a good flavor for your food, and so on.

2. I have been trying to make a base recipe that everyone can have, like rice or potatoes, and then make a lot of additions that can be added at the end, or afterward, different for each person. Like veggie toppings for my vegetarian son, and a chicken dish for my daughter, and beef for me (I'm allergic to chicken)

I'm allergic to soy and have to avoid other foods due to medical reasons. So I feel your pain.

I have spent a lot of time researching recipes and how to make changes and substitutions to make meals "safe" for me. I find the hardest things for me are eating foods that I don't make and hoping they won't make me ill.

I've acquired mine, salicylate, histamine, paraben and casein intolerances. I found the best thing for me was to pay for private testing because the salicylate and histamine cross reference eliminating foods on the opposite lists! I've bailed out, resorted to digestive microbes and digestive enzymes because the foods I could eat two years ago were so restricted. I was fortunate to find digestive enzymes to digest phenol group foods, salicylate comes into the phenol. I also use other supliments.

Many of my problems if not all, come down to endocrine issues which eventually come down to the thyroid, but its the adrenal/pituitary outputs or not which impact on the thyroid. I've learned so much from Stop the Thyroid Madness and our National Thyroid UK. I wish our doctors were permitted to work to the knowledge they broadcast. To be brief, a slow digestive transit as in being hypothyroid, going less than once a day can reduce the bodies ability to take up nutrition which adds to our difficulty in making enzymes and other things we should, adding to the build up of toxins which the liver etc is decreasingly able to eliminate.

I also discovered using antibiotics reduce the number of digestive microbes because these, by species and number are also targeted by the antibiotics. Pain relief such as aspirin change the balance of the gut as well. My medics did and do not seem to care.

The local endo is in conflict with the Regional Immunology understanding so I've had to go it alone, not being permitted to return to Immunology by the local PCG.

There is so much one can do for one's self, learning about the nutrients needed to enable our bodies to function better; for most of us there is hope doing this. I'd been virtually housebound for much of the last 15 years, until I started to address my issues with a BANT registered UK nutritionist two and a half years ago. Now I can virtually go where I wish, I no longer need to keep out of the garden because of the neighbours laundry back wash, or decomposing leaves. I've not braved a concert or other public performance as yet but the grand children are so much older and do not take part in the productions they used to.

We each find our own answers, doing what it takes to get our lives back. Wishing everyone well who has problems with the modern environment, foods and everything else.

I've got a tree nut allergy. (specifically almonds, but I avoid all tree nuts)

I've also got an oral allergy to raw pineapple and raw plums. It's just an annoyance, as the worst that will happen is my mouth feels itchy. And cooked or canned is fine.

Eggs, mango, pistachio, cashew and crustaceans. A lot are recent, in the last four years or so. Eggs are definitely the most annoying, and cashew I encounter the most. Crustacean was the saddest, shrimp used to be my favorite. Eating out is sometimes a nightmare, but my friends have mostly gotten used to me asking over and over again what's in something, or having to make special restaurant requests. I've taken to hosting more, and cooking more in general. Pizza is fortunately a very safe food, haha, not that it fits my diet super well all the time!

Key for me has to get better at just politely saying 'no'. I'm so used to being polite and accepting food but now it's just, y'know, life-threatening. If I'm not sure, I just decline.

ree2lose wrote: »

I have a bad oral allergy. Pretty much cannot eat any raw fruits or vegetables, they have to be cooked or canned.

Just in case, have you ever been tested for a mast cell activation disorder? Mostly I ask because as I understand OAS, it should not actually impact all fruits and veggies, only some of them. But MCAD can cause the body to react to significantly more, so that some folks with it react to all raw fruits and veggies (some folks even when cooked 0.0 )

But it's not well known (even online, the information is pretty off and not that helpful), so most doctors don't test for it, or if they do, they aren't aware of what tests are actually available now. There are some good support groups for mcad/mcas/mast cell disorders on facebook where folks have recommendations for doctors that are knowledgable enough to at least test, if you are interested.

Good luck!

I have one son with a tree nut and formerly egg allergy, and my other little guy in the past was allergic to wheat, corn, peanuts, strawberries, sesame and cinnamon. Thankfully he outgrew all of those (!) and is now only dealing with environmental allergies and asthma. My own allergy testing revealed possible allergies to wheat, eggs and yellow squash.

Overall I haven't found these allergies too challenging to work around once I got used to them. Veggies, meats and rice are all safe. I eat low carb/high fat/adequate protein now anyway, so the wheat is minimal. I do still eat tree nuts but only when my allergic son isn't around and I keep them on a high shelf in a labeled container so a baby-sitter doesn't accidentally give them to him or anything like that. (Or I'll take a package of cashews to work with me for times when I need a quick snack.) Our dinners are often meat or fish with 2 different veggies, a chef salad or grilled chicken salad, or something like that.