We're Moving

I am moving my blog over to www.webringourowncake.com. This way my sisters and I can all post on the same site, we can start building recipes and other resources for food allergies. Please continue watching us blog at  www.webringourowncake.com and watch as we grow and expand. Please let us know things you'd like to see in a website too.

Thanks!

Dreaded Marketing Label

While shopping for household groceries as well as supplies for my sisters' (gluten free, dairy free, egg free, corn free, legume free) Baby Shower, I came across this: "New Improved Taste" on a coconut milk carton (this is a staple in all our households). While very please they announced they changed something (it's really annoying to not check a product we've deemed "safe" only to learn they recently changed an ingredient - thus suffering the consequences), I was also dismayed they changed anything. Why change a good thing?!

So my next task was to try and figure out what  they changed and if it was still a safe food for my family. They reorganized their ingredient label (ingredients, vitamins & minerals, allergens). Other than that it seem pretty close to what I could remember. I looked up Carrageenan and wasn't sure if our son had ever had that before. It  has potential to cause a reaction. I was unsure.

Then, after wrangling a 3.5 yr old back to my side, I remembered my husband is at home sick! Who knew I'd be excited about that?! I called him and asked him to read the milk label from the fridge to me. The change was from "evaporated cane juice" to "cane sugar" and the sugar moved to the number 2 spot on the list rather than the number 4 spot. By the way, that's not improved taste, that's simply sweetening it. 

Disappointed they increased sugar content, and happy our son can still drink it, I proceeded to place 1 carton into our cart. It will safely serve its purpose for baking for the baby shower. I have to decide now if I'm willing to continue giving this even sweeter drink to my son. This will likely mean looking at tons of coconut milk labels to see if any other brands will even work! 

Foreign Food and Allergies

I've been thinking lately of  how blessed I am to be handling these family food allergies in my country of origin. I can read and fully understand the language, I recognize and know the foods and packages in the grocery stores, I can read the ingredient labels with a somewhat full understanding of what is listed (I'm even learning those sneaky words!).

I tip my hat to all of you out there who are handling your own food allergies in a language not native to your tongue, in a country where even the food containers look different, and the entire shopping experience is different. I commend your bravery and encourage you to keep persevering. Feel free to comment and share your story!

Children of the Corn

We've been feeling pretty good about how we are handling our food allergies. We even have a variety of foods both shared and individually! This is quite the improvement from a year ago. Then my husband decided to try something...

My husband is allergic to corn. We've learned that his life long depression and anger are from eating corn and legumes. He's gotten a pretty good handle on what foods are safe, which are not, where he can eat out and when he needs to abstain. He recently has been trying to make better and more complicated bread or baked products for the family. This led to the use of xantham gum. Then we heard (or read) that xamtham gum is made from corn.

He decided to test it. He thought that since it's in such small amounts in baking, maybe his system could handle it. He was smart. First, he put a couple teaspoons mixed with water onto his hand. That was it. He thought that wouldn't provoke much (if any) reaction. He would experiment with actually ingesting it from there. He was wrong. He had a VERY STRONG reaction to the xantham gum paste on his hand. He was grumpy that evening, and was so grumpy the next morning that I took the kids and left the house 45mins early!

This revelation led to a new thought. Our daughter seems to have the same reactions to corn and legumes as he does. Does this mean that their moods could possibly improve even more if we ensure corn does not touch their skin as well!? This is both an exciting and a daunting thought. Exciting, because while they are doing very well, it could just be that much better, right? Daunting because corn is in EVERYTHING! This means we're looking at toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, hand soap, body soap, laundry detergent, dish detergent...

I've done some Internet searching and found huge lists of "hidden" corn names. Then (thankfully this brain can still be taught) I realized it would be easier to look up "corn free" products rather than look at every single toothpaste label in the grocery store.

I've narrowed it down to 3 toothpaste choices, 1 or 2 deodorant choices (depends on how "manly" he feels he needs to smell), have a message in to a manufacturer to see if all my soap woes can be taken care of with one base product...

All this has led me to think (many many many time over the past year), "What in the world did people do before the internet?!" I am overwhelmed with the thinks I didn't know and have learned (via ineternet) and by the information I need to access safe foods and products for  my family. I actually have thanked God for Amazon.com. I ask again, what in the world did people do before the internet? I have immediate access to information, I have immediate contact with people. I don't know how I would do this without the internet and my smart phone.

Daddy and the kids baking (you can see a leg on the counter. That's our son)

Pancakes

My kids love pancakes. I used to make them more often, but they are just so time consuming I've learned I need to save them for the weekends. This is what Pancake morning looks like at our house.

Two pans, two batters, two plates, and color coded spatulas. I've learned the oat must stay on the left and the rice on the right so that I can ensure I don't cross-contaminate allergens.

Alternative Flours

Our family's allergies are complex enough that there is very little pre-packaged foods we can eat. We buy mostly raw and then make our own foods weekly/daily. We make all of our own baked goods. Pancakes, breads, muffins, cookies, crackers, etc.

This means we go through a lot of flour. We cannot  have wheat. This leaves other flours as our only options. My daughter and husband can have oat and almond flour. My son cannot have either of those. He can have rice and coconut flour. My husband and daughter cannot have those...You see the issue?

We've settled on using rice and oat flours as our staple flours and the adding the others in to augment, get better textures, etc. We were elated to find this 25lb bag of rice flour for $22 at a local Winco. (The other local Winco doesn't carry it, but I haven't asked them to either since the other store is so close.) We did not have as much luck finding cheap oat flour. It ranges around $5 - $10 per 22 oz bag.

My husband had a brilliant idea. He'd been really wanting a Vitamix or a BlendTec blender. He wondered if we could take oats and grind our own flour. We tried it first with a borrowed coffee grinder. It worked! So we got a deal on a BlendTec from B&P Restaurant Equipment Co. in WA and have been making our own oat flour since. We get the 25lb bag of oats and use them or grind them as we go. The oats are around $1/lb.

Trainer Chopsticks

So our son has (probably) a Systemic Nickel Allergy. Nickel is in the soil, so it is in food. Some foods have higher levels than others based on the food, the soil, etc. Nickel is in most metals found around the house and  stores and businesses in the US. Nickel is in stainless steal. Nickel is everywhere.

When we came to strongly suspect our son's probable diagnosis, we bought new pots and pans (nickel free), new knives (ceramic), and started the search for nickel free flatware. We finally found some flatware. We only have 4 forks and 4 spoons. This leads to a shortage of flatware regularily.

We'd really rather avoid plastic when we can (harder and harder to do with a toddler). So right now, we reduce exposure to nickel as our first priority and then to plastics as the secondary priority. As a solution to this flatware shortage in our house, I learned to use chopsticks! They are cheaper, portable, and so I'm much less worried about losing or breaking a set.

I think this is the best solution for our son. He'll use the forks and spoons we have when he's able, and will use chopsticks when they are available. If we decide that the allergy is severe enough, maybe we'll start carrying chop sticks in the car with us too.

So now I'm on a quest to learn how to teach a toddler to use chop sticks. I've only just taught myself, so I'm quite unsure how to do this with a toddler. I've looked on line. I have a message in to a parent who might be able to teach me to teach him. In the mean time, we have some "training" chop sticks from Daiso. I've seen another style with finger holes that I think I'd also like to try.

Any experienced parents out there who know how to teach  young children to use chop sticks?

Please excuse the poor etiquette of chop sticks sticking out of my bowl in the back ground.

UPDATE: We found another style of trainer chop sticks at Daiso yesterday.