Allergies

Today is Pi Day What to eat on Pi Day, Pie!

According to Winkipedia “Pi Day and Pi Approximation Day are two holidays held to celebrate the mathematical constant π (pi) (in the mm/dd date notation: 3/14); since 3, 1 and 4 are the first three decimal digits of π. March 14 is also the birthday of Albert Einstein and the two events are sometimes celebrated together.”

So what did we do celebrate this holiday we ate pie. We enjoyed Elpetto Cherry Pie We enjoyed our dairy free pi to celebrate this holiday of mathematical importance!

Go to Source

Here’s another recipe from that old cookbook of my mom’s, How I Feed My Family on a Week: brownies without chocolate called, um, “Whiteys.” I told Scott that we should probably call them something else, but he insists we keep the original name.

Whiteys

1/3 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup raisins (I leave out the raisins.)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8×8-inch baking pan. Melt shortening in a saucepan. Remove from heat. Mix in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder, and raisins, if using. Spread batter in pan and bake for 30 minutes. Cool slightly and cut into squares.

I’m sure these would be good with frosting or chocolate chips instead of raisins, but we do like them plain.

Go to Source

So when your child is diagnosed with a peanut allergy, like most folks, you clear your house of peanut products. Why take a chance on having it around if your child could die as a result of accidental exposure?

But maybe you’ve been used to having peanut butter on toast in the morning, all melty and delicious. Or maybe a secret spoonful at night as a treat?

Ah, I remember it well.

And I thought those days were gone.

But guess what? I’ve reclaimed that glory and I want to share it with you.

I’d like to introduce you to my new crush: Barney Butter.

I know, kind of a funny name (until you learn it’s the name of the founder) – Barney reminds me of that big purple dinosaur and I used to shudder a little when I heard it.

But no more.

I’ve tried all the spreads that claim to be a great substitute for peanut butter: Sunbutter, soy butter, pea butter, other almond butters. But they never came close. Until now.

Barney Butter is peanut free, all natural almond butter. It is so eerily close to peanut butter that you might REALLY fool someone (and let’s face it – anyone who says they’ve fooled someone with Sunbutter is suffering from a case of wishful thinking – it’s good, but it’s not THAT good). I think my husband may have actually had tears in his eyes when he tasted this – he was never expecting to have anything as good as this in our cupboards to slather on apple slices or soft white processed bread (yeah, I buy it, so what?!?).

Now if you have a tree nut allergy then this has just been a big tease (and for that I apologize). But if you’ve been given the go ahead from your allergist to incorporate safe tree nut butters then I highly encourage you to try this. The color is spot on, the consistency is identical (no stirring needed!) and, the taste, oh lordy!

This is so good that I’ve turned other folks on to this who’s kids have a peanut allergy (but were told no tree nuts unless they were free from cross contamination) who stash this in their cupboards just for those times when you just need a little taste of the sweet stuff.

I sound like a pusher, huh?

I just want as many folks to try it as possible so it never goes away. Honestly, it’s not the cheapest – it’s almost at my local high-end grocery, but it’s SO worth it. I can’t wait to cook with it – I’m sure the results will be phenomenal.

And what about little miss B – what does she think? She wont touch it – too close to the real thing. I don’t think they intended to be a safe alternative for peanut allergy sufferers, but they have found a HUGE fan with me. Thanks Barney Butter!!!

OK, enough gushing on my part.

Have any of you tried it??

p.s. The folks at Barney Butter didn’t ask me to write this post, haven’t sent me this to review – heck, they don’t know me from Adam. This post is truly from the heart.

Go to Source

Last weekend we celabrated our youngest child’s birthday at an indoor play land. We had “milk pizza” and Guardian Angel Cake. My milk allergic child brought Nachos and dip to have instead of pizza, and we were all able to have the cake because all Guardian Angel Food products are free from dairy, egg, and nuts. Their are some milk allergic people who cannot be around the smell of cooked cheese, my child is not that sensitive to milk protein.

Currently one of the Guardian Angel Food suppliers are having a bit of a problem getting their products out to some Ontario stores. I have however been assured that this problem is being corrected, and am thankful I was able to find a cake in time.

Go to Source

I know some are wondering our results today. I will elaborate much more later. Just want to put the general results out there, and get some sleep.

Graham came up very high (4+) to peanut. No blood test needed at this point.

Graham came up medium to eggs (2-3). Scheduling a live challenge for BAKED IN egg because Graham has improved from the HIGH rankings on egg last year.

Miles came up high to milk (4). Doing blood test to see if there’s any improvement there. If there is, we will do a BAKED IN milk live challenge. I think the allergist is willing to do the challenge if there is sign of improvement (even if score is still high) because of Miles’s age (4.5) and because of new research showing that low exposures may help the severity of an allergy. We don’t want to do baked in if it’s just for convenience sake and if it could hinder his chances of outgrowing. But if trying to do baked in milk will help him in the long run, we are all for it. Our hope is not too high that we would actually be able to do this with him. The blood test will tell us more. We went ahead and did the blood draw today while we were already there.

Thanks for all the prayers. I want to post more later on how the boys handled the tests. And me too.

Go to Source

Hey! I can talk about food without gagging!

Because of some combination of Spring cleaning/nesting/guilt over how many Runs for The Border Scott’s made for me/worrying about money, I straightened out our top-loading deep freezer on Monday to get an idea of what we have in there that needs to be used up.

We have:
LOTS of blueberries
various cuts of venison
lots of cooked, mashed pumpkin and squash
freezer jam: strawberry, strawberry rhubarb, and that failed batch of raspberry I use to make dairy-free ice cream
three jars of pesto
two jars of roasted tomato sauce
one jar of tomatillo salsa
dairy-free cupcakes and cookies for school and birthday parties
one bag of cranberries
herbs and spices

Last night I used:
two bags of blueberries and the last bag of peaches in a pie with sugar glaze
the last three bags of zucchini in a casserole (adapted to be dairy free, of course)
two pounds of venison chops
and six brown bananas in two loaves of banana bread

I can cook again! I’ve really missed it.

Go to Source

This is a picture of us toting lunch to the mall. Lovin’ my new Target lunch tote for the boys.

Tomorrow is our big annual allergy testing day for both boys. Each year it seems like they do it differently which is fine. I know research and theories change often in the growing field of food allergies. This year our allergist wants to skin test both boys first, tomorrow.

My hunch is that Miles will test negative on the skin again, like he did last time. It’s the blood test that tests high for him. Last year we did blood first, and because it was so high, the allergist didn’t even skin test. This is Miles’s 5th year of testing.

This will be the 3rd year of allergy testing for Graham. We don’t know what to expect on his skin tests. Last year egg and peanut came up high. We sure hope those go away like they did for Miles.

If their skin tests come back not too high, I am guessing we will move onto blood testing which is done at a later time. So as I used to get all worked up for allergy testing day, I know it may not be the end of testing for this year. It’s always a longer process than I expect. With potential blood tests and hopefully live tests, we can be in and out of the allergy office a few times in the next month.

I like to think that I’m not all worked up this year. Especially with Miles, as the years go by, I expect less and less at the appointments. But I’m sure as the results come in, tears will shed no matter what. It’s all emotional either way. However, I usually cry more with good results than with bad.

Go to Source

I saw a news story on Twitter about this yesterday (through @kfatweets and @allergistmommy) and just as I was about to post, NIAID emailed me this morning. Have a look at this press release:

Public Comment Sought On Draft Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Food Allergy

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is seeking public comment on draft Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Food Allergy. The public comment period is open for 60 days beginning March 5 and ending May 3. Health care professionals and interested members of the public are encouraged to review the guidelines and participate in the open comment period by visiting the NIAID Food Allergy Clinical Guidelines public comment site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/foodAllergy/clinical/comments.htm.

For more information, go to http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2010/FoodAllergyGuidelinesComment.htm.

NIAID conducts and supports research—at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH)—The Nation’s Medical Research Agency—includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

Go to Source

This allergen-free and delicious pound cake recipe is not from me, but from a bloggy colleague and a Brooklyn food allergy mom for whom I did an in-house FA group coaching session. Fun all around.

Go to Source

I made FoodAllergyMama’s Pudding Cake recently. Jeff was super impressed with the “goo”. He commented that nobody would ever guess that this was a milk or egg free dish. It was super chocolately and delicious! Highly recommended.

We served it with a new soy ice cream we are using. Will post that next.

Go to Source