Food Allergies

Over the last few decades, a growing population has been found with food intolerance/allergies. While the general population has heard or known about it, their understanding is rather limited. People don't normally realize how serious these allergies can be. Whenever I ask if a food item contains dairy or egg in a grocery store, normally nobody knows. And in a restaurant, they generally have to check with the kitchen.

As I mentioned earlier, D tested positive for milk, egg, peanuts, and peas allergies in September 2008. Since then, it has been a growing experience for us all. In summer 2008, my one-year-old son was down to under 1 percentile in weight since he often threw up multiple times a day. It was a horrifying sight, especially considering that he was at 90 percentile when he was born (Yup, it was very hard). I suspected he had these allergies (other than peanuts, since we hardly have anything with peanuts in the house), but I didn't know what to do as he didn't like soy milk, and often wouldn't drink fortified orange juice. Then my coworker (whose daughter is also allergy to milk) told me to try soy yogurt first. I've never even heard of such a thing before! It was like a miracle, he started putting on weight really quickly. Today, he's at 25 percentile. He loves to eat and eat and eat. Even though, it's still sad to tell him that he couldn't have a lot of things, it's at least good to see him healthy.

And couple of days ago, J tested positive for peanuts, and pine nuts allergies after a scary visit to the ER. (And possible almonds, macadamia, and white fish allergies.) *sigh*

So if you or someone in your family has a food allergy, ask around, and talk to your doctor. However, think about what you heard first before acting on it. My pediatrician told me to load tons of butter on D's toast even after I told her my suspicion of his milk allergy! (Of course, I didn't listen to her on that one.) She also told me to give him 2 bottles of PediaSure a day. He hated it, wouldn't even take a sip. Another thing is to read all the ingredient labels. It's taking me much longer to do grocery shopping these days, since I'm always reading. Most labels will have the typical allergens listed again on the bottom, or bolded in the list. But some companies are still not practicing this, it can make the label reading process quite painful when sometimes there could be 15-20 lines of ingredients in small print, and some ingredients contain the allergen (ie: casein contains dairy). And sometimes, there is no label at all!

In my opinion, the most problematic allergens are milk, egg, soy, and wheat. These are such common ingredients. You really have to be alert all the time to not consume any. Did you know most bread contained milk? Oh, and here is a good one, soy cheese contains milk too! (What the heck? If I wanted milk in my cheese, I'd have bought regular cheese. Btw, only vegan cheese are dairy free.) I once met a Chinese woman whose son is allergic to soy, so they stopped eating Chinese food altogether. What a life altering experience! Then there is celiac disease, which is more than just wheat allergy. When a person with celiac disease consumes gluten, he/she becomes so ill, it could possibly kill him/her. I used to worked with couple of people with celiac disease, one of them compared wheat on his food to rat poison. Imagine that!

I still know very little about food allergies. But hopefully by the spread of words, I could do my part in raising the awareness.

If you'd like to read more on food allergies. A few good sites are:
Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network
About.com: Food Allergies
Food Allergy Gourmet
 
PS: if you have any dairy and egg free dessert recipes, please pass them along. =)