His Birthday His Type of Food

When my son turned one we already knew about the milk and egg allergies and my husband and I decided that his birthday would be a completely safe birthday for him. We didn't want to have any food at the party that could pose a threat to his health and safety. We baked a cake for him from scratch and bought a few extra foods and drinks to serve. However, we also decided to make sure the party wasn't food focused. Thus, we went to the zoo.

There were a few moments of pure comedy though the night before. After I baked the applesauce cake that was 100% safe I put it to cool on the table. My nephew who was visiting us and is 2 years old was eating a yogurt and getting messy as all 2 year old children do when they eat. Not really a problem considering he wasn't eating over the cake. However, when he was done he saw the cake took his dirty yogurt covered hands and went straight for the cake smearing the top with two lovely hand prints. Take two of the cake worked much better and I hid it from little hands.

Other than that the birthday worked really well and my son had a special first birthday that was just for him.

What Came First the Chicken or the Egg?

When my husband and I were researching in the beginning regarding the allergies we read that on rare occasions kids who were allergic to eggs could become allergic to chicken and that children allergic to milk could become allergic to beef.

About a month ago our son refused to eat any beef or chicken put before him. He used to love chicken soup and all of a sudden, or so it felt, he wouldn't swallow any of it. We recently had our little guy tested for more allergies by his new allergist. Everything in his diet was tested, in an attempt to find the root of our son's vomiting and such. Unfortunately, we didn't find that answer but along the way we got a confirmation that the reason he was refusing those foods was because he was allergic to beef and chicken as well as turkey. Our little man was one of those rare cases who's allergies to both milk and eggs led him to be allergic to the animals that produced them.

The bright side of it is that he doesn't have the same anaphylactic reactions.

A Food Allergic Kid

I have been told numerous times by parents of children with food allergies that their children are food allergic. I've also been told my own son is a food allergic kid. This title bothers me greatly. My child does indeed have food allergies. In fact my child has multiple food allergies, and has recently been diagnosed with more. Nevertheless, to me my child is not food allergic. It is not what defines him entirely as a human being. It is only an aspect of who he is. Granted it is a large aspect an effects many parts of his life. Nonetheless, there are many other qualities that make up my son: such as his brilliant sense of humor which already shows through at a year old, his mischievousness which is infectious, his inquisitiveness which enables him to understand things quickly, his easy going nature which enables him to enjoy life and smile even through all his pain. This is my child. These are what define him. I don't want him to be the food allergic kid, I want him to be the child that has food allergies and therefore, needs to have different boundaries and limitations. My child will not be defined only by his illness.

National Food Allergy Week

Yesterday kicked off the National Food Allergy Week. There are a number of different activities taking place through local and national groups. FAAN is working on their legislation to help people with food allergies. Everyone should check out their website at www.foodallergy.org. In addition, I recommend checking out POFAK at www.kidswithfoodallergies.org. These are both great resources for families living with food allergies.

Help people understand what it means living with food allergies, one of the most effective ways of raising awareness is speaking with people you know.

What About Those Hives?

We noticed that whenever our son had a reaction there as always one last symptom. The first stool after the reaction always left a hive on his tush and groin area. When we first asked our former allergist about this she said that it wasn't possible and didn't give us any other explanations as to why this would happen.

We weren't so happy regarding this answer and the next time we brought up the subject again. At which point she said it could happen that our son's digestive system wasn't breaking down the protein of the allergen causing the reaction and therefore, when he went to the bathroom he would have a second skin contact reaction to the allergen.

If They Don't Live With It They Don't Get It

Before I found out about my sons allergies I knew a few people who had food allergies to peanuts or milk, but I never truly understood until we were living with it ourselves. It is the kind of medical condition that if you don't live with it, it is very hard to understand.

In our society many people have allergies specifically to the environment and we watch commercials and talk with our friends and family about how they just had to take this medication and it was under control or that in general their allergies are no big deal. This is not necessarily the case with a food allergy. Of course there are people that don't have such severe reactions to their allergen. On the other hand there are also people who are very sick on a daily basis because of their allergies and cannot participate the way other children or people can in certain activities because of them.

With our son our entire lives changed. We have to look at everything through the eyes of his allergies. This does not mean that we don't have fun and do wonderful things. This means that we are also prepared and conscious of everything around us in order to protect him. Many people don't understand this reality that we live in and quite frankly I don't expect them to. Nobody can understand the severity of food allergies unless you are personally effected by them.

What to Do Without Eggs

The bad thing about having an egg allergy is that it is in so many things. The great thing is you get a lot of home cooked meals and home baked goods. At least in this house that's the way it's worked.

I've learned since we found out about my son's egg allergies ways in which to substitute for eggs. There are many options out there however, I've gotten by on just a few honestly.

For baking and cooking I usually use Ener-G Eggs. This is a powder found in places like Whole Foods or Vitamin Cottage. You can use it in recipes as an egg, egg yolk, or egg white for baking purposes. However, it cannot be used to make an egg dish. Although it can be used to make French Toast. We just use the Ener-g Egg as a direct substitute in our French Toast recipes!

For baking cakes and cake like breads such as banana bread I use 1/4 cup applesauce for every egg I replace. This works really great. You can also use a whole banana, 1/4 cup squash or other puree of your choice which fits the test of your recipe better.

I've been told that there are other ways as well such as 2 Tbsp. water + 1 Tbsp. oil + 2 tsp. baking powder. I've never used this way all though I have added water and oil to recipes that I've used Ener-G eggs. I've done it all by feel however, because I know what my breads should feel like.

The one thing I was having a hard time figuring out was how to glaze my breads. Recently, I've learned that you can take 1/4 cup milk (I use Rice Milk) and 2 tablespoons sugar. You place this on the stove until the sugar dissolves and the mixture has boiled for 2-3 minutes. Then on a freshly baked bread just taken out of the oven you brush the glaze on and you have a beautiful glazed bread.

Lastly, for egg salads and scrambled eggs we use Tofu. It works really well and on Post Punked Kitchen you can find some nice recipes.

We've found that cooking without eggs is quite easy and that we get the bonus that we can eat raw and under cooked dough!

Visitors Coming

Around April we had about 10 visitors come for a number of days. They were all coming to visit our son for his birthday and for a holiday. Before they came my brother decided that while we were in the house his 2 year old son would not drink milk. We were all concerned that while drinking my nephew might accidentally touch our son or get milk traces on toys. I'm very happy that we decided not to allow him to have milk products in the house. It was very hard for my nephew, on the few occasions that we did, to understand why he had to clean his face so much and his hands.

After they left we realized that when we were to have another child we would have to go milk and egg free in the house to make it more safe for our son.

Vegan With A Twist

Some of the most valuable products for a family avoiding milk and eggs are those made for vegans. Most of them are safe for people with these allergies to eat. Of course there are times that we have to be careful, such as in situations were there is cross contamination and the like. Nevertheless in general our cart at the check out line is full of vegan food. We have of course our favorites that taste better than others like Tofutti cheeses and Whole Soy and Co. yogurts. All of which contain no traces of milk nor are they cross contaminated.

The irony of us buying all the vegan food is that we usually also have meat right buy the vegan cheeses. We are "vegan" with the twist of meat. In all seriousness though it is extremely helpful to have the vegan option.

We Would Have Known the Triage Nurses

When we left the allergist the first time they told us that if our son gets a reaction we should first give him benadryl watch to see if the reaction subsides and if it does not to do anything more. They told us only if we feel the benadryl isn't working should we proceed to administer the Epipen and than take him directly to the ER.

When we went the second time the doctor asked us about his reactions. We told her he was having one every other day at that point, but that we did what we were told. We also told her what the reactions were like, at which point she informed us that we were lucky that nothing had happened to him and that in fact anytime he had an anaphylactic reaction, were two systems were involved, we needed to give him the Epipen and go to the ER. Had we done this we would have known the triage nurses and been at the ER half of our lives. Of course knowing that that's what would have happened had we first been told correctly how to handle the situation we would have gone every time. Nevertheless, we were given false information at first which interestingly enough was later corrected by the same doctor.

Since then we have altered our life style completely in order to protect our son and make sure that he doesn't need to go to the hospital every other day.