Our allergic child is 13 today.  Like all parents, I feel that sometimes 13 years have zipped past while other times I feel like time has stood still.  I still feel like a young woman but the obvious signs such as 2 teenagers in the house now, not to mention the mirror, would prove otherwise.

I do find that my husband and I are different from many other parents in the way that we celebrate each birthday of our youngest child; we celebrate that we got her to another birthday unharmed.  At first, I thought that we were an anomaly and I wasn’t telling too many people how we viewed these birthday milestones.  But it turns out that other parents do this too.  A couple of our staff members are like that because one has a child with diabetes while another almost lost her child 4 years ago when he was brain injured.

I suppose it’s a little morbid to think this way but it makes sense when you think about what we live with every day.  Even though we live each day with the appearance of being  “normal”, there’s always that niggling little fear of a life threatening reaction that we tuck away in a little compartment so that we don’t drive ourselves crazy with the what if? scenarios.

  So, while it might be weird, I’m really happy my daughter’s having a birthday this year and I’m hoping for many more to come.

Time flies when you’re having fun.  I can’t believe that 5 years have passed since I began making Nonuttin’ granola bars in my commercial kitchen located in my home.  Between batches, I’d be making phone calls, delivering orders to local stores, building our website and eventually, sending orders out by courier.  Originally, we didn’t even have an online shopping cart because I hadn’t envisioned selling granola bars online, only to stores.  But customers requested easy access so I built it. Those of you who have been with us since the beginning probably remember having to phone in your order and I was the only one on the other end of the line.

We’ve been through many ups and downs as many of you can attest to and there have been times that I wasn’t sure that we’d make it, often due to circumstances beyond our control.  And while my husband still has another job, we’re very positive about the future of Nonuttin’ Foods.  One day, I hope to have him working beside me, adding his passion to making our company better and better.

One of my employees who just joined us last September remarked the other day that she couldn’t have kept going for as long as I have with the dedication required.  Both she and another employee agreed that I was very stubborn.  I’m not disagreeing, just that I’d use a different word because the word stubborn indicates an unwillingness to yield, even when the facts suggest otherwise.  Tenacity on the other hand, is defined by persistent determination, even when the odds might be against us.

We’ve been out of that first commercial kitchen for a long time and are again bursting at the seams, ready to grow into our next space.  Where will the future lead us?  I don’t know for sure but I’m willing to use that determination to get me up the next mountain to make Nonuttin’ the company I originally envisoned it to be:  the leader in providing delicious foods for those with special dietary needs.  I’d love to have you accompany me on the journey.

In my last blog post I wrote about how many more family members than I had previously thought were affected by food allergies.  But what about the non-humans in the family?  Yes, there are pets with food allergies.

When my food allergic daughter visited my sister in Calgary in July, one of her favorite things to do was to play with and walk their golden retriever, Kobi.  But while she was there, Kobi was not himself.  He was shedding far more than normal, losing hair behind his ears and in clumps from his haunches.   My daughter was concerned as she thinks he’s the best dog in the world and with mom being allergic to fur-bearing animals, Kobi is the closest thing she gets to a dog.

Well, we now have our answer:  Kobi is suffering from wheat and beef allergies.  He immediately required a change in diet.  My sister found the pet food easy since it already had no wheat in it but all new pet treats were in order.  The change was also very expensive (as we all know from human specialty food) because the new treats are all gluten free, organic and much less processed than the cheaper dog treats.

Apparently some breeds of dogs are more prone to allergies and this includes golden retrievers.  One of our local clients introduced me to her new dog who has corn allergies.  Hmm.  Is this all because they are purebred and getting no genetic diversity?  Or are our pets simply reflecting the overall issues that we are seeing in humans?  Maybe it’s just one more piece of the food allergy puzzle that bears some research.

I always thought that when my daughters reacted to milk as infants and that followed with more allergies to peanuts, tree nuts and kiwi, that we were the first of our extended family to go through this journey.  While we may be the only ones with an anaphylactic response to date, traveling and talking to both sides of my family while on holidays over the last several weeks has brought other food allergies to light.

First, my 60 year old aunt just got diagnosed with peanut allergies.  After several bouts of terrible stomach pains after a late night snack of peanuts, testing last month revealed a “new” allergy to peanuts.  It sure makes me wonder what’s going on with our immune systems that allergies are increasing on both the front end of our life spans as well as the latter part.

Second, at our recent family reunion on my husband’s side, we met up again with my husband’s cousin who has 3 children, all allergic to milk.  Upon further discussion, that cousin, her brother and my husband all feel sick when ingesting clam chowder and all of them have had reactions with swelling eyes while eating shrimp.  My husband has avoided these items for years simply because they made him feel so sick as a child.  However, we now know that when he has red, swollen eyes, it inevitably leads back to shrimp.  None of these people have ever been formally diagnosed, they’ve just automatically avoided shellfish due to their experiences.

My cousin reminded me that her father (my maternal uncle), is also allergic to shrimp, a fact he discovered in his 30s when he order chicken balls that turned out to be shrimp, not chicken.  Luckily, as a pharmacist, he understood what was going on and was able to get some antihistamines on board.  This was over 30 years ago when these kinds of reactions were not the norm.

And now, our youngest has added another allergy to the list, albeit an easier one to control.  While stealing a  chickpea from her sister’s salad last Thursday night, she experienced itching at the back of her throat.  Given that she’s allergic to peanuts, this new development isn’t exactly surprising since chickpeas are a legume.  So no more hummus and chickpeas in this house.

Can you trace back any incidents in your family over the last 30 years that could be attributed to food allergies?  Is it that they were always there but we either didn’t pay much attention or that those individuals didn’t like the way they felt when they ate a particular food and so instinctually avoided it?  Maybe they’ve always been there but weren’t as severe as anaphylaxis or that larger amounts (rather than traces) would only cause the reaction.

For those moms who blame themselves for their child’s food allergies, maybe we can let go of that and start attaching blame a couple of generations back.  Sounds good to me.