My husband and I watched a fascinating documentary on David Suzuki’s, The Nature of Things on CBC this weekend. It was about the latest in autism research that shows that gut health may be the link. Some parents are already putting this into action with gluten/dairy free diets for their autistic children.

This documentary also brings up illnesses in infants and the onset of autism with anecdotal information from different parents of autistic children. It is especially poignant for those whose children were developing normally and then autism took over.

Rob has always felt that our youngest daughter’s life-threatening food allergies were created by an unknown illness just before she turned 1 when she was in Pediatric Intensive Care in the Isolation Wing and she was dosed with massive amounts of antiobiotics. Her food allergic reactions showed up shortly after that. Watching this documentary just gave him even stronger feelings that he is correct.

Here is the link to watch the documentary online at CBC:
Autism Enigma

If you’ve been following our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nonuttin-Natural-Foods/159162014110203, you’ll see that I’m heading off next week to a trade show for a Canadian natural foods chain.

After the trade show, I get all of the owners and managers of those stores for an hour and a half to provide them with an overview of food allergies and gluten free diets, what the needs are for consumers and what they need to do to earn the confidence of those of us looking for special dietary foods.

I certainly know what gains my trust in a store. And putting the peanut butter alternative (ie. soybutter, sunbutter) smack dab in the middle of all of the peanut butter isn’t it. I don’t really expect any service or knowledge about food allergies when I go to a mass chain grocery store (even if they have a natural or gluten free section) but I certainly do when I go to a smaller natural foods store or health food store. But any major grocery chain that did come up with a better understanding of special diets, such as putting a dietician in their natural foods section, (as one of our clients in the Midwest, Hy-Vee does) would have my business in a heartbeat. And please, clean up the bulk sections so that potential allergens aren’t spilled all over the floor!

So what do you need? Special sections? Items placed throughout the store but with good signage? Special dietary tours with samples and coupons so you aren’t stuck in your same old rut? Would you prefer a trained specialist in the store? Do you appreciate contained bulk bins? Do you want the store to have product documentation on special diet products? How about demos – do you run from them when they’re in an aisle?

Anything that you share with me will be added to my presentation next week (without names of course) so that these store owners/managers can hear from the people that count. Food allergies and gluten free diets are here to stay; let’s begin the revolution with willing stores who want to serve you better.

An article published earlier this month indicated that a recent UK study shows that food allergic children and their families feel isolated, stigmatized and unfairly excluded. To read the total article, you can link here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/kids-nut-allergy-teased-excluded_n_929809.html

I would have to say that overall, we’ve been lucky not to have many issues happen with our allergic child but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t been there. There was the time that a good buddy at school told our child that she couldn’t have her to her birthday party because her mom didn’t want to deal with her peanut allergy. It took all of my strength not to phone that mom and have a little discussion. I didn’t in the end since I didn’t really think it would change anything except mortify my child even further.

There was also the time that one child wiped his hands down all of the bus seats as he got on the bus, telling everyone that he’d just had peanut butter. We were really pleased with how that got handled by the students on the bus themselves, many who had been riding that bus with our daughter for years and were very protective of her. Every child on that bus turned on that young man and kicked him off until he spoke to the bus driver. We then let the principal know when our child got home and told us what happened but peer pressure really made the difference that day. He never tried anything like that again.

But it’s also the incidents that aren’t so easy to quantify; when everybody else gets the birthday treat in the classroom or someone’s sharing candy with all of their friends but my child can’t take it. It’s definitely isolating, even when there is no evil intent. All kids need to learn (often the hard way) that life isn’t fair and sometimes bad things do happen to good people but there are plenty of opportunities to learn that out there without the added exclusion that food allergies can certainly bring.

Some of you are probably hoping to avoid the whole back to school mindset for a little while longer but I have to say that it’s been on my mind for a while. That’s because Megan is heading off to high school next year for grade 10. What compounds the normal food allergy issues is that it is a self-directed school where students work through modules and may have different schedules from each other.

This means that Megan is not attending her regular feeder high school but a magnet school where children come from all over the school district. For the first time, she will be without her regular posse of friends who have been very protective of Megan and her allergies. Further, as a self-directed school, there are not set lunch hours so we’ve already been told that kids eat everywhere and that food allergens may be difficult to monitor. The school itself is in a rural setting, about half an hour from our home by highway.

Statistically speaking, teenagers are at a higher risk of anaphylaxis than younger children. Throw in the regular teenage desire to not be different (which is often amplified for food allergic teens) and an assumption by adults that food allergic teens need to start becoming more responsible for their own safety and you can get a recipe for disaster. This is what worries me despite the fact that we know we’ve trained our child well. It’s still no guarantee, as many parents who have lost their teen allergic children can attest.

I’m not trying to be a scare monger but I’m finding this change really difficult. Even more so than when we moved to our new home here on Vancouver Island or when Megan went to junior high. Perhaps it’s a lack of control that I’m feeling, especially since it won’t be easy to just drop into the school and be as involved as I have been in the past.

On the bright side, we had to fill out a new food allergy form this summer to send into the school so I see that our school district’s food allergy policies are being followed. Megan’s epi pens are up to date and her alert bracelet is in good order. We informed the school as to her food allergies in the spring and we have another meeting at the end of August before school starts in September so we’re certainly doing all of the right things.

I’m not sure what the alternative is: home schooling, move to Antarctica or the biosphere, buy a teen size plastic bubble? We’d all be driven nuts in short order but maybe I’d sleep a little better at night.

I got a request on our facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nonuttin-Natural-Foods/159162014110203) to put up a peanut free satay sauce that I refered to but Facebook is really not set up to write out a recipe so here it is instead.

I am one of those cooks that adds a dash of this or that and substitutes all of the time so you may need to adjust this to your taste. I use it on pasta, with chicken and vegetables on rice and for a fondue dipping sauce. And since it’s free of all of the top allergens except soy and/or easily adjusted to substitute safe ingredients, anybody can enjoy it.

Smooth or chunky peanut butter substitute: 1/3 cup
(I tend to use NoNuts Golden Peabutter when cooking and if you use this, you’ll need to add extra liquid as this substitute really soaks it up)
Oil (olive, canola, etc.) 1 Tbsp
Soy sauce 2 Tbsp
Seasoned rice vinegar (can use white) 1 Tbsp
Crushed Garlic clove (1) or garlic powder 1/4 tsp
Honey 1/4 cup
Water (or chicken broth for extra taste) 1/4 cup+ depending on your substitute and/or the consistency you like
Hot pepper sauce 1/4 tsp or to taste

Mix it all together, taste, adjust and that’s it. I hope you enjoy and are able to add a little Thai flavor to your cooking in a way that’s safe for your family.

I’m not sure if I’ve shared this before but I’m a member of Rotary International. In fact, up until Sunday, I was the club president for my morning Rotary club here in Duncan and am now immediate past president. The ideals of Rotary are ones I appreciate because they promote care and understanding both locally and internationally; something I’ve always tried to teach my kids.

One of the programs within Rotary that I think is so vital is the Youth Exchange Program. This program has many different options from summer exchanges through to full year placements world-wide. My oldest daughter decided to do the summer exchange program this year which means that we get a student for a full month at the same time as my daughter and then they go together to the other student’s home. In our case, we have a student from just outside Paris who arrived last night and both my daughter and this teen will go to France July 28th. My daughter will then come back alone on August 22nd.

Rob and I have always advocated travel with our children as we believe that it opens up understanding between cultures and allows one to learn so many things that cannot be taught with books. However, it is a challenge to travel with food allergies, even when traveling in your own country. For that reason, we always planned on having our oldest child participate in a Rotary exchange (she’s outgrown her food allergies and only has drug allergies now) but never felt comfortable with our youngest child and her 4 food allergies going on an exchange. We may need to rethink that.

The 15 year old that we brought to our home last night has many allergies, including to animals and a life-threatening peanut allergy. The original family that she had been paired with was unable to accommodate these allergies and so she inadvertently got paired with ours instead. It was a very fortuitous pairing since I’m allergic to animals and my youngest is allergic to peanuts; our house is a haven for our French teen. Her parents were very relieved as we’ve arranged everything through emails over the last few months. It also helps that our family speaks French and the French student speaks very good English – so no language barrier there.

But that takes a lot of faith for our French student’s family to trust another family halfway across the world with a life-threatening food allergy. I’m not sure I’d be up for that. Until our student was coming, my food allergic child also did not feel comfortable with applying for the Rotary Youth Exchange program as she thought that there was no way she would be able to find a family who she would feel safe with. And yet, our French teen’s family found just that with us.

Is it too much to expect that we might find someone who had food allergies too within the Rotary Youth Exchange Program? And what about the language barrier that is often present? We can rank our preferences for the country our child goes but that’s not always guaranteed. Right now, there are too many uncertainties for me to feel comfortable but am I placing limits on our food allergic child that are unreasonable if she feels comfortable? Next summer she would be almost 16 and at some point I have to be able to let go but is that first step sending her halfway across the world?

What do you think?

We just finished participating in the first ever sample kit that went out through a new service called Gfree Connect. The whole idea of this service is to make it really simple for you to get samples and coupons for a wide variety of gluten free products all delivered right to your door.

What I liked about it when the idea was presented to me is that it allows gluten free consumers to try products like ours that they don’t necessarily see in every grocery store. Sure, you’ve got your larger gluten free brands that are well known and easily available but you can also get regional samples that you can still get on the internet, even if they’re not available in your area. Plus, even with the bigger companies, they may be bringing out something new for you to try that you aren’t even aware of since your store may stock limited products.

And the pricing is really reasonable too from my perspective. The amount of time and effort you’d have to spend either cruising the internet or your local natural foods/grocery stores is worth the cost that they charge. I expect that this company will grow as more people get word and more companies choose to participate. At the recent Chicago Gluten Free and Allergy Expo, Gfree Connect had a table and they got a lot of interest and many people signing up.

Once the company grows, they may also be able to accommodate other sensitivites and food allergies as well so if you’ve got multiple food issues, keep an eye on them as they mature and refine their business. Check out their website at: http://gfreeconnect.com/

Did you know that this week is Food Allergy Awareness Week? Because of this, you may find that your inbox is inundated by information about the prevalence of food allergy, the latest in treating food allergies and more.

I like to think of this week as an opportunity to review how we handle food allergies in our family and to fight against getting complacent. I’ve found over the years that it can be easy to get complacent without realizing it, especially when you’ve been doing everything right and you haven’t had any emergencies.

So think of this as an annual reminder to review your approach to food allergies, just like we use the time change to upgrade our smoke detector batteries. Here are my 3 Rs for Food Allergies as follows:

REMIND your family and your child’s caregivers about the signs of anaphylaxis
REFRESH your skills and those caring for your allergic family member for using the epi-pen and;
RESOLVE to educate more people about the very real and growing threat of food allergies

Simple, right? It’s time to get started right now!

At 14, Megan is past the point of wearing allergy t-shirts and carrying her Nonuttin’ lunch kit that says, “Don’t feed me, I have a food allergy.” She does still have a medic alert bracelet though and that won’t change as she moves into adulthood.

So despite her advanced age, I certainly remember what it was like finding something that Megan would like and be comfortable with. So it was with delight that I found an allergy bracelet in Chicago on the weekend that I think she would have loved when she was in elementary school; the Allerbling bracelet.

It’s a 100% silicone bracelet with 5 openings to accommodate a medic alert symbol plus 4 separate spaces to put in your child’s major allergies. And since it’s customizable, you can choose from different symbols including the top 8 food allergens, strawberries, coconut, corn, chocolate and bees. Because it’s so bright, colorful and comfortable to wear (not to mention washable), I think it not only does the job quickly, but kids can also feel great wearing it and easily communicate their allergies.

Check out their website at: http://www.allerbling.com

For those of you who have followed my blog for the last couple of years, you know that we’ve been no stranger to travel despite 6 food allergies in our family. We’ve been to the US, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, England and Costa Rica. We’ve flown, ferried, and even dugout canoed through canals in Costa Rica to get to our final destination (and yes, there were alligators!).

These travels have not been without their stresses and pre-planning is definitely key. The vast majority of our trips had us staying with very supportive family members and/or renting suites that had a kitchen so that we could do all of our own cooking.

The most difficult trips for planning are those that have us moving daily and trying to catch meals on the fly. If any of you have tried to get a safe meal in an airport, you know the frustration of not having your own food at your fingertips. Well, Megan (4 food allergies) and I are leaving on Friday morning at 5:30 am for her band trip down the coast of Washington, Oregon and California. It’s definitely a challenge given that we are in a different place each night until we reach Anaheim, where we have 3 nights with our own fridge and microwave.

Luckily, I have spent lots of time in Washington and Oregon of late plus we’ve had 2 previous trips to Disney (which has been fantastic for food allergies) and one to Universal Studios (which was not a helpful place for food allergies) plus my oldest daughter went on the same trip 2 years ago so I know what to expect. As a result, we have got a suitcase of granola bars, granola, trail mix, cookies, crackers, chocolates, soup and utensils. I’ve also got granola bars for all of the kids on the bus so that they can have a safe snack when necessary without resorting to items with Megan’s 4 allergies in them. This is one time it comes in handy to own an allergy friendly food company!

We’re also attending Medieval Times so I’ve called them and they’ve sent a menu with all of the ingredient lists so that we can specify how to change her menu. I’m also checking for the gluten in the meals so this might get quite interesting.

I would say that the most difficult times are when everybody else is eating dessert and we can’t or when the tour goes to a chocolate factory in San Francisco and we can’t have any of the chocolates and fudge that the other kids will be buying by the truckload. I try to mitigate that unfairness with a bunch of safe Easter chocolates I’ve found and packed into the suitcase but I’m the first to admit it’s just not the same. It’s certainly easier when we travel as a family since we all eat the same for everybody’s allergies but in a group, you can’t ask the other kids not to eat their dessert.

So wish us luck as I navigate the food allergy highway, particularly with a bunch of junior high school kids!