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?

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

One of the many food allergy research projects being funded right now is a Chinese Herbal Formula. In the last several years, it has been quite well publicized, especially since the Food Allergy Initiative raised a significant amount of money to provide a research grant to the project.

It looks like that money has paid off as peanut allergic mice who were given the formula have shown no peanut anaphylaxis compared to the control group. It appears that the formula was successful for up to 6 months. It is very promising news and now the research can enter phase 2; human trials for those with peanut, tree nut, sesame, fish and shellfish allergies.

To read more, see this link: http://www.faiusa.org/?page=Chinese_Herbal_Formula_to_Enter_Phase2_Trial

Just after Christmas I heard that a Chicago teenager had died of anaphylaxis on the last day of school before the Christmas break when she had Chinese food with her classmates. These stories always make me cry because while I cannot understand what it is like to lose a child, I can tell you that I have imagined it more than once. My heart goes out to the family of this child.

From all accounts, this was a child whose parents had well-equipped her for living with her food allergies. School staff had checked on the safety of the food to be served more than once and school officials and classmates were well aware of the peanut allergy. The details have not been released so the public may never know what exactly happened. There is some question of whether epinephrine was injected. The stories indicate that it is against Illinois law for staff to administer epinephrine unless the prescription is specific to the student. If you’d like to know more, you can read the Chicago Tribune article and the Allergic Living article.

I have many questions after reading the accounts; not in the interest of assigning blame but to understand and learn about what I can do with my own child and her school. The accounts indicate that in Illinois students are not allowed to have epipens with them and teachers can’t give another’s epi-pen to a child having a reaction. To me this is highly disturbing. Is this an indication that the fear of liability trumps medically necessary action?

So now you’re wondering, okay Alana, you title says Tragedy and Hope; where’s the Hope part? While we can never bring back these children, we can use these tragedies to better protect all anaphylactic children. After a similar death in an Ontario school, we got Sabrina’s Law. Sabrina’s Law helped provide the background for my province’s anaphylaxis policy and gave allergy advocates around the world a springboard for their own country’s anaphylaxis laws and policies. I have Sara Shannon to thank for making sure that the lessons learned from her daughter Sabrina’s death would not be forgotten. My child has benefited from that advocacy.

To that end, more hope was created yesterday in the US when President Obama signed into law FAAMA. This stands for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management Act, a national law for all states to protect anaphylactic children in schools. Voluntary guidelines and materials will be created for states to access. You can read the information about what this law means and how it came about on the FAAN website.

I look to these developments with hope to educate all about the very real risks of anaphylaxis and to prevent any more needless deaths.

Last November I told you about an Allergy Task Force that was put together with researchers around the globe including the widely renowned Stephen Taylor from the University of Nebraska’s Food Allergy Research and Resource Program (FARRP). The task force announced this November, after a meeting in Nice, that they would have information about the threshold amounts for peanut, milk and egg by the end of 2012.

To put it into perspective, we already have a threshold for gluten which is 20 ppm (parts per million). Anything under 20 ppm is considered safe by the leading scientists in gluten research, even when taking into account eating many products under 20 ppm during the day – the cumulative effect. Following this accepted level, the government can then create labeling laws that specify the threshold and food producers follow this in the labeling/marketing of their own products. While not yet law in the US, the guideline for producers is that less than 20 ppm of gluten (wheat, barley and rye) may be labeled as “gluten free”.

So what does that mean for food allergens? The task force has already been reviewing and conducting scientific research to determine at what level food allergens must be present to create an allergic reaction. If, say, it is determined that the threshold for peanut is 10 ppm, only food products less than 10 ppm could be labeled as peanut free.

It could also help determine the “may contain” statements. Perhaps on occasion, a product tests at over 10 ppm. A food manufacturer could then put a “may contain peanut” on the label. If a product consistently tested above 10 ppm, the “may contain” may no longer be appropriate because peanut is consistently in the product so it must be labeled “contains peanut” or peanut must be placed on the ingredient list. Levels could also be used to determine what “traces” are vs containing peanut or it may be determined that labeling for “traces” is no longer appropriate and a product either contains or may contain an allergen.

Another consideration is that with advances in scientific testing, we can now test down to parts per billion of peanut protein.  But if a product tests at 1 part per billion, it may be well below a threshold but cannot be labeled peanut free.  This is sometimes why your favorite product that was safe at the grocery store last week now has a may contain label on it and you no longer trust as safe for your family.  Just because we can test for something, doesn’t mean that it is useful. 

Australians are going through this problem right now because their gluten free labeling law is not at 20 ppm but rather at the lowest level currently scientifically testable.  So products testing at 3 ppm for gluten can no longer have gluten free labeling and Celiacs are losing their ability to know what is actually safe under 20 ppm vs not allowed to be labelled.  Their Celiac Association has called for a change to the law because this has become a serious issue for their members and their quality of life.

Altogether, I feel that thresholds are a good thing. For the consumer, they won’t have to guess anymore as to what labeling means nor should they have to phone producers to double check a confusing label.  It may also mean that we have fewer consumers playing “Russian Roulette” with their food because they guess that a food manufacturer puts on a “may contain” only to cover themselves legally, when, in fact, the food may very well contain that protein.

For governments, they then have a definitive threshold that can be placed into labeling laws and therefore have the authority to recall products that are unsafe and/or conduct legal investigations and actions for producers disregarding the law.

For food producers, it means that they can also stop guessing and create specific sanitation and testing protocols for their products and food production lines.  They can also label very specifically and if indeed they are putting blanket “may contains” on all of their products, they can stop doing that and allow more of their products to become available to allergic consumers.

If you’d like to know more details about the International Task Force, who’s on it and what they are trying to achieve, you can check out this page: http://www.ilsi.org/europe/pages/tf_foodallergy.aspx

We can pick our friends but we can’t pick our families and when you’re dealing with food allergies and intolerances over the holidays, you might just want to hang out with your friends. What is it about food allergies that can cause so many family feuds?

And why is it that all holidays between Halloween and Easter are excessively celebrated with food? From US Thanksgiving on Thursday through to Christmas especially, every get together is frought with minefields that we must safely navigate. These holidays can be the most stressful of all, especially if you gather with family who just don’t understand the severity of your needs. Is it any wonder that some of us just want to hibernate?

I’m the first to say that I’ve been really lucky in that I have great family on both sides who take our family’s food allergies very seriously when we’re visiting. Everybody always goes out of their way to make sure that the food is safe and that we have lots of choice. It’s what has allowed us to sanely navigate our way through many a pot luck family reunion. Even if extended family is not on board, we’ve always been able to enjoy ourselves with what’s available to us from our closest family, away from the main food serving area.

But I’ve heard horror stories ranging from the grandma who leaves the bowl of peanuts out on the coffee table near an allergic toddler to the sister-in-law who gets offended when you can’t eat her wheat laden house specialty. Is it worth it to even go to a family member’s house if they just don’t get it? Will they ever get it? If so, what does it take? If not, is it easier said than done to write them off?

I always loved the quote from allergy expert Dr. Scott Sicherer in response to whether moms eating certain foods when pregnant could increase the rate of food allergies in their children, “We’ve also seen a rise in cat allergies and, as far as I know, mothers aren’t eating more cats than they used to.”

Not only did this quote make me laugh out loud when I heard it, it made me feel a whole lot better about my role in my children’s food allergies. Not so fast, it would appear.

Now Dr. Sicherer has released preliminary food allergy data that indicates that what we eat during pregnancy may indeed have an affect on the development of food allergies in our infants. When reading the article, it was like reading 100% of my own experience including milk allergies in both my daughters and quite severe eczema in my youngest.

Read the article here: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20101102/baby-peanuts-101102/

During my eldest child’s pregnancy, I ate peanut butter rarely because I found it made me nauseous. She now has no allergies. During my youngest child’s pregnancy, peanut butter was one of the few nutritious foods I could eat that didn’t make me ill and she currently has 4 food allergies and continues to have eczema. Hmm.

Dr. Sicherer does go on to say that more studies are needed to provide advice on what should be eaten during pregnancy. And obviously, for those of us who are finished our childbearing years and already have children with food allergies, the horse has escaped and there’s no closing the barn door so to speak.

Now in my forties and a little further along the food allergy path with my family, I’m not going to jump on the blame train quite as quickly as I might have in the past. Perhaps it’s also because, like any health issue, different studies often show conflicting data and so I don’t take absolutely every study as gospel truth anymore.

Besides, my husband has allergies to shellfish and I have environmental allergies, sulpha allergy, asthma and eczema, so I’m feeling we’ve got some murkiness in there. So I’m pretty content to share the blame with him, my mother’s environmental allergies, my uncle’s shrimp allergy, my grandfather’s…

Do you ever wonder why you never see the words allergy free on our products or website?

I began using the term allergy friendly about 6 years ago and ever since then have been correcting those who refer to Nonuttin’ products as allergy free.  While I can understand that like “gluten free”, it’s a quick and easy way to refer to products that are designed for those with food allergies, it doesn’t communicate the true reality of food allergies. Read more »

If you’re like me, there have been times when you wondered whether your child actually had a food allergy or whether they had outgrown the allergy.  Both of our children outgrew dairy allergies which we didn’t know until we actually tried milk with them under our doctor’s guidance.  Until recently, we thought Megan might have outgrown her kiwi allergy but she wasn’t willing to do an oral challenge.  Unfortunately, as you may know from an earlier blog post and the Nonuttin’ News, we found out the hard way in December that kiwi is still very much one of her food allergies.

What if there was a blood test that was far more accurate than anything we have right now (skin or blood) that could give a definitive diagnosis without an oral challenge?  Would you feel relieved? Read more »