Major Allergies

On Tue 10 Jan 2006 08:11:40p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it Ralph Colyn?

Good God! What's left?

Methinks you need to see a professional nutritionist.

Geez...she must be a relative. Add dairy and mushrooms and you pretty well have my family. Makes holiday dinners a challenge!

Nuts we ignore for most recipes and are fine.

My niece cannot do chicken, but she can do turkey. Maybe check with your wifes doc and see what they say about turkey as an option. And there is always tofu.

Pears instead of apples

Vegetable salads rather than green ones

Lots of people can't do wheat, there's a whole wheat free site with recipes at

is a nice grain that will work for pilafs and such instead of rice. Barley is an option too. We use in in soups rather than rice. Honestly, I could live just fine without peppers, eggplant (not that I don't like them, but life would still be worth living without them) and I don't even know what baby marrow is so I've certainly survived without that one ;-) With our family we focus on the things we can eat and find that there is a lot we can do with that rather than trying to fiddle with recipes filled with "forbidden foods".

marcella

Stop eating babies!

Thanks for that, Vox! I was tempted to post something about sucking on those little bones, but thought it might be too far out for the group...

Dave

Or a .357

You may not be able to manufacture anything vaguely like 'bread'. There are for sure some fluffy-looking baked goods with browned exteriors out there for people with diverse sensitivities, but i hear the texture and flavor leave everything to be desired. You may as well be eating foam rubber.

Also, there are a few different ways that a person can end up advised not to consume wheat, and depending on which you're looking at, that may disqualify some alternative grains.

I agree with Wayne - we're just a peanut gallery of disinterested individuals, what you need is a professional nutritionist who specializes in this sort of thing.

Google on gluten-free recipes. Unfortunately, most gluten-free flour mixes contain rice flour. I don't know if you can make "bread" that's not leavened with yeast in a bread machine. I don't own a bread machine, nor do I plan to.

Your wife needs to see a registered dietitian (or the South African equivalent) to help her negotiate her allergy issues. Things are finally getting easier in the US for food allergy sufferers, as the FDA has mandated clearer food labels. For example, manufacturers can't say modified food starch without specifying what food it came from.

Good luck to you both! Cindy

Must be a new ruling. I still find labels with "modified food starch". I tend to avoid that entirely, as it's most likely to be corn, and I'd rather avoid wheat, although it bothers me less than corn. What I really hate though, are the places where I least expet to find corn or wheat. Where do you think the oats fall in Cheerios' ingredients? Third, after corn and wheat! My wife just brought me home some Cracker JAck flavored rice cakes, a nice treat since I haven't been able to eat popcorn for years. Number two ingredient? Corn!

Gotta read those labels...

Dave

The thing is, some of the components in what that people can be allergic to are also found in spelt, and some others are also found in oats, and we're rapidly running out of grains here since rice is also off the list.

And it's hard to get anything vaguely like 'bread' without gluten, which may be part of the problem. Amaranth? only a nutritionist who specializes in food allergies would really know.

I don't see pork on the list - maybe she can subsist on bratwurst and mustard? but she'll probably have to skip the sauerkraut.

Seeing lettuce, carrots, and spinach on the list probably means she should avoid everything in that family, including cabbage, bok-choy, celery, parsley, coriander, cilantro, frisee, and everything else that evolved or was bred from those same greens.

Chiles come in purple too, but i bet she's allergic to those as well. Best not to specify color, unless she can mysteriously eat purple bell peppers and chiles negros.

I get the impression that there's not so much a list as a theme or two themes to be considered here.

We'd need more information, but you're still better off seeking a professional consultant with good references.

The regs went into effect January 1. The regs also require specification of how much trans fat is in a food. This is why many companies scrambled to produce "trans fat free" products last year.

Cindy