Don't go nuts; another bite of food allergies at school

I saw this link to this current Newsweek piece on food allergies, fear and allergies in the lunchroom courtesy of Sandy over at The Motherhood. There's always a great recommended read or two over at this new site; I peek in several times a week.

Back to the Newsweek article, the Bunning Family of Lake Forest, is mentioned in it. Not only do the Bunning boys have severe allergies, but the parents are big players on the allergy activist scene.

The article also highlights current allergy research and notes what some schools are doing to educate students about this important issue.

"In Connecticut, that's the law—the state's guidelines for schools require
teachers to educate kids about allergies, so they won't harass classmates who
can't indulge in, say, grilled cheese sandwiches. Massachusetts, Vermont and
Tennessee also have statewide allergy guidelines for schools, and this year New
York and New Jersey began to formulate their own. Proposed federal legislation
would take things even further, giving schools up to $50,000 each to voluntarily
implement uniform guidelines so that when children graduate from a school or
cross state lines, parents won't have to start the education process all over
again."

What does your school do to educate teachers, parents and students about food allergies?

Be sure to check out Scrambled CAKE's food allergy series, including the popular essay Don't kill the allergy mom.

A Martini goes gluten-free

Adrienne Martini, author of Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood and mother of a child with a gluten-free diet is back, and this time she's guest blogging at Scrambled CAKE. She agreed to do this even before she knew I was going to send her some of the organic gluten-free lollipops I snagged at the Candy Expo. Check out Adrienne's regular musings at Martininimade.


The old adage about surprises is doubly true when it comes to kids. Expected joys and challenges seem to follow the small set like puppies follow peanut butter.

My husband and I didn’t expect to have a kid with Celiac disease, which means that any form of gluten will destroy the villi lining her small intestine. Her diagnoses came quickly. It took six short weeks, a blood test and a biopsy to figure out why she’d stopped growing, had a host of bowel issues and was generally lethargic.


In six short weeks, her entire diet had to change. Wheat, barley and rye had to be eliminated.

At the time, it was monumental. Finding the gluten turned out to be a larger problem than eliminating the gluten. Wheat is pretty easy to ferret out, thanks to the FDA’s new labeling laws but it and barley extract can sneak past you in things like tomato soup or butterscotch chips.

You learn to get on top of it – and describing that process is worth its own very long essay. To sum up, our little Diva –who is almost five now and growing like a weed – eats rice pasta like she chowed on the wheat kind. We focus on what she can eat, like apples and blueberries and cheese. She knows how to protect her own tummy and will give you an earful about her needs in that special way that a preschooler can.

Still, one obstacle remained. We had no idea what to do about birthday parties. Whether they were at her preschool or at someone’s house, kids’ parties always have cake. Always. It’s a rule of childhood. So what could we serve her when all of the kids were snacking on their iced confections?

For a few months, I simply let her eat as much ice cream as she could hold. If I were feeling daring, I’d scrape off some frosting that hadn’t touched any of the cake beneath. (This is fraught with cross-contamination hazards and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you are truly desperate.) Then I was flipping through our newspaper and discovered the recipe that changed everything: magical cream cheese cupcakes.

Essentially, these are mini-cheesecakes without any crust. What’s fabulous is that you can make a huge batch (with your kid, if he or she is interested) and freeze them. When a party arrives, you pop one in your bag and go. What’s even more fabulous is that you can dress them up in any gluten-free way that you like. Smear ‘em with frosting. Sprinkle them with colored sugars. Top with nuts and/or jam. The options are limited only by your kid’s imagination.

The magical cream cheese cupcakes

3 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened (I recommend using name brand cream cheese. My experiments with the store brands have been less than satisfying. Edible, certainly, but lumpy.)
1 cup sugar
5 eggs
1.25 tsp vanilla extract
jam, sprinkles, fruit, frosting, nuts

Preheat oven to 325. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners.

Beat (by hand or with a mixer) cream cheese, sugar and eggs. Add vanilla. Pour batter into muffin tins and bake 40 minutes.

These will settle a bit in the middle as they cool. Fill the resulting divot with whatever topping moves you and your kids. Enjoy!



Next up in the food allergy series: gluten-free dining in Chicago.

Food Allergies in the Classroom

Allergy Moms (and Dads) know that food allergy concerns at school aren't limited to the lunchroom. That's why I've always considered the lead teacher or homeroom teacher my most important ally in the fight against accidental exposure to sesame, the allergen that might cause a life-threatening reaction in my son.

When Smartypants was younger, I prepared an informational flyer including his color photo and vital information (like birthdate and weight) as well as allergy information for all of his teachers. I gave his homeroom an extra copy to include her "substitute folder," so that every sub would have the important info about my son. In preschool, I had the teacher post a copy on the "snack cabinet" so any volunteer helpers (parents, grandparents) would be clued in, too.

FAAN publishes several useful guides for school, daycare and camp staff. Closer to home, OPMama, a member of the Chicago Parent online community recommends that schools in Chicago area or nearby suburbs give Children's Memorial Hospital a call. OPMama highly recommends their free informative lectures on the impact food allergies on all families.

As Rees pointed out in the Chicago Parent forums, parents whose lives have not been touched by food allergies often do not realize how serious they can be. A bit of education helps the whole community.

Before a child even enters a classroom there are pages and pages of registration papers to fill out, right? Always skeptical about how closely those types of papers are examined, I mark forms with fluorescent orange FOOD ALLERGY stickers purchased through FAAN. This makes the crucial allergy information stand out.

Mabel's Labels (reviewed by Chicago Parent's editor here) also makes allergy alert labels. Back in June I stuck a regular old Mabel’s name Label on my seven year-old’s water bottle. After 8 weeks of summer camp, countless throw-the-bottle games and many passes through the dishwasher, it’s looks as good as the day I put it on. They are amazing.

Mabel's ultra-durable red and white allergy labels are customized to include your child’s name and up to six allergies. I would have loved these when Smartypants was younger. They are a boon for the preschool or early elementary child who may not be able to clearly communicate her needs. They are great for school, daycare and camp, too. Had they been around when he was little, I would have slapped one of these right on my boy’s shirt before heading off to a party where he might be wandering about, trying to grab a snack without me.

What are your favorite school/daycare survival tips?

Stay tuned: Next week I'll be back with a kid-tested round-up of the best allergy friendly foods on the market and a post or two about gluten-free diets.

Making the world a safer place, one sandwich at a time

Food allergies will affect your family even if they aren’t an issue in your home. For example, this summer my boys came home from every camp they attended with a note requesting peanut-free lunches. Chances are you've heard something similar at school. Whether it's a matter of following the rules or a concern for peanut allergic children, I encourage you to try soy nut butter.

Pamela Hornik of the Silicon Valley Moms Blog put it this way in a recent post: I can not stop the war or even keep my daughter's shoes organized, but I can now send sandwiches to school without hurting anyone.

When it comes to peanut-free lunches, we pack our favorite PB alternative, the IM Healthy Soy Nut Butter from a company in nearby Glenview. When sandwiched with jelly it’s almost indistinguishable from PB. Plus it’s lower in fat and safer in schools. The boys and I like the honey creamy style best, but DH goes for the crunchy kind. We’ve been eating this for so long, none of us even like the taste of peanut butter anymore.

At our local Jewel usually carries one or two of the many varieties of the IM Healthy Brand in the PB section (on the lowest shelf, usually in a dark corner) as well in the natural foods section, but it’s usually on the lowest shelf. Try a specialty retailer like Whole Foods for a greater selection of the IM Healthy line as well as other unique “butters.”

Do you have a favorite peanut-free spread (Marshmallow Fluff?) or favorite source for such items?

Don't Kill the Allergy Mom

The Allergy Mom. You know her, the one who goes on about deadly foods (everything your child likes to eat) as she politely hands you a list of “safe” snacks (nothing he’ll go near). Once she’s out of earshot, the other parents huddle and express outrage. “But all my kid eats is peanut butter!” “What am I supposed to send for lunch?” “What nerve! Can her kid’s allergy be that serious?”

Yes, it can. Food allergies can kill. And sometimes they do. Sometimes at school. Be thankful you’re not an allergy mom.

When Smartypants was a toddler, I mixed up a nutritious batch of hummus for him. He loved my homemade blend of chickpeas, tahini (sesame paste) and garlic. I beamed as he gobbled my creation. Then he got tired, started rubbing his eyes and fussing. I figured he’d had a long day and he was telling me he was ready for bed. Wrong, he was telling me he was in distress.

When I wiped off the hummus that coated his fingers, arms, hands and face, I saw he was bright red. He had a rash on every inch of skin the hummus touched. Hives erupted before my eyes. Fortunately, my cousin had advised us to keep a bottle of Benadryl in the kitchen, so DH grabbed the nearby bottle while I phoned the pediatrician.

We gave our young son the medicine and sat watching him, studying the dynamic 3-D show on his skin, dutifully tracking his breathing, the ever-changing hives and his vital functions. And trying not to show how completely freaked out we were.

So, yes, I’m an Allergy Mom.

Thankfully, we were spared a trip to the ER, but that night we were introduced to a whole new set of parenting worries. Allergy testing indicated a potentially life-threatening reaction (anaphylaxis) to sesame. Although not among the top 8 allergens, it does make the top 20 (see below).

Even though sesame is not as ubiquitous as peanuts, it’s out there. Sesame seeds top bagels, loaves of bread and pretzels. It’s a common ingredient in Japanese, Chinese, Greek and Mediterranean foods (falafel, hummus, etc.). Those potentially deadly seeds lurk quietly in many snacks “party mixes” and containers of bread crumbs. Allergy Moms ask questions. We read labels. Always.

Now that Smartypants is older, he takes more responsibility for himself (I still give a heads-up to his teachers- I’ll get into more detail about this later in this food allergy series). But when he was in preschool, I was the Allergy Mom who handed out the “safe” snack list. A list compiled after a long night at the grocery store, examining the fine print and ingredients list on almost every product label in the snack/cracker aisle.

Most of the parents took care to stick with the list or call me if they wanted to bring an unapproved item. Some even insisted I read the product label myself before giving the green light. Their concern meant a lot to me. It’s scary enough sending your child out into the Big World. When that child has serious food allergies that maternal fear inches up a notch or five.

So please be patient; hold back your snarky comments and give the Allergy Mom a break. She’s depending on you to help keep her kid safe.

Over the next week or so, I’ll be sharing some of our allergy survival tips as well as new pointing out some tasty peanut-free snacks, many of which are free of other common allergens like tree nuts, dairy, soy, sesame, and gluten. I hope you’ll chime in with tips and resources as well.

For more information on food allergies:
Illinois Food Allergy Education Association
Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN)
Mothers of Children Having Allergies (MOCHA)
Also, here’s a great piece, "Food for Thought," by my friend Adrienne Martini. (Okay, we don’t know each other that well, but she let me eat all her frites while she was doing a reading at HopLeaf last winter.) Adrienne is going to share a few thoughts and a gluten-free recipe later in this series (wait, maybe she really is my friend!). She is also the author of Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood. And you thought your postpartum depression was bad.


Top 8 food allergens
Milk
Eggs
Fish
Shellfish
Tree nuts
Peanuts
Wheat
Soy