Feeding My Family Despite Allergies and Sensitivities

A quick note: Everything written here is from my own personal experience. I am not a medical professional, and nothing in this blog should be construed as medical advice. Please contact your doctor or another medical professional for any advice and information on your own health.

Food allergies can be especially dangerous, so please consult with your physician if you have any questions or concerns about food allergies.

Cooking is a bit of an adventure here at our house. We have a lot of odd food issues that we’ve had to learn to workaround. Some of them are food allergies, and some are food intolerances. The difference between the two is how the body reacts to the offending food. According to the Mayo Clinic:

“A true food allergy causes an immune system reaction that affects numerous organs in the body. It can cause a range of symptoms. In some cases, an allergic food reaction can be severe or life-threatening. In contrast, food intolerance symptoms are generally less serious and often limited to digestive problems.” 

The Hubs can’t tolerate onions or garlic in his food so generally when a recipe calls for either, we use onion powder or garlic powder. That seems to not bother his digestion as much. K doesn’t have any food allergies but she does have a very sensitive gut and has to be careful about what she eats. She also had her gallbladder out a few years ago so fatty foods are difficult for her to digest.

Even though onions and garlic are delicious, if they make you or
the people you care about sick, you have to find replacements.

D and I have some crazy food allergies. He’s allergic to hazelnuts so no Nutella for him. He also has an allergy to walnuts and can’t tolerate pecans very well. The big allergen for him has been synthetic red food coloring, also known as red 40.  We have to be careful about food coloring because it’s hidden in the oddest places in some foods. Like why does instant chocolate pudding have to have food coloring in it? There should be plenty of cocoa in the mix to give it its chocolatey color but it has red, yellow, and blue food coloring in it for some reason. 

Why does this need food coloring?

Most of my food allergies developed in adulthood.  I am allergic to some of the “normal” ones like peanuts and other nuts, but my weirdest food allergen is apples. It’s a pretty strong reaction where my mouth starts to itch and my lips and gums swell. It’s very uncomfortable and it has gotten worse with each exposure, so no apples for me. I’m also allergic to peaches, carrots, and pork so things get a little weird sometimes with recipes. There are a lot of foods that are completely out for me. 

None for me, thanks.

Some proteins that cause allergic responses can be partially denatured with cooking, though it’s not foolproof. Food Allergy Canada states: 

“Cooking, even with high heat and other methods of food processing, does not reliably destroy food allergens, and doesn’t ensure safety for people with food allergies.” 

I have noticed that I can use prepared chicken and beef stock without an allergic reaction, though they do usually contain carrots. I will probably eventually try making my own stocks so I don’t have to worry about any allergens, but it’s not something I have time or energy for right now. 

I try to be pretty careful about allergen exposure even when I don’t have an obvious reaction because I always have a higher level of inflammation in general because of my autoimmune disorder so I try to not make my immune system any more reactive than it already is. 

Sometimes this is how it feels when trying to cook with food allergies.

Making a few small changes to my diet have helped to reduce inflammation in a general way. I try to avoid processed white flour. I’m not sure that it makes much of a difference but having that extra fiber in my diet from whole wheat flours and bread and things like that seem to help my gut and reduce inflammation in a general way for me. When I bake, I use King Arthur Baking’s white wheat flour. It actually has a little bit more fiber than their regular whole wheat flour and it’s slightly lighter in texture than their regular whole wheat. It's a good replacement for white flour in most recipes, but it does act differently than white flour. It has a different weight and it absorbs liquid differently, so I had to adjust for that in some recipes.  A cup of all-purpose flour weighs 120 grams, but a cup of white whole wheat weighs 113 grams. Using it instead of white all-purpose flour has led to some flops in the kitchen, but once I got through the learning curve, substituting white whole wheat is almost a no-brainer (as long as I use my kitchen scale). 

Flax seed is easy to incorporate to
increase fiber, omega-3s and other nutrients.

I incorporate freshly ground flax in my food as well, to increase fiber and incorporate more omega-3 fats into my diet. Omega-3 fats are supposed to help reduce inflammation and improve other areas of health. This is an abstract from a pretty technical paper titled “Omega-3 fatty acids in inflammation and autoimmune diseases”, but it talks about the different positive effects of omega-3 fatty acids.  

“Many of the placebo-controlled trials of fish oil in chronic inflammatory diseases reveal significant benefit, including decreased disease activity and a lowered use of anti-inflammatory drugs.”

All of these things factor into making cooking and baking at home a more reasonable way to get healthy food into our mouths while working around all of our different food sensitivities and allergies. I can’t just go to a restaurant and expect them to cater to all of these different allergy needs. I also don’t like to be a bother or the “problem customer”, but certain things like apples, peaches, and pork that really cause big reactions for me mean I have to be fussy about where my food comes from and how it’s prepared. Honestly, it’s just easier to do it myself at this point. It also tastes better, it’s cheaper, and I can customize any recipe in any way that I need to keep everybody’s tummies and immune systems as happy as possible. 

We have had to look at all angles of where our food comes from and how it’s prepared. It starts at the grocery store. Trips to the store used to take probably twice the time as usual because we have to read all the labels. All of them, every time, because food companies can change ingredients. We have found that some brands and stores are better than others when it comes to certain ingredients. We do a lot of our shopping at Aldi because they are committed to reducing the number of artificial preservatives and artificial colors in their foods so we can shop there knowing that there won’t be any hidden food coloring in the foods that D wants to eat. There’s a little symbol on the packaging that tells me there is no synthetic color in the product. It’s a relief to know I can be pretty comfortable with the transparency of the ingredients at Aldi.  

I just have to look for this symbol on products
to know there's no synthetic color added.

There are a lot of things I have to consider when I'm looking for hidden allergens in food. Because of my apple allergy, I usually avoid foods that have pectin as an ingredient, because pectin often comes from apples. I also avoid foods containing gelatin, unless they are kosher because gelatin often comes from pork. I also avoid foods with lard as an ingredient, because, again, it often comes from pork.       

Though all of these things make shopping for food and cooking more complicated, it has made me more creative and flexible in the kitchen. I used to love apple pie, now I make a mean pear pie. We use turkey bacon and pepperoni instead of the traditional kinds. I use powdered seasonings instead of the fresh ones that can make the Hubs sick. I’ve learned that modifying recipes can result in some really tasty results! I know that experimenting in the kitchen is a necessity, and it can be pretty fun. I’ll be sharing some of our favorite family recipes soon, and I’ll be sure to share options for different substitutions to help account for as many different allergies and sensitivities as I can. Be sure to come back and check out the recipes!