Food allergies

We were really careful when introducing foods to Patrick. He still, at 20 months, has not had an egg, any nuts, orange juice or cow's milk. We were particularly careful with him because his dad has so many sensitivities and I expected some issues. Despite our best efforts, Patrick broke out in a good case of eczema in early June. It started on his knee, and soon covered most of his leg. When it moved to the other leg, my heart broke. He would get out of bed and stand there scratching both thighs as hard as he could.

I was faced with two options. I could take out any possible allergenic foods (wheat, dairy, goat's milk, corn, barley, oats, kamut, spelt, etc) and start the re-introduction again (argh). Or, I could spend a couple hundred bucks and have his IgG testing done (a simple blood test that tells you what foods your body reacted to). Being a busy Mom, I chose option B - blood work.

Am I ever glad that I went with option B! I never would have guessed at a couple of these. His results came back with highly reactive foods of:

• wheat, barley, cheddar cheese, egg white, green peas (really?!?), lentils (come on!!), rye, spelt, sunflower, and kamut.

So, all gluten containing grains are out and two of my favourite legumes to feed him, gone.

His moderately reactive foods include:

• almond, asparagus, cow's milk, all other cheese, cucumber, egg yolk, oat, red tomato, sesame, soy, sugar, white potato, white rice, and yogurt

Thankfully the foods on the later list don't need to be eliminated. We can feed them to him every few days.

This then begs the question - what do you feed this kid?!?

When we're home, it's not that difficult. Thankfully, we eat a lot of rice anyway. He loves fruit so that makes snacks fairly easy. Cereals are pretty easy to find - corn flakes, corn puffs, oat squares, rice cereals. I can hold my own when it comes to baking, but need to learn how to alter my flours a bit (the muffins I made this weekend need some work!!).

Bread products are a whole other can of beans though. Gluten free breads are not very tasty - at least not the ones that I've tried from the market. They tend to be dry and crumbly. Good for toast, not so good on their own.

We found some bagels and buns for him at our last trip to Nature's Emporium in Newmarket. They sell Aiden's gluten-free bread products - they really are squishy! Other than being a little costly (four buns was about $7), they are fantastic. We cut them and put them in the freezer.

Waffles are something that we found long ago as an occasional treat. Van's can be found in the freezer section of the health food section at Zhers (wow, that was a mouthful!).

Of course, rice cakes and rice crackers work fine. They do tend to be low on the fibre side of things though. There is a company called Enjoy Life that makes products free of the top ten allergens. They have some higher fibre cereals, and bars that Patrick really likes. We will definitely be trying out some more of their products.

As I find more products that are tasty, I will continue to share with you. As I master my baking, I will pass along the recipes.

The really good news is that Patrick's legs are almost completely clear of eczema. It only took about five days of the new diet for his suffering to end. I've also noticed that his huge tonsils are starting to come down and not look so enlarged. Huh.

Yours in health,

Kerri Fullerton ND and now, gluten-free Mom