Banana Bread~Milk, Egg, Wheat, Peanut, Soy & Nut Free

One Of Kyle's Favorites!  I mix it up sometimes adding applesauce or orange juice to the mixture, it adds a softer texture to the bread/muffins.

1/2 cup oil
1 cup sugar
3 T. water, 3 T. oil, 2 tsp. baking powder mixed together
2 bananas mashed
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda

preheat oven to 350 degrees.  grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan.  set aside.  In large bowl, mix all ingredients in order given.  Pour into pan and bake 40 - 50 minutes.  Taste great cooled or as toast.

Note:  We also use this recipe to make muffins.  

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving

Being a parent to a child with food allergies is always tough but on holidays it's even harder. Coming from a large family, the holidays have always been a big to do. Lots of food, lots of wine and lots of laughter. As a child i loved the holidays, even though our close knit family found reasons to get together often. One of the things I looked forward to most as a child on Thanksgiving was the nut bowl. I loved my aunts unique cracker and me and my cousins always fought over who got to use the nut cracker first. After we fought over the nuts we would o to the appetizer table, load our fingers with black olives and chase each other around the house. For the last ten years it's been one of the days of the year I dread. I have always tried to opt out or find excuses not to attend much to my dismay. How can I sit there and eat and watch everyone eat while my son can't eat any of it. Or see all the children playing with their food, talking about how good it is or even worst ask my aunt to do away with something she has been doing since I was just a thought in my parents mind, the notorious nut bowl. The one time I went to a family thanksgiving I made Kyle food at home, some vegetables and rice(all he can eat really) and brought it with us. The entire time I was there I was thinking if he would get sick with all the food around him or if he was ok seeing everyone eat and not him. I think I aged ten years that day. Since then we make two dinners at home, like most nights, and invite just our parents. I try to plan our meal around the foods he can eat. Turkey of course is the main event with lots of vegetables and bread. Kyle can't eat turkey so we cooked him fried catfish as his main course. The questions begin, like very other time, when he sees a new food. Mom, what does turkey taste like? Is it good? Compare it to something I can eat. How do you explain what turkey tastes like to a child who has never ate meat? Even though we keep it low key the stress of the day feels like 100 lbs sitting on my shoulders. I spent more time wiping counters than I did actually cooking. Any contact with any of the foods Kyle is allergic to causes a severe reaction. One dreaded day down, only about 20 more to go!

Food Allergies VS Food Intolerance

Many people have food reactions, an intolerance to a food.  But true food allergies are sudden and severe.  A true food allergy is an immune system response that affects numerous organs in the body as opposed to a food intolerance which affects mostly the digestive system.  If you have a food allergy, like Kyle, even the tiniest amount of that food can cause a immediate severe reaction.  It occurs when your body mistakes a ingredient as harmful and creates antibodies to fight it. With food allergies, he risks anaphylaxis ( a life threatening allergic reaction) each time he is near the offending item.  For example, his allergy to peanuts is so severe if he even smells it, he could go into anaphylactic shock.  Thankfully for most people food allergy is rare, less than 1%.  Unfortunately for us, Kyle is in that 1%.  His symptoms are always sudden and severe and last for days.  He starts off with his throat closing and lips swelling and then he begins to gasp for air.  We keep an epi pen in each room of the house along with one in my purse for when we are not at home.  After the epi pen has been administered, he suffers from the effects of the epinephrine. He begins to get jittery, his heart starts to pound and he says it makes him feel like he is gonna throw up.   The next couple of days he suffers through a myriad of symptoms including hives, vomiting and diarrhea.   During the ten years of my son's life he has had these reactions to such a wide range of foods that at only a yr old we had to complete eliminate all foods from his diet with the exception of neocate(a corn based formula for infants & toddlers with multiple severe food allergies).  One by one, week by week we had tried to introduce a new food. Nine times out of ten we ended up in the emergency room.

A food intolerance causes symptoms that usually come on gradually and involve the digestive system as opposed to the immune system.  If you have food intolerance you may be able to tolerate small amounts of the offending food without symptoms.  You may also take preventive measures to help prevent an attack. 

If you believe your child has had a reaction after eating a particular food, make sure to bring him to the doctor to determine if he has a food allergy or a food intolerance. If it is a food allergy he or she may be at risk of anaphylaxis. Even if your child has had a mild reation to the food, their next encounter could be severe as we have learned the hard way.

Whether your child has a food allergy or a food intolerance, being a parent to a child with dietary restrictions is never easy.  

When Food Is The Enemy

Hello,

This is my first time blogging, so I hope you all can bear with me.  Hopefully with time I will get better.  I have never thought of blogging until recently when my strong willed 10 year who is allergic to the world said to me "Mom, I just want to be like all the other kids".  Who knew that only ten words could hurt so much.  So after much consideration I decided to write something for him that he could have forever and hope that it helps other kids that may be like him.  Maybe another parent or child will read this and Kyle won't feel so alone with it. 

I'd like to start you all off with a little bit of information and add more as I go.  I will post our daily struggles, a story a day and I would like to end each blog with a recipe I use for my son.  I will list the lessons we learned along the way, the surprising things we had to eliminate, and the many products that pose a threat to a child with food allergies.  From having to quit our jobs to be able to be there for him when he needed us to the effects it had on my older daughter, I believe my story will touch your hearts and keep you looking every day for more,

My little boy, Kyle, is 10.  He is in 5th grade and smart as a whip (most likely from all the days spent reading with me since he couldn't go outside).  He is quite healthy despite his allergies.  Below please find the list of his food allergies.  As I list these foods please understand, he is not just intolerant to all these foods, he is anaphylactic. He has never had an ice cream cone or a hot dog, or ever been able to eat at a restaurant or go to a birthday party.   His first months of his life was a series of mishaps and hospital visits until they finally told us we had to stop trying to introduce any food but the special prescription formula he drank(neocate). 

Foods he is severely allergic to:

Milk
Eggs
Peanuts
Soybean
Beef
Chicken
Turkey
Pork
Lamb
Peach
Cashew
Crab
Tuna
Coconut
Peas
Oat
Sesame
Watermelon
Garlic
Lima Bean
Navy Bean
Yeast
Trout
Blueberry
Cherry
Olive
Raspberry
Vanilla
Cabbage
Grapefruit
Mustard
Rye
Kidney Bean
Mango

Non Food Allergies:

Latex
Ragweed
Dust
Cats
Mold
Feathers

Medication Allergies:

Advair (contains small traces of milk)
Sulfonamides
Penicillins
Cephalosporins
Zithromax

He has had severe reactions to all of the antiboitics we have given him with the exception of one.  It is extremely scary knowing if your child gets sick, the medication he may need he is allergic to!

I look forward to sharing our story with you and any question you may have, please don't hesitate to ask.