If you’re like me, you love eating good food. (Who doesn’t?) You’re dealing with one or more food allergies or sensitivities and you don’t want to give up eating well. I’m here to say you don’t have to!
When my daughter was born with multiple food allergies, I discovered that there aren’t many cookbooks out there for people who are trying to avoid more than one food. There are a lot of milk-free cookbooks, for example, that are not very helpful if you also need to avoid soy. And some of the allergy cookbooks I tried had recipes that just didn’t work, or that weren’t appetizing to me. So I set out to create my own recipes for the types of food that I like to eat.
I am sharing the results of my trial and error in the kitchen with you as a gift. There are no ads on this blog, and I don’t earn any money from it. I just want to help make your food allergy journey a little easier.
The recipes in this blog are free of the top eight allergens for children: dairy, soy, nuts, peanuts, eggs, wheat, fish and shellfish. Most are also free of sesame and yeast and are low in naturally-occurring histamine. There are also many recipes here for people on a gluten-free or gluten-free/casein free diets. Many are vegan. All are surprisingly tasty and far from boring.
These recipes may not be appropriate for your family. For example, my daughter is not allergic to wheat so some of the recipes use kamut or spelt flour, which are relatives of wheat and should not be eaten by people with IgE-mediated allergies to wheat or with celiac disease. You will need to try your own experiments with gluten-free flours. Please check with your allergist before trying any new foods.
Exciting news – I am now the About.com guide to food allergies. Check out my new blog!
Hi
Those chickpea fries were very very good.
Website looks great – very well organized, easy to find your way quickly to a great idea for the next meal plan. Thank you!!!
This does look great! You’ve got quite an impressive collection by now — and you’ve inspired me to try to figure out how to subscribe to RSS feeds to keep up with additions. (If I’ve done it correctly, this message will show up sometime in my RSS feed…)
Let me know if you’d like some additional bread recipes for the ‘recipes with some top 8 allergens’ section — I keep coming up with new ones all the time but can’t avoid using some flour, either wheat or spelt.
This website is freakin’ amazing.
Loved the Sweet Potato, Lime and Cilantro Vichyssoise. Thanks so much for a great Web site!
Thank you, thank you for this website! I am new mother of a baby with multiple food allergies (via my breastmilk). I am three months into it, still deciphering symptoms and triggers, but getting used to my new lifestyle and food choices. Your website will do us wonders!
I wish you and your baby the best on your journey. Have you found the Parents of Food Allergic Kids site yet? http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org
They have a group on facebook as well — which is free.
Thanks so much for this website. I have mastocytosis (too many mast cells and when they degranulate I can/do go into anaphalictic shock….) and my daughter has a few allergies.
I have urticaria right now and it’s located all over my body including my face. I have been reluctant to follow a low-histamine diet because it’s so difficult and new to me, but I’m finding out that that may be the way to go! I will certainly be using your recipes! Thanks sooo much!
The low histamine diet is hard to follow at first — so many things to keep track of! But when you start feeling better and see the pay off, it will all be worthwile. And after a while you will start to have a file of recipes you like and foods you know are OK for you and it will become part of your routine.
I hope your urticaria has improved since you posted this!
I love these recipes! Thanks so much!
Hello–I am so grateful to have found your website, after wondering what now starting me itching when I thought I’d just eaten “safe” foods. This is new to me—I am hungry and miserable, so it is such a relief to encounter your fabulous resources!
My allergies used to be minor nuisances until I had a reaction to contrast dye and subsequently had additional exposures b/c of necessary diagnostic tests. The last one three and a half weeks ago seemed to push my body over the brink (despite premed. w/cortisone), my histamine levels are staying elevated and antihistamines have helped but I still turn red and blotchy and itchy for no apparent reason….and often after eating. I have been trying to do the ‘elimination’ diet but it’s not yet clear what all the culprits are (tho the things that make my lips swell are pretty clear)…. Looking forward to reading your material and trying out your recipes…Many thanks!
Sorry to hear about your allergy problems. It can be really hard to figure out the cause. I hope you manage to get some relief soon!
Octavia,
I too was “pushed over the brink” by IV Contrast Dye recently. I have had mildly annoying, but relatively harmless allergies my whole life. I recently had a CT Scan that required IV Contrast Dye, and I went into full blown anaphalatic shock – thankfully I was already in the ER. The very next day, I started having severe allergies anytime I ate, and my skin from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes was super itchy, then eventually a burning sensation took over. No amount of Benadyrl helped, and the doctors told me they’d never heard of anyone have a long term reaction to IV Constrast Dye – only an immediate shock type reaction. Your the first person I’ve heard of having a long term problem from it as well. I am going to look on the internet to see if this is common, and if there is anything in particular that works to pull be back from “the brink.”
PS-I love this website – good work!!!
This is a great website – thanks for sending me the link! I will send to my sister whose son has allergies.
- Jenny
Hey! Thanks so much for this!!! My toddler is allergic to wheat, soy, milk, eggs and peanuts. I was pulling my hair out to make her a decent weeks worth of meals. Like you I found a ton of cook books for one allergy, but hardly any (and def none free) for all the allergies.
Thanks!
You’re welcome! I love to hear that I have helped people!
I’m excited to find your site! My 18 mo old son was just diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis, so we have to put him on an allergen-free diet, and slowly add things back in to see what he can tolerate. It’s almost impossible to find recipes that are free from all 8 allergens! Being only a year old, my son is a picky eater, so I hope I can find some things he likes. All of his favorites are now out, poor guy. He woke up hungry at 3:30am, thus I am up surfing the internet because I can’t fall back asleep. I would love to hear from anyone familiar with this disease who might have some insights!
A friend of mine has a son with EE. He is currently formula only and I know it has been a tough road for them. I suggest you check out some of parent support groups that are online. I know that Kids With Food Allergies has a board for parents of kids with EE. I am not sure what the other options are, but I wish you the best on your journey. And I am so glad that you have disvoered this now, when he is so young.
My son also has EE and celiac disease. We are removing the top 8 allergens from his diet. How is your son doing. Did you find which foods he is allergic to?
We are still off the top 8 allergens since his second scope had conflicting results. This disease is so frustrating! The numbers were more than double, but the furrowing looked better. At this point we are keeping him on the same diet and just watching to see how he does, and then scope again in a few months. He’s a happy boy though, so we’re grateful for that!
I made the black bean pizza , and it was delicious. Thanks
Hi! I’m so happy to have found your website. My LO is 3 months old and we’ve had ongoing issues with mucous and blood in her stool. I’ve been dairy and soy free for 2 months with little improvement. I’ve now removed gluten, nuts and eggs and today decided fish and shellfish had to go as well. We’ve got an appointment to see an allergist so hopefully we’ll have some answers. The appt. isn’t for 2 weeks and I need to plan my families dinners for the week! And I’m starving most the time and of course don’t want to compromise my breast milk. Looking forward to trying some new yummy stuff….and wish me luck b/c I’m not that handy in the kitchen!
Don’t limit your diet too much – you need lots of protein to make milk! I hope your allergist appointment can help pinpoint the specific allergens. Im so sorry to hear that your LO has been suffering for so long.
Thank you! Just what I was looking for!
I am allergic to eggs, wheat, yeast, soy and citrus…WHEW! Any salad dressings or sauces I can safely have?
Can you eat sesame? I’ve had some good tahini-based salad dressings. Can you eat vinegar? A simple olive oil and vinegar dressing would also work if you can.
I am suppose to go on a histamine free / wheat free diet. I am a guy and cannot cook to save my life. I need help! Is there a book of easy to make recipes for this diet? I’m totally clueless.
Also is there a guide of things to avoid on this diet that is consistent? Finding several conflicting lists of things to avoid on the histamine free diet.
Oh boy this is going to suck!!
Thanks for letting me rant and to anyone that can throw suggestions at me.
So sorry to hear about this. There are a lot of gluten-free diet cookbooks out there but as far as I know no histamine-free ones. (Someone correct me if you know of one)
The thing about histamine is… you can’t completely avoid it, you can only reduce it as much as possible. So that is why you are seeing conflicting lists. For example, I use a lot of citrus juice instead of vinegar in my recipes because fresh lemon juice is lower in histamine than vinegar – note I said “lower.” It might be off-limits for some people because it does contain histamine.
Rant away – those first months after a diagnosis that involves such a life-changing diet are rough!
My first suggestion would be to find a few simple foods that you can make as your go-to meals. Baked potatoes and roasted chicken, for example. They take time to cook but basically involve just putting them in the oven.
My second suggestion would be to go to your local health food store, find a sympathetic looking clerk and show them the list of foods you have to avoid. Ask them for help in locating some products you can eat. My experience is that people who work in health food stores often do so because of their own diet restrictions and they love to help out other people. It would be best to do this during a not-too-busy time (not Saturday afternoon) so that someone can really take the time to help you.
My mother just found out the results of some tests today. Definitely gluten free but her numbers were so high that she is to be off of eggs, dairy, and soy for at least a month. She is 65 so this is going to be pretty difficult for her. I’m doing it all with her so keep us in your thoughts.