Top Eight Free: Your Guide to Allergy-Free Eating

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.

I’ve started a new category of recipes that conform to the Weight Watchers core plan.  I guess it is proof that it is possible to eat well on an allergen-free diet that I need to watch my weight!   These recipes are free of the top eight allergens and are also low-fat and high in whole grains and protein. 

In addition to the recipes, this site features links to organizations and businesses  dedicated to food allergies and some general musings about life with allergies.   I hope that this site makes living with allergies a little easier and more fun for you!