Allergy Mamas - do you woh?

[ASusan]

Many of you cook so many different foods, try out recipes, cook for more than one allergic person...how do you find the time?

[ASusan]

I'll answer first.

I WOH full time. DH helps cook, but I do all the allergy buying, cooking and experimenting. He cooks ~2 meals a week; they are allergy safe, and they usually last several days (e.g. chicken curry with veggies gets us through 2 dinners and several daycare lunches). I will say that my schedule is generally flexible, especially in the summer.

I make all the GF pancakes, recipe trials, and any vegetables that start fresh. DS and I eat GF buckwheat pancakes for each breakfast, and for DS' daycare snacks. DH has made pancakes once, when I was away for 5 nights in March for a conference. DH deals with frozen veggies only - they go into his curry. I handle the CSA pick-up and make sure we eat the vegetables associated with it. It's like the CSA doesn't exist to my DH. However, he does have OAS, so he can't eat any of it without cooking it first. He did make some greens from the CSA basket on mother's day because I put in a special request. I can bet money that he won't touch anything from a basket for the rest of the summer.

Making yogurt, water kefir, kombucha, bone broth, and anything cooked in bone broth - that's all my territory.

[kjbrown92]

My DH would cook but he doesn't trust himself to know what the kids can have on any given day. If I give him a menu and the food and the recipe, he will cook it though. I do all the cooking, shopping, etc. I SAH though that's a misnomer for sure. I have 3 kids (age 4, 8, 11) so there's school activities, sports acitivities, and I'm secretary of the Jr. Women's Club (which has a lot of volunteering with it) and President of the nursery school co-op. My DH works shiftwork, and works a lot of hours. The thing that takes me the most time in any given month is shopping for food. If there was just ONE store, it would be fantastic. But I have to go to the Asian Market 40 minutes away for coconut milk and palm sugar. WF (35 minutes away) has DD2's cream soda for a treat once in a while, and something else is only there and I can't even remember what. Price Rite is cheap but I can only get produce there and some stuff for the regular-diet people. I have to go to Expect Discount for their olive oil. Trader Joes (30 minutes away) is rice milk. Costco (40 minutes away) has other stuff. And then some stuff (vanilla beans, millet flour, etc.) I get online at various places. It's ridiculous. If I worked (which I plan on doing when DD2 goes to Kindergarten) I don't know how we'd get all our food. Except I'm hoping that by then they'll have healed enough to add more foods back in. Wishful thinking, I know.

[deditus]

I am in charge of everything food related in our house. DH works 6 days a week, often 12+ hours a day and we live where we have no family. I take care of medical/research stuff, I figured out the intolerances, I plan all our meals, where it will be purchased, try new recipes, etc. DH eats everything I cook him except he dislikes curry and cilantro. He can and will throw something in the oven or on the grill, but if it were up to him we'd have a meat, a frozen veg, and a potato or sweet potato. I need more variety and flavor than that! He will go to the store with a very specific list, which is a big help since I have to shop at Costco, Trader Joe's, a co-op, a grocery store, pick up our CSA box, and go to the farmers' market. I have to say that I LOVE the challenge of cooking from our CSA box, especially with a bunch of crazy stuff like black radishes, burdock root, & sorrel, but sometimes it would be nice to have break. We are currently gfcf, egg free, corn free, sulfur and sals lite.

[tanyalynn]

We started gluten and dairy free (and a couple other very minor intolerances) a few months after I quit working. I would have been utterly incapable of doing gluten and dairy free with the kids in daycare and me working, even though I was only working part-time. If someone is very committed and very organized (and not brain fogged like I was), it seems possible but very, very hard. And I would've had to find new childcare, my old DCP couldn't even keep her own child away from cow's milk dairy, let alone deal with something like gluten.

[Catt75]

It is very hard but we do what we have to. I take care of all the cooking, shopping and experimenting with foods in my house. I also work full time. We are avoiding dairy, wheat, oats and eggs. My mother watches her 3 days per week and is very good at avoiding her allergens and is experimenting with cooking also. If it wasn't for my mother and my sister I don't know how I would do it.

[crunchy_mama]

I SAH and take care of everything. On a rare occasion dh will cook- if I tell him what to cook but his skill level is pretty basic - grilled chicken(which he usually burns) and spaghetti.

I do once weekly shopping at the regular store- generally produce and some odd and ends dry goods and dairy for dh.

I go to the discount store to find misc. allergy friendly food condiments, cereal for dh 1-2 x a month. TJ's and WF's I go to maybe 2-3 x a year as they are 2 hrs or so away and I stock up big time.

[crunchy_mama]

To me cooking is my number #1 priority especially being prego and w/ 2 intolerant kids that I am paranoid about making sure they get plenty of food. I enjoy cooking as well. When I get crazy or stress or tired I go to old easy and quick standby's but when I am feeling good I take the chance to try recipes and such. One day at a time and just do the best you can.

[changingseasons]

Well, I voted for SAHM and I do most of the cooking... I do work very part-time (contract work) from home. And DP does help with the cooking, so I wasn't sure how to answer that. But he cooks maybe 4 meals a week (more if I ask) and I cook the rest.

[Alyantavid]

I wohm ft as does dh and I do most of the cooking. When dh cooks, he's perfectly fine dealing with the allergies and we don't have much in the house that the kids can't have.

[Hedwig_Fly]

I voted other because I WOH FT, but my DH is a SAHD and he does almost all of the cooking (like 90 + % of the cooking). I do almost all the grocery shopping and allergy research.

Since we have been trying to find more treats that are safe. I do most of the baking of treats. He's been getting really good at sorbets. We tried a strawberry-rhubarb this weekend and he makes a great Lemon sorbet.

We are fairly new with all the allergy restrictions and are still working to find more recipes. We started Milk free start of November, Gluten and Corn free in January, and now well we have a list of ~ 23 things. We've both been pretty good about trying new foods. I have to say that sometimes he'll give me the “are you crazy” look, like yesterday when I started talking about sprouting beans. We are getting much better in the variety of real (unprocessed) foods we are now eating. Still need to learn to make coconut milk yogurt, water kefir, sprouting, and fermenting - but we'll get there in baby steps. It is hard and I really wish I had more time to devote but we do what we can. The plus side is we are seeing huge improvements in DD2 and we are all eating much better.

Oh and we have 3 dd's they are almost 5, almost 3, and almost 1.

[kjbrown92]

Originally Posted by Hedwig_Fly

We are fairly new with all the allergy restrictions and are still working to find more recipes. We started Milk free start of November, Gluten and Corn free in January, and now well we have a list of ~ 23 things. We've both been pretty good about trying new foods. I have to say that sometimes he'll give me the “are you crazy” look, like yesterday when I started talking about sprouting beans. We are getting much better in the variety of real (unprocessed) foods we are now eating. Still need to learn to make coconut milk yogurt, water kefir, sprouting, and fermenting - but we'll get there in baby steps. It is hard and I really wish I had more time to devote but we do what we can. The plus side is we are seeing huge improvements in DD2 and we are all eating much better.

I have my sprouting stuff to start this summer. I did sauerkraut myself but I found Bubbie's was better (and a heck of a lot easier considering the other stuff I'm making, which I can't actually find anywhere).

[stephienoodle]

I can't imagine having to WOH FT... I don't think I'd have enough time to cook for myself. I do 100% of the cooking and 99% of the grocery shopping. DH's idea of cooking is adding milk to cereal, yogurt to granola (which I made in advance), putting a Hungryman dinner in the microwave (which he doesn't do with me grocery shopping! ), or driving for take out. I tried to get him to make a box-mix allergy-safe cake for my birthday two years ago and I ended up even helping with that. Every once in a blue moon he'll grill hamburgers, but only if I really bug him. In his bachelor days, he had a cookbook entitled, "Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen"... that about sums it up.

[crunchy_mama]

Originally Posted by stephienoodle

I can't imagine having to WOH FT... I don't think I'd have enough time to cook for myself. I do 100% of the cooking and 99% of the grocery shopping. DH's idea of cooking is adding milk to cereal, yogurt to granola (which I made in advance), putting a Hungryman dinner in the microwave (which he doesn't do with me grocery shopping! ), or driving for take out. I tried to get him to make a box-mix allergy-safe cake for my birthday two years ago and I ended up even helping with that. Every once in a blue moon he'll grill hamburgers, but only if I really bug him. In his bachelor days, he had a cookbook entitled, "Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen"... that about sums it up.

That is about dh. He always goes on that there is nothing to eat if I don't cook- nevermind the freezerful of meat and veggies(and fruit), cabinets full of noodles- flours- baking items- a frig w/ veggies and misc condiments and a spice cabinet FULL. He doesn't think in terms of cooking he thinks in terms of what he can microwave or put in a cereal bowl.

This is all the more reason to make sure your sons are in the kitchen with you just the same as your daughters(my mil is so not a cook- but then again most people aren't). My son at almost 5 already knows we put mustard, mayo, and vinegar in deviled eggs- without ever even telling him. He learned as he is always watching. I got breakfast on Mother's Day- as I happened to have some ready made gf/cf pancake mix- and he tries to cook eggs if asks but he isn't very good at it and like I said he grills meat on rare occasion but burns it and even that is very rare. I make 99.9% of meals around here. We do generally grocery shop together or I can make him a list and he can pick things up so that is helpful.