Allergic to soy and eggs too??

[tuscany123]

Oh gosh, DH and I are clueless how to proceed. A couple of weeks ago I posted that DS, 22 mos, had the skin test and came up positive for tree nuts, peanuts, green peas, green beans, cantaloupe, squash and oats. The allergist ordered blood work, and just now he called me and said DD came up "3 for eggs and soy, and 0-1 for wheat, dairy and cod" I have a follow up appt for next week. He did say for eggs and soy it was a 50% probability of an allergy, but to take him off them for now. The thing is, DH and I, stabbing in the dark had taken DS off milk because of his eczma, and replaced the milk with soy milk. And his eczma is so improved! Now we hear that milk probably is not the problem? And gosh, how do we work around eggs? Can we not have any baked goods again ever? I don't know what to do at all. The soy I see is in a lot of processed foods, we can work around that, but eggs? No home made muffins or cookies? What do we feed this little guy? Does anyone know how we can bake with no eggs? I'd appreciate any advice you can give, thanks Mama's

[gigismom]

my ds is also IgE to eggs and soy, among others. i find eggs to be the hardest of his allergens to live without. it is easier in my opinion to sub milk and wheat than eggs. however, we have found ways to bake without eggs too. look for a mama on here, kjbrown92, she has a link in her sig to her blog that has AWESOME recipes that you search by allergen. I have gotten many, many great recipes from her that you would never guess were egg free. I will be making something this weekend. Soy is in almost every pre packaged food and hidden everywhere. I guess I have just learned to cook everything from scratch from simple ingredients. Our overall health, diet, everything has improved greatly because of my son's allergies because of this. So if you have to find a silver lining, there it is!

btw... my daughter also has some food issues. she had eczema her whole life. the allergist said it was not food related so we did not try eliminating anything. when i started learning more about food allergies/intolerances as a result of my sons issues i decided to go dairy free for her too. her eczema went away completely within a couple of weeks. this is after 5 years of suffering. i think if you see improvement after cutting out a food that is way more reliable than any test. good luck. i have learned so much from this board so keep reading

peace

jen

[lil_miss_understood]

Eggs have multiple purposes in baking. They act as a binder, a thickener, a liquid, a leavening agent and an emulsifier. In order to bake effectively egg and soy free, you need to evaluate what the purpose(s) of the egg(s) is/are in the particular recipe you are making (there's usually more than one).

For binding, many of us like 3 tablespoons of hot water mixed into 1 tablespoon of ground flax. There is also a method of making flax "goo" without the flax in it which results in less texture change and less of a "flaxy" taste. I'll look for it and try to post it later.
For thickening, 1 tablespoon of any safe starch plus 3 tablespoons of liquid.
For leavening, 1/4 teaspoon of safe baking powder.
For extra richness (lost when using egg replacers), you may consider using 1 tablespoon of oil in place of 1 tablespoon of water.
The difficult one to replicate is emulsification. I'm working on a method of using sunflower seeds to do it but I'm not yet certain of proportions.

Generally speaking, for cookies the purpose is two-fold: leavening and binding. For cakes and muffins, it's usually leavening, binding, liquid and a thickener.
A general rule is to mix and match your egg replacers according to what's needed and expect to use 1 more egg replacer than you would need eggs. For example, in a cookie recipe requiring 2 eggs you would use 2 "flax eggs" plus 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder. For a cake requiring 2 eggs, you would use a "flax egg", a "starch egg" and 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder. Many people just leave out the baking powder though, but I've found better results when using it.

That's my experience and I hope it helps.

[tuscany123]

Thank you both

[dannic]

I'm a book girl, so I'll rec two: The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook (top 8 free)
and Healing the New CHildhood Epidemics, Bock.

I agree with gigi'smom--eggs are by far our toughest avoidance.

JR, I need a little cheat sheet for my cupboard. COuld you pull one together in your spare time?

[kjbrown92]

Wow, Jacq, that was a great explanation!