Question about possible allergens sticking to cast iron pans

[Ophelia]

DS has what I believe is gluten intolerance, we have been GF for most of his life. He will be 4 in a few days and is still bedwetting every night and has little daytime accidents. I trialed egg last fall, and in just over a week there were NO accidents for about 4 days, then we accidentally fed him food with egg. DH didn't believe me so DS went back on egg again.

I trialed the egg again this spring, for almost 4 weeks. NO change in accidents. Couple questions about this:

-we don't have chicken that often but I was wondering if I would need to be careful about cutting out egg AND chicken at the same time? I think his ELISA test did show slight egg and slight chicken (but I don't 100% trust those, since it said nothing for wheat).

-I use cast iron pans. Both pans have had egg cooked in them. If I used the pans during a trial, could that mean he may have gotten egg that way?

I don't know if I will be able to trial egg again anyways, due to DH's defensive resistance, but DS will be 4 in a few days and it's horrible to keep having to buy disposable pull-ups for him. The pans have never had gluten cooked in them, so that is not a problem.

My naturopath suggested to first make sure there is no gluten cross-contamination (we had been using the same toaster, I didn't think it was a problem!) and to also try cutting out all artificial crap (which isn't a lot, mostly from DH ). We can also take DS to my ND for elimination diet help, kind of trying to avoid that because I was laid off 3 months ago and we don't have much $. I might need her help though if her first suggestion doesn't work, I am pg and still nursing him so I don't want to have to cut out a bunch of food myself.

Thanks!

[lil_miss_understood]

Originally Posted by Ophelia

-I use cast iron pans. Both pans have had egg cooked in them. If I used the pans during a trial, could that mean he may have gotten egg that way?

IME Yes

[Arduinna]

Well I know the general advice is to not wash cast iron with soap, but I do anyway and my pans are still non stick. Assuming you are washing the pans adequately, I don't see how they are going to pass on anything.

[lil_miss_understood]

Originally Posted by Arduinna

Well I know the general advice is to not wash cast iron with soap, but I do anyway and my pans are still non stick. Assuming you are washing the pans adequately, I don't see how they are going to pass on anything.

Cast iron is porous. As such, even if it has been cleaned, it still holds minute particles of whatever food has been previously cooked in it. Not enough to give anyone food poisoning, for example, but IME enough for someone who is sensitive to react.

[dannic]

Esp with gluten, but also with anything that someone is severely intolerant to, anything porous can cause problems...that goes for teflon, cast iron, and plastic cutting boards, ect.

I could see egg particles also causing a fail in trial. It's tough to figure it all out, I know. Toasters are notorious for xcon. Other things would be peanut butter, jams, ect...

I think the book A G-Free Diet covers a lot of the basics like that.

[Ophelia]

Thanks! If I was able to trial egg again (I don't even know how to approach this with DH, considering his previous horrible defensive reactions to the suggestion!) I was going to cook anything on the stove in DH's non-stick (not teflon) pan. But you think that would also have particles even if it was washed good? I hate to buy a whole new pan just for trial. ugh.

And no, I don't wash the cast iron with soap or even rinse with water (except recently when egg stuck to it and i had to steel wool it off). I just scrape out the excess and re-grease with bacon grease.

[Ruthla]

It sounds tough to do any kind of elimination diet with another adult in the household "not on board." Honestly, I'd have to wonder what else DH might be sneaking him "since it's harmless anyway."

I'm sure there's a way to get all traces of everything off the pans: run the pans through a self-cleaning oven, and then re-do the seasoning. It sounds like a complete PITA to do, but it should be effective and is way cheaper than buying new pans every time you do another elimination diet. Maybe switch to stainless steel pans? For all you know, the bacon grease you're using to season the pans could be the problem.

It does sound like there's SOMETHING in his diet that doesn't agree with him, but you can't figure out what. I personally did very well with the blood type diet- instead of trialing each and every suspected food, I completely switched to the Type O diet over the course of about 2 weeks (which includes nourishing foods to emphasize, not just what foods to eliminate) and found a great reduction in my fibromyalgia symptoms. If you can't seem to figure out which foods to remove next, this might be one approach to try.

[dannic]

yes, non stick can have xcon. What about boiled eggs?

[Ophelia]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

It sounds tough to do any kind of elimination diet with another adult in the household "not on board." Honestly, I'd have to wonder what else DH might be sneaking him "since it's harmless anyway."

It's taken me 4 years - 4 YEARS - and I think he is FINALLY starting to believe me that DS has a gluten problem. Nearly every time DS gets the red rash now, I show it to DH and say "look, this is not normal" and I think it's the only thing that is helping him believe that it's a problem. He is good about not 'sneaking', but there has been a few times where he hasn't checked the ingredient list well enough (and I just did that myself the other week, I didn't think wheat would be the second ingredient of licorice! Sure enough, in about 24 hours DS had the red rash and I told DH that it happened).

I'll check on the blood type info. I'm not even sure what type DS is though.

[Ophelia]

Originally Posted by dannic

yes, non stick can have xcon. What about boiled eggs?

Well, the trouble is egg has been cooked in all the pans we use regularly (2 cast iron and one non-stick). I do have one stainless steel I could try that I haven't cooked on for a looong time (I highly doubt I ever cooked eggs in it!). I just always had a hard time with things sticking which is why I hardly used it. I will maybe try it if I can do the trial again. I would also make sure he is having no chicken either.