Is Your Home Totally Allergen Free?

[Shelsi]

I'm really starting to feel like it's time to make our house completely food allergen free. The way the house is built there is no way for us to effectively block dd from getting into the kitchen. We were using an elaborate blockade of toys but she figured it out lol. So she's always crawling in the kitchen. Almost everything I cook is free of her allergens however my dh and ds still eat "normal" and therefore have bagels and cream cheese, snack foods, prepackaged stuff, they add cheese and other random stuff to my allergy free dinners, etc. Of course stuff falls on the floor sometimes. Or my 4 yr old gets covered in it and he touches something before he gets into the bathroom to wash himself off. We have a dog but unless she SEES the food fall she doesn't notice it sometimes...I've seriously seen her laying next to a piece of chicken on the floor because she didn't notice it

Right now I have dd reacting to something and I can't figure out what it is. It could be something I ate that has undeclared corn OR she could have found a piece of cereal under the table and ate it. I just don't know. And of course, once she's a few years older she's gonna have enough to deal with watching all the other kids eat yummy stuff...she does not need to come home and have to watch daddy or big brother eat stuff in front of her as well.

I want to go allergen free but dh is being a baby about it. I do know it's hard to give all this stuff up but I've been doing it for so long he's got it easy. When I started I was on the TED. Now we've got lots of foods back. I can make some pretty darn decent dinners if you ask me. I've got cookie, pie, and cake recipes that are safe. I know the safe chips. I've got safe breads. Spelt flour is OK for dd which really makes it much easier since I can use it just like regular flour in pretty much everything. Dh is acting like his whole world would end if he couldn't have cheese on his tacos. Whereas I'm just excited that I can find spelt flour tortillas to even have tacos! And besides all that dh could stand to eat healthier and loose some weight.

Sorry, I vented a bit I guess

[lil_miss_understood]

I voted no because DH often keeps ice cream in the house. Non-dairy ice cream is *way* too expensive for him to eat it the way he does.

[LauraLoo]

I voted yes. I think it's easier for us because we've removed all nuts (ds is anaphylatic to peanuts and tree nuts) and never buy anything that is produced on same lines as nuts, etc. Other than being inconvenienced while buying certain products, and giving up foods that we did eat a lot that had nuts in them, it hasn't changed our diet too much.

I do see a day coming in the future where we can have some limited nut products as ds gets older and learns what he can and can not eat.

[menomena]

Hi, I'm the schmoe who picked other.

We are essentially allergen-free. We are avoiding about 8 million things right now, so it's difficult. When ever we eat together, we definitely eat allergy-friendly. However, DH works from home. So he eats cereal, sandwiches and chips and salsa in his office. We keep those foods up out of kids' reach and then he eats them in a room the kids don't go in often.

If he WOH, we would be 95% allergy-free (he would still have his daily bowl of cereal w/almond milk, though - and with "safe" cereal for us topping $5 for a three-day supply, I'm okay with him eating what he does).

[kjbrown92]

No. For one thing, two of my kids have food intolerances, and there is a lot of different foods (like one is severe to beef, the other is severe to chicken & turkey, or one can have honey and beet sugar but not cane sugar, and the other can have cane sugar, but no honey and beet sugar). I make foods that both of them can have (such as using maple sugar and date sugar) but on the days that DS can have beef, he does, and DD has something different, same thing on her turkey days. I am off gluten and dairy. But DD#1 and DH can have anything they want, so we have their stuff too. At home, we have a lock on the pantry, and "unsafe" foods are on the top shelf of the fridge (which she hasn't figured out how to climb up to yet (she's 3). She now understands to ask before she can have things, especially now that we're on a rotation diet. She'll say "is it peanut day?" or "can I have olives today?" I make treats for DH and DD#1 too (chocolate chip cookies for instance). But I do them on different days. If I removed all the foods that anybody could have, I don't think I'd have enough left to eat! But we definitely move stuff out of reach.

[Astromom]

You described our situation pretty much exactly. I let DH and DD have all their regular food when I was on the TED because it just wasn't going to be healthy for them to eat that way too.... but now I have enough foods back that I can make somewhat normal meals. It thoroughly bugs me that DH will continue to buy cheese and milk and corn chips. Actually I think I finally convinced him to stop buying corn chips because corn is DS's serious one, but still he brings in so much that we can't eat and it really bugs me because for all I know DS is picking up residue all over the place. Anyway, I can sympathize.

[Jojo F.]

Nope I sure wish there was no gluten in this house to tempt me:

We live with the IL's and they LIVE on bread- bad I know- but that's totally out of my hands. I just try to make sure I have enough stuff for myself which is not always easy.

[menomena]

Second post: I wish my DH would just bite the bullet and go GFCF with us (he doesn't mind the other stuff being out). He has some lingering anxiety issues plus sleep issues plus some skin stuff... I bet if he actually stuck to an ED for a week or three he'd see good results. He just can't help himself out of the house... (And his mom apparently lives to torture me, since she ALWAYS has some sort of diary & wheat filled dessert there whenever we go - which is at least once a week).

[Ruthla]

No, because the allergic one is an adult and it would be very expensive to feed the whole family the way I can eat. Nor do I think it would be particularly healthy for the kids to be completely dairy free, especially with DD1 being mostly a vegetarian.

I don't allow cookable gluten in the house though- I dont' mind precooked breads and crackers, but only on paper plates (the paper plate thing is a new rule, as I'm not certain my dishwasher is effective enough to keep any crumbs from contaminating other dishes.) I only buy GF cereals though- I don't need to risk getting myself sick touching a cereal bowl that one of the kids didn't clean up- and anyway the GF cereals are no more expensive than the gluteny cereals that are also Feingold approved.

[matey]

DH is really good about eating whatever I am allowed to eat. Last night we had "tacos" with taco meat(venison), lettuce leaves as shells, a little salsa, no cheese, and some safe chips. Right now, I am eliminating the top 8, and we are normally dairy free. It was good. .

He normally goes dairy free with me, but while I am doing the ED, he eats the same as me for dinner, and I pack him a heavier lunch and make muffins for his breakfast. DH loves eating squash and zucchini on rice pasta, he says TED/ED meals feel like mediterranean fare. I disagree, I think they get boring, but whatever.

If I have to drop out, say wheat, longterm, I know he would do it with me. Although, I would probably put wheat in his lunches, because using traditional wraps and bread is easier, and cheaper, AND the muffins work out well for his quick breakfast.

It does help that with being dairy free that DH doesnt like milk, and he isnt too cheese crazy. And, we like nutricianal yeast as a cheese substitute. He does like ice cream, but he just has a bowl at his parents house once in awhile. My DH is very easy going, and honestly, as long as he has some type of food and gets beer every once in a while, he is pretty happy on the food/beverage front.

[Wolfmeis]

Yes. My dd is ana to peanuts, walnuts and pecans. She is also contact sensitive. I can't make anywhere else in the world "safe" for her to be relaxed with regards to her deadly allergy, but I can make her home safe.

This was just something, an attitude, we began with when she was first diagnosed and was too small to understand. Now that she is older, if she weren't contact sensitive, I don't know how exactly we would proceed. Last year she told me she'd snuck a Mommy cookie from the snack cabinet (I keep a stash high out of reach-- so I thought) once when she'd woken up hungry. That's a total kid thing to do. What horrible kind of natural consequences would it have been for me to wake up to an unconscious-- maybe worse-- child the next morning because I had to get my peanut groove on?

[spedteacher30]

We are completely nut and peanut free (peanut allergy). M has outgrown his milk and soy allergies, and is trialling eggs right now. When we were first getting a handle on things, the safe foods were in one cupboard and the other food was in the pantry. (M was too small to access food independently at that point, so the segregation was for me to be able to just grab food without thinking about it).

We always had eggs and milk in the house, but DW only ate them when M was asleep.

Our house will always be peanut/nut free, unless M outgrows his peanut allergy as the doctor is currently predicting.

[changingseasons]

Originally Posted by spedteacher30

Our house will always be peanut/nut free, unless M outgrows his peanut allergy as the doctor is currently predicting.

How does someone predict that?? Just curious. I'm totally predicting that DD will outgrow all her allergies, but I don't have any basis for that... :

[elmh23]

Yes because our allergies are soy (oils and lecithins are fine for our kids) and peanuts/tree nuts.

There is a possibility that I'm have GI problems due to wheat (testing has been ordered, just need to get to the vampires ) and if that happens then the house will remain soy, peanut and tree nut free but everyone else will get to eat wheat. (And I'll come here crying, I love bread.)

ChangingSeasons, my daughter outgrew her peanut allergy. The allergist always thought it was a strong possibility for her since her RAST numbers were pretty low (2.) Have you done RAST?

[changingseasons]

Originally Posted by elmh23

ChangingSeasons, my daughter outgrew her peanut allergy. The allergist always thought it was a strong possibility for her since her RAST numbers were pretty low (2.) Have you done RAST?

Yep- most of DD's allergies are IgG (intolerances), but peanut did show up on RAST, just barely over the limit. But what I've read says that the size of the number on RAST isn't necessarily proportional to the severity of the allergy (or, I'm assuming, the likelihood to grow out of it). Is that not true?

[Shelsi]

My 4 yr old was diagnosed with a severe pistachio allergy when he was a year old through RAST testing. However I really really feel it was a false positive. However his number was super high. So, at the advice of the allergist, we have avoided all nuts, tree nuts, and peanuts. We had him tested again at 3 yrs old and everything came back negative. It's a gut feeling that he was never allergic but we're still playing it safe until we can be sure (because of course the other test could just be a false negative).

We do have nuts and peanuts in the house and it's never felt like a big scary issue since ds has never gotten into them and he's never even really showed any sort of reaction at all.

Dd seems to have so many allergies and we're still in the process of figuring them out that it's frustrating to see her reacting to something and then not be sure if it's something I gave her or something she found on the floor. Not to mention I do not know if she is ana to any of her allergens and I do not want to find out the hard way, kwim?

[elmh23]

Originally Posted by changingseasons

Yep- most of DD's allergies are IgG (intolerances), but peanut did show up on RAST, just barely over the limit. But what I've read says that the size of the number on RAST isn't necessarily proportional to the severity of the allergy (or, I'm assuming, the likelihood to grow out of it). Is that not true?

No that's true. My doctor used the number and the fact that dd had never had an ana. reaction (hives around her mouth the 2 times she had peanuts) to say that if we did a total ban (having peanuts no where near her ever) that she COULD outgrow. And 2 years later her testing came back negative and she passed her challenge.

She was also IgG to soy and outgrew it around the same time. So there is hope!

(Of course life being funny, my son tested positive to peanuts and soy two days later. And his soy reaction was IgE, not IgG. Sigh...)

[sarakay2]

We are allergen free. Ds1 is ana to peanuts and Ds2 is allergic to eggs, peanuts and walnuts. I find it much easier to not have them in the house. Both my boys are very careful about what they eat but accidents do happen.

[Boobs]

DS and I have several different allergies, but since he's only ana to peanuts, that's the only thing we won't allow in the house. Although, I'm having a hard time keeping him out of wheat things, so those may be next. That would be a huge transition for my dh and dd.

[tangent]

I voted yes, since it's a life-threatening allergy for us. Luckily, it's a relatively rare nut, and not really hard to live without.