Dairy allergy

How to Survive Holidays with Food Allergies

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Over four years ago, I realized my dairy allergy. Adjusting to the massively food-limiting restriction was rough. One of the biggest issues: how to handle holidays.

I dropped all dairy just before Halloween 2013. Bad timing for my taste buds — as I only enjoy chocolate candy and dislike fruity treats — but appreciated by my waistline. It was a hardship that first Halloween learning to abstain from all of the fun-size goodies, but I did. I knew it’d get easier with time. And it did.

Then came Thanksgiving. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, pies, green beans, corn, rolls, even the turkey are more likely than not to contain dairy. Around the holidays, milk/butter/cheese/cream/whey is in everything. I mourned missing out. It was a death, of sorts. I thought Thanksgiving was dead.

At first I adjusted by making and bringing some of my own dairy-free versions of traditional dishes and — my then-omnivorous self — asked for the turkey to be made dairy-free. My family kindly obliged. However, despite all loving intentions, I got inadvertently dosed with dairy that year. It was awful; a holiday meal wasn’t worth a week of suffering, especially when I had an infant and a toddler to wrangle.

A month later, Christmas came and I tried my approach again. Fail! Dosed yet again, I decided from then on not to attempt others’ contributions unless the cooks, themselves, were dairy-free.

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The next year, I made more side dishes to bring, ate beforehand, and stuck to my meal offerings. No accidental dairy dosing! I had my new holiday survival technique. This was key, now that two of my children accompanied me on the dairy-free journey.

Three years later — now a dairy-allergic, gluten-free vegan — I will absolutely maintain my tried-and-true holiday survival technique. It’s my safest route.

Is it hard not being able to eat everything? Not really, anymore. Once I shifted my focus from food to people, it made a world of difference. The day after a holiday, I won’t look back on the celebration remembering how the green beans tasted or how the squash was flavored. I’ll reflect on the people, the experience, the laughter (and eye rolls… because what’s a family gathering without that balance?) And that’s where my focus should be.

So what do I bring? This year, I will bring herbed green beans sauteed in olive oil, baked squash (delicata, butternut, and acorn) seasoned with herbs and Earth Balance, and a garlicky lentil-mushroom dish. Often, I bring dairy-free rolls and herbed carrots. Usually my belly is too full for dessert after Thanksgiving dinner, and I’m too busy wrangling my tiny trio while helping with dish clean-up to indulge, but if I did want to bring a sweet to enjoy it’d probably be this.

Looking for some gluten-free vegan holiday recipes? Try here. On the hunt for sweet recipes? Look here for some vegan dessert finds.

When it comes to food allergies, there’s no dish worth risking a reaction, no matter how delicious. It is hard at first but, like any adjustment, it gets easier. Life is about so much more than just food.

 

What Halloween Taught My 4-year-old: Life as an Allergy Mom

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No one wants to be an allergy mom. But you really have no choice in the matter. It’s your life. It’s your child’s life. Deal with it.

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My middle son’s severe peanut allergy became glaringly obvious when he was not even a year old. I was at work a state away, my husband was at home simultaneously trying to send work emails and wrangle our not-yet-3-year-old daughter and our 11-month-old son. Our daughter took that opportunity to act upon our often-ignored requests to share with her brother, and gave him a nice big bite of her PB&J. Hives covered his tiny body — scalp, face, legs, feet, ears — he vomited, his bowels evacuated, Benadryl didn’t touch the reaction. My husband called me at work. I called the pediatrician, rushed home, raced to the pediatrician’s office, and they called it: peanut allergy. Just to be safe, they ordered a blood allergy test. He reacted to 5 of the 7 peanut proteins. He was severely allergic. He also had an egg allergy that he, like our daughter and eventual second son, outgrew by the age of 2.

We were Epi-Pen carrying allergy parents. Crap. And I had once been that snotty know-nothing teen who bemoaned the lack of free peanuts on planes. How inconvenienced I felt to be handed pretzels instead of overly salted legumes! Clearly karma was biting me in the ass. Those same peanuts I now regard with the same level of mortal dread as a rattlesnake.

By 2.5-years-old, “pants explosions” as we called them (sudden, explosive diarrhea) and rash made our middle son’s dairy issues clear. In an odd twist of fate, I had developed not just a milk aversion during his pregnancy but a dairy allergy after his birth. So, I had been the initial dairy-free guinea pig. By the time his dairy problems undeniably presented, I had dairy-free living down pat.

Then came our daughter’s dairy issues. First it was the undereye circles, the belly distention, the moodiness. All foolishly excusable… poor sleep, seasonal allergies, toddler stature, potty-training. Then constipation gave way to belly pain and bowel evacuation. Clearly, dairy was her body’s enemy. We were now 3 for 5 on dairy issues, and The Hubs’ belly was already firing warning shots after cheesy quesadillas and ice cream sundaes.

Then came Halloween. With two kids unable to eat dairy and peanuts regarded as asbestos, the holiday was tricky. We rehashed the “no eating candy until we sort it” rule and showed them examples of what candy to avoid verses choose if presented the option (Snickers = bad, Starburst = good, Milky Way = bad, Swedish Fish = good.) Then we handed them their empty candy collection sacks and off we went — a pint-sized airplane pilot, unicorn-mermaid, and a flamingo — going door-to-door for treats.

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Midway through the venture my middle son looked up at me, unicorn-horn-topped rainbow wig obscuring his blue eyes, and said he didn’t want anymore candy. I asked why. He said, “All I get are peanuts and dairy.” My heart sank. I felt so sad for him. It was true, those two delicious allergens were prevalent in his loot bag. “I still want to trick-or-treat though,” he said. The sadness left and my heart filled with pride.

He happily continued the outing, bouncing up to each door — rainbow wig dancing with each step, green scaly fin-bedecked leggings glinting in the jack-o-lanterns’ light — and chirped, “Trick-or-treat!” With his empty hands clasped in front of him. Every so often, if he saw a bowl contained only safe-for-him treats, he’d grab his bag from me and open it happily for the giver’s goodies. Otherwise he enjoyed the holiday in his own way.

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That night my 4-year-old learned a valuable lesson: how to enjoy a celebration without letting dietary restrictions get in the way. Could he eat all of the candy he received? No. Did he still have fun? You bet! And that is truly what matters. The memories, the fun, the enjoyment… not the food.

Will he remember that pink Starburst a day, a week, a year from now? No. But he sure as heck will recall the pirate who answered the door with a treasure chest of treats or his sister’s teacher (our neighbor) who so warmly invited us into her home. Those are the keepsakes.

As food-centric holidays unfold, this lesson will be invaluable for him. Not everything will be centered around his dietary needs, but that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy himself. Food is not all there is. The company and the experience mean far more. Enjoy what you can and forget the rest.

I guess he is a pretty smart kid after all.

 

 

My Allergic Reaction to Dairy

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So, it happened. I was dosed with dairy… entirely unintentionally. What does that mean for me? A week of discomfort — at times pain — and general mental ineptitude. However, this is not how every dairy-allergic person reacts to dairy exposure.

People respond differently to their allergens and the body’s reactions can escalate or decrease in severity with any exposure without notice. That’s the scary thing with allergic reactions: they’re unpredictable.

How bizarre is it that a person may one time not even react noticeably to his or her allergen, but another time may experience an allergic reaction far worse than any he or she had previously experienced? It’s troubling.

Each person’s allergic response to a shared allergen can be entirely different. One person may get hives, another may be anaplylactic, someone else may suffer digestive woes. There’s no singular allergy experience.

I realized my dairy allergy when I was six months postpartum with my middle child. I had been feeling “off”… achey and bloated with joint pain and digestive troubles. So I researched possible causes. I read an article and identified all of my symptoms — even ongoing issues I thought were unrelated — with dairy allergy. I decided to eliminate dairy from my diet for one week to see if it helped.

Not-so-secretly I hoped it would fail and I could return to my usual eating habits. Unfortunately, I had no such luck. Fortunately, I felt AMAZING!

My bones and joints no longer hurt, my knees looked entirely different than they had for years because they were no longer swollen, my digestion was normal, my lower belly pouch was gone, my brain fog disappeared, my headaches dissipated, my energy elevated, my mild acne vanished. Dairy was clearly the culprit. It was ingredient non grata.

Now, 3 years sans dairy, I am accustomed to how I feel without my allergen coursing through my system. In turn, my inflammatory response to dairy is unpleasant and unwelcome. When I do get dosed by unexpected dairy these are generally my symptoms:

– Stomach bloating  (think first trimester pregnant.)

– Stomach discomfort (it feels like there is a rock in my stomach)

– Intestinal distress (frequent, intense bowel evacuation.)

– Body aches (my bones hurt like I have a high fever)

– Joint pain (my knees are hit the hardest followed by my wrists, fingers, and spine.)

– Headache  (sometimes it manifests as a migraine with vision troubles, and other times as a nagging headache.)

– Brain fog (I have trouble typing properly, my language recall is poor, I become forgetful and spacey, and my attention span is abbreviated. Considering my perpetual case of “mom brain”, these symptoms are truly obnoxious.)

– Moodiness (I am quicker to anger and get frustrated easily. I feel sad and anxious.)

– Fatigue (no amount of sleep or caffeine lessens it.)

– Pimples (my skin is usually clear but, as dairy works its way out of my inflamed system, I get a smattering of blemishes.)

These symptoms last one full week, the brain fog being the last to dissipate. It sucks. However, knowing my usual allergy progression helps. Still,  one can never bank on a specific allergic response; allergies are fickle. And so it is best to remain vigilant in avoiding the allergen entirely.

Fortunately for me, living dairy-free isn’t as hard as I thought. It’s actually quite delicious!

 

My Favorite Dairy-free Items

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Looking for dairy-free grocery must-haves? These are mine.

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(Please note: I am not anaphylactic to dairy, so potential cross-contamination through shared equipment is acceptable for me. If that risk is unsuitable for you, please do not venture the gamble. As always, be sure to read the product labels thoroughly before ingesting; you never know when a recipe may get switched.)

Milk: Silk Cashewmilk

Heavy cream substitute: Thai Kitchen Coconut Cream

Butter substitute: Soy-Free Earth’s Balance Buttery Spread or Wegman’s Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Unrefined

Parmesan cheese substitute: Red Star Nutritional Yeast

Chocolate chips: Enjoy Life Mini Chips

Sliced cheese substitute: Field Roast Creamy Original Chao Slices (for a provolone-like flavor), GoVeggie Vegan Cheddar Singles (for a melty, cheddar flavor)

Cream cheese substitute: Kite Hill Plain Cream Cheese Style Spread (only available at Whole Foods), or Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese (for a more widely available option… it’s not actually “better than cream cheese” but it’ll do.)

Brie substitute: Kite Hill Soft-Ripened Cheese (my dairy-eating husband actually prefers this to standard brie, do note that he’s a beer-burger-and-baseball kind of guy.)

Sour cream substitute: Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream

Bread: Wegmans Whole Grain White Bread for a kid-approved sliced option, Food for Life Ezekiel 4:9 7 Sprouted Grain Bread for an earthier variety, or Country White or Honey Whole Wheat Bread from Great Harvest for a fresh option

Yogurt substitute: So Delicious Cultured Coconut Milk Yogurt Alternative 

Ice Cream substitute: Luna & Larry’s Organic Coconut Bliss

Chicken, seafood, or beef stock: Kitchen Basics Stock (I use this in place of broth)

Dairy-free wine: (yep, there’s dairy used in wine manufacturing) Kenwood Sauvignon Blanc

Dairy-free cheesy crackers: Earth’s Balance Vegan Cheddar-Flavored Crackers

Pre-prepared soup: LAJ Foods’ soup varieties

Granola bars: Dark Chocolate Chunk KIND Bar

Cereal: Original Cheerios

Snacking chocolate: barkTHINS

Tortilla chips: UTZ Multigrain Tortillas

What other dairy-free products are you looking for? Let me know and I’ll do some product research.

A Beginner’s Guide to Ditching Dairy

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Looking to ditch dairy completely? Confused about where to start? Here are my tips.

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1) Godairyfree.org. This is the very best resource I have found for everything dairy-free, from product recommendations to restaurant guides. This site is your best friend. The dairy ingredients list is a must-bookmark link for your phone. I’m closing in on 3 years into my dairy-free journey, and I still reference the list.

2) Read labels! If you’re purchasing anything in a box or package (sauces, bread, cereal, seasonings, etc.), read the ingredient list carefully. Dairy is sneaky; it hides in the weirdest places. Don’t just look at the allergen list. Don’t expect dairy ingredients to be in bold font, either. When in doubt, refer to the dairy ingredients link noted above. If you ever wonder about a questionable product, contact the manufacturer for allergen information.

3) Be wary when eating out.  Whether it’s takeout, a 5-star restaurant, or grandma’s kitchen table, be extra vigilant of food prepared by others. Dairy allergies and intolerances are still not understood by the general public. When ordering at a restaurant, always ask the server to double-check with the chef that your food selection is — or can be — prepared dairy-free. (Do not simply take even the most well-intended server’s word for it.) If you have a dairy allergy, make that abundantly, though politely, clear to the waitstaff. Also, take a look at your food before digging in, searching for obvious dairy such as a cream sauce, cheese, or pat of butter. When eating at another’s home, you need to decide the most comfortable option for you: go potluck by bringing your own dairy-free item(s) to share — with the host’s permission of course — or go over your dietary restrictions with the host ahead of time to determine what menu items you will be able to eat. You will find, eating out will be your greatest obstacle.

4) Eat naturally dairy-free. When you go dairy-free you have two choices: try to eat as you did before or change your lifestyle to suit your new dietary needs. Don’t get me wrong, there are many increasingly available dairy-free substitutes for everything from cheese to protein powder. However, sticking to a diet that’s predominantly naturally dairy-free will not only be better for your waistline (dairy-free substitutes often contain more fat and extra processing) but for your wallet, as well. Aim for animal or vegan protein sources alongside fresh produce and whole grains, and you’re set.

5) When in doubt, go vegan. New to dairy-free ingredient searches and feeling anxious about making the wrong selection? Choose the vegan option. Since a vegan diet eliminates all animal products and biproducts, dairy will not be an ingredient. However,  if you’re sensitive to cross-contamination, you’re going to want to be even more vigilant (see #9.)

6) Don’t cheat! The better you are about maintaining a dairy-free diet, the easier it is to stay dairy-free. Your tastes will change. You will stop craving dairy. You simply have to power through. The first month will be hard, but things will get easier by the six-month mark. By your first dairy-free anniversary, you’ll likely barely think about dairy, no less crave it.

7) Find basic substitutes you enjoy. I know I said to go predominantly naturally dairy-free, but you will need some substitutes. Do some experimenting to find your preferences. Do you like coconut oil instead of butter, or are you a dairy-free margarine fan? Do you prefer coconut milk, cashewmilk, soy milk, rice milk, oat milk, or hemp milk? Do you like GoVeggie vegan “parmesan” or is nutritional yeast your go-to? Do some taste-testing and recipe experimentation.

8) Learn to make a roux. Cream sauces, cream-based soups, gravies… they become readily accessible once you learn to make a dairy-free roux. My favorite uses Earth’s Balance Soy-free Buttery Spread, all-purpose flour, cashewmilk, salt, and pepper. I add nutritional yeast for a cheesy flavor.

9) Know your sensitivity level. Some people are highly sensitive to dairy, others are not; know where you lie. Can you handle cross-contamination? Can you risk a questionable dairy content? Be knowledgeable. Know your risk so you can make the best dietary decisions for you.

10) “Milk-free” doesn’t mean dairy-free. “Lactose-free”, “Milk free”, “Non dairy”… none of these actually mean “dairy-free.” Confusing, right? The only way to know for sure is to read the labels… carefully.

11) Know what is and isn’t dairy. Eggs are not dairy. Goat’s milk and sheep’s milk are dairy. Butter, ghee, yogurt, ice cream, margarine (if not specifically dairy-free), cheese, whey, and casein are dairy. Mayonnaise is generally not dairy.

12) Learn to self-advocate. Being dairy-free means learning how to navigate a dairy-filled world. You will need to determine how to best advocate for yourself.

13) Find a good grocer. Do your research and find a good grocery store — online or brick-and-mortar — that offers a variety of dairy-free options. The more options you have, the less deprived you’ll feel and the more content you’ll be in your diet.

14) Find a balance, find sustainability. As with any diet, balance is key because without it the eating pattern is unsustainable. Eat healthy but also find dairy-free indulgences that satisfy you. Read labels, peruse product reviews on Godairyfree.org, join a dairy-free group on social media… tasty dairy-free products are out there.

15) Think of it as a new journey, not a burden. Sure, being required to drop all dairy from your diet can be challenging, even isolating at first. You’ll find your way though. You’ll find new recipes, learn new cooking techniques, become more aware of your health, likely eat in a more nutritious manner, and possibly even lose a little excess weight. Sure, it’s annoying not to be able to give in to every cupcake craving or pizza desire, but it’s probably better for you not to do that. You’ll feel better. You’ll live better. In time, it’ll be standard operating procedure… life as usual.

You can do this!

Dairy-free Make Ahead Kid Breakfasts

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I am a planner. On Sunday evening, I set out the kids’ clothes for the week. Each evening after dinner clean-up, as the kids squabble over their last few bites, I prepare their breakfasts, my breakfast, set up the electric tea kettle, and make their lunches.

Sunny apple sandwich

Sunny apple sandwich

Here are some breakfasts I often make the kids:

Smoothies: #1 and #2’s favorite is frozen mixed berries, frozen banana, frozen spinach, a dollop of sunflower butter, and apple juice. They also like frozen berries, Almond Dream Almond Non-Dairy Unsweetend Vanilla Yogurt, frozen spinach, and cranberry juice. I throw all of the ingredients in the blender cup, pop it in the fridge, and blend it the next morning. Easy!

Sunny Apple Sandwich: I core an apple then cut it horizontally into four slices (the apple core hole should be in the center of each slice, like a bagel.) Spread sunflower butter on one side of two of the apple slices and top each smothered slice with a naked apple slice, so you have apple sunflower butter sandwiches. Cover, refrigerate, and, in the morning, serve with your favorite dairy-free cereal and dairy-free milk (we lIke cashewmilk.)

Dairy-free Parfait: SoDelicious Non-Dairy Coconut Yogurt (#1 and #2 love the strawberry flavor) topped with fresh berries and pumpkin seeds is a tasty breakfast. If I’m using the Almond Dream Almond Non-Dairy Unsweetened Vanilla Yogurt, I’ll add a drizzle of honey. I cover the small bowls and refrigerate. In the morning I top each with dry bran cereal.

Sunny-banana Sandwich: a sunflower butter and banana sandwich on dairy-free bread served with a side of orange slices or pineapple is a fun and easy make-ahead. I just prepare it all, cover it, refrigerate, and serve in the morning.