4 year old has alot of food alergies

Audrey - posted on 01/08/2009

My son's main allergy is Peanuts ( in the legume family-green peas, black eyed peas, etc.) (ALWAYS 911, Epie pens and breathing medications are necessary) ...Check ALL ingredients...Go to your allergist and have HIM write a letter to keep in your child's file at ALL times!!! It gets worse in public school unless they are made to make a "TREATMENT PLAN" Good luck!!!

Kadren - posted on 01/08/2009

My daughters have a bunch of food allergies and intolorances. Intolorances are a delayed allergic reaction. My oldest has 24 of them. Once you get in the habit of reading all labels, life gets easier. I have to make everything from scratch for my oldest. There are some amazing cookbooks already out there. The Gluten-Free Gourmet series is wonderful if she has any wheat allergies, but it also leaves out milk and eggs in most recipes or gives you alternatives. It's amazing what egg is in. Even the honey mustard sauce from Wendy's has egg in it.

Jennifer - posted on 01/07/2009

My daughter also has egg, peanut, peas, green beans, and a few other allergies.  It is a huge adjustment because you do a lot of reading when grocery shopping.  She loves ramen noodles and I add some sort of protein in it like chicken or hot dogs, some noodles don't have eggs in it so I make a lot of pasta for her.  I found once I found out she had the allergy I started cooking things from scratch a lot more because I could control what was in the food.  If you do some research (which I am sure you have, sorry) online you can find a lot of recipes with out those ingredients.  The good thing about those allergies is if you do a good job avoiding those foods they have a better chance of growing out of it.  Good luck it is difficult in the beginning but gets easier.  My daughter now asks people before she eats anything if it has eggs or peanuts in it.

Jenn - posted on 01/07/2009

My son was born with a page full of things he was allergic to.  Luckily he has grown our of most of them but he is still allergic to all dairy nuts and shellfish.  What I do is make alot of things home made and try to find substiutes to put in place of the things he cant have.  There are alot of good soy and sunflower products that you can use in place of peanuts.  You have to keep trying new things to see what he likes and what he doesnt like and I would retry things that he might not have liked in the past.  my son hated soy cheese when he was two but now he loves it.  Message me back if you would like to talk more Jameson is six now and we are dealing with his school to make sure that he doesnt end up with something he should have.

Samantha - posted on 01/07/2009

MY son is 3 years old and he started out with 5 diffrent allergies and I took him to the doctor to have him retested by getting a skin scraping a now he only is allergic to eggs and seafood. It will get better .

Paulette - posted on 01/07/2009

One of the sites I can offer at this time....www.foodallergy.com. I am also learning how to cope with this for our family. I have a thread going too, which lists the many we are dealing with too. I hope you find some solutions too. Take care.

Debbie - posted on 01/07/2009

My heart goes out to you...I have four kids age 22-12...all with varying food allergies, which makes menu planning quite challenging.  I do mostly scratch cooking now, and substitute alot of ingredients.  There's a website called http://allergygrocer.com/  that has great mixes.  I've found recipes online to make some things too.  Like one daughter can't have corn..ketchup has corn syrup ( as does EVERYTHING)...i found a recipe for ketchup and it's yummy.  If you want specific recipes, ask me...I'd love to help more.  We've been dealing with it for 10 years, so I've gotten creative!

Sharon - posted on 01/07/2009

Hello,

I have 3 daughters, now in elementary school, who have food allergies.  They all used to be allergic to egg, milk and nuts, plus two were allergic to peanuts and peas, and one was allergic to chocolate and is still allergic to certain red food dyes.

I found this cookbook to be a lifesaver:  http://www.amazon.com/Milk-Free-Egg-Free....  The cake and cookie recipes are good, and there is an excellent potato salad recipe in there as well.

I also use Ener-G egg replacer (which is available at Whole Foods and most supermarkets with a good organic foods section) in many recipes as a substitution for egg.  You can also use tofu as a substitute in casseroles. 

Some helpful hints:

Read all ingredients on EVERYTHING your son is going to eat.  I avoided serving even the slightest traces of the ingredients my girls were allergic to, and they are (slowly) outgrowing their allergies.  My oldest is now allergic to only nuts and milk, another daughter is allergic to just eggs and the red dye, and her twin is allergic to just milk and peanuts.

Keep a supply of cupcakes from an egg-free recipe in the freezer so your son can take a safe treat to birthday parties. 

When my girls start a new school year, I always provide the teachers with a letter that explains their food allergies, including the reactions that they could have and how to handle them.  I also provide a list of all the sneaky way that the allergens can appear in a list of ingredients (like albumen for eggs.)  I found this information by Googling their specific food allergies.

When your son learns to read, teach him to check  ingredients so he can learn to keep himself safe. 

Good luck!

Sharon

Heidi - posted on 01/07/2009

If your son has gluten allergies, check out www.glutenfreemama.com



It's my cousin's website and she has gluten free flour and cookbooks. She has gone thru her daughter having Celiac's and had to find things that she could eat.



I hope it helps!

Cherie - posted on 01/07/2009

There are lots of cookbooks and recipes online for food allergies. I am allergic to wheat, dairy, soy and beef. It is a challenge, but you get used to it after a while.

Natasha - posted on 01/07/2009

If he's ok with the things in it, why not try him on home-made lasagne? My little boy loves it, and if you're making yourself you know exactly what's in it