Monthly Archives: August 2009

Breadless Fourth of July

 A couple of months back, a friend of mine, Raman Prasad, wrote this piece after he had a chat with me about how families deal with food allergies and celebrate holidays like 4th of July… 

Four-year-old Arjun will be breadless this Fourth of July: no hamburger buns, no hot dog buns, no bread of any kind. Arjun suffers from severe food allergies. He is not alone: Four percent of U.S. children have a food allergy, according to the Center for Disease Control. As scientists scratch their heads at the reason for these potentially deadly allergies, patients and their families have changed their diets in an attempt to keep them under control.

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Flax Seed Allergy…what next?!?

Last weekend I was at a family gathering. Amidst all that excitement, I made a shocking discovery as I was talking to one of my cousins who is in her 50s. She mentioned that she had recently been diagnosed with severe “flax seed allergy”. Prior to that, she had no food allergies so; it had been quite a challenge for her and her allergist to zero in on the possible allergen. That is one of the difficulties of developing food allergies at a later stage in life because we have already included hundreds of food items in our diet.

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Enjoy Life Allergy Friendly Chocolate!

Whoever said ‘Save Earth. It is the only planet with chocolate’ got it right. When my son was diagnosed with being allergic to all the top 8 food allergens and more,  my second thought (first was ‘why me?’) was, ‘my son can never eat chocolate :-( .’ Then the good folks at Enjoy Life foods came up with chocolate made from rice milk  and it is definitely their best product yet. My son and even his friends who have no allergies love it!

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***This picture has been taken from Enjoy Life’s website.

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Instant Allergy Friendly Savory Pancakes (Dosa)

Raised in a South Indian household, I have grown up eating various types of yummy savory pancakes or dosas! The original recipe needs overnight fermenting but this is my quick version for all us parents who have kids with allergies and have to spend a lot of time cooking. My version of the dish uses more of the bean flour than would be used in the traditional recipe to make it a good source of protein. This alteration also yields softer pancakes.

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Amaranth

Surprise, surprise -  amaranth is a genus of herbs :-)  There are tons of species available under this genus. Some of these are plain old weeds but some have great nutritional value as leafy vegetables and even more importantly cereal.

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