Yummy Breakfast Treat

If you're looking for a delish breakfast that's EASY, here it is.

Granola Strawberry Parfait


I should say that I didn't use Nature's Path Granola - it's not safe for PA. I did, however, use Back to Nature Classic Granola.

The bonus is that it LOOKS like dessert to a 3 year old. Bella gobbled it up so fast. This would be a great brunch dish. You could put these together prior to your guests arriving and just set them out for folks to help themselves.

Did I mention just how GOOD these are? Yum.

Instead of a PB&J...

I'm thinking if you served your PA child one of these, they wouldn't miss the peanut butter at all.

Southwest Airlines - Shout out!

My husband flew to Santa Ana for business this week. He flew Southwest (aka the peanuttiest airline around - check out their header image - blech).

When they were boarding the stewardess notified the passengers that there was a peanut allergic person on the flight and that they wouldn't be serving peanuts on the flight (and if you wouldn't mind, please do not eat any peanuts you may have brought on board?). Mark was shocked (and appreciative). How cool was that?

I've only flown peanut free airlines with Bella (United, American), and wouldn't fly SWA because of the nuttiness factor (e.g. left on the floor, etc), but things like this may slowly make me come around. Upon further inspection, I found their policy online. Pretty good (I like the tip about flying early in the day). They included all the CYA stuff too about not being able to control what other people bring, blah blah blah, but it's nice to see them addressing it.

With something like 1 in 17 children having some sort of food allergy (just saw that figure somewhere recently - probably on the peanutallergy discussion board), it's smart for them to accomodate travelers (young and old) - it's just good business.

Recipes: How do you do it?

Today I wanted to raise the issue of recipes. I am a recipe fiend (yes, I am one of those people who reads cookbooks for pleasure). And I try recipes out all the time. Many times I try to adapt the recipe to remove the offending peanuts (or peanut butter) and usually I'm pretty successful. For some, I just omit the nuts (like the Thai Beef Salad in the September Everyday Food). For others, I replace the oil and use canola instead of peanut oil. And for others, I get creative and use tahini instead of PB.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this. I'd love to hear some of your success stories! Have you made a pecan free pecan pie? Really? I'd love to know how! Leave them in the comments for me.

Would you all be interested in me listing the recipes I adapt here?

WWYD?

One of my friends has a friend (whom I've never met). She has a 5 year old with a life threatening peanut allergy (aren't they all potentially?) - I've never met her though. I know for a fact she doesn't read this blog (she probably is only vaguely aware of me and Bella)....

Her son has had a couple of scary incidents that involved hospitals and epi-pens (need I go on?). One minor incident was enough for me to change my ways and become uber-vigilant about what Bella could eat.

Here's the point of my post though: I was surpised to learn that she NEVER lets him eat anything at other people's houses. Is that weird to you? Even when she is there and the people tell her exactly what is in the dishes - even family and close friends. She says that she doesn't want to set a precedent for her child - that he shouldn't believe what other people tell him about what's in the food they are having. She wants him to think that the only place he can eat is at home.

I say she's a bit paranoid and setting him up for paranoia during school and potentially alienating him from friends and socializing. I think times like this are a really good opportunity for a parent to teach a child to take control of their allergy and not be hindered by it. Basically I want Bella to think to herself (almost like a vegetarian or vegan) - hmmm, what's on the menu? Well, I can't have that because it has nuts, but look what I CAN have! Or to say to herself, should I be eating this? Let me ask someone first.

Am I a horrible, naive, loosey-goosey, hippie-dippie mother? Is 5 too young to teach cause and effect? Some of my family think I am nuts (gotta work that term into every post - hee hee) for showing Bella what peanut butter looks like, or peanuts in and out of a shell (in photos of course!) so she knows to stay away. I know it will take some time for it really to sink in, but isn't all of this about education and awareness, not sheltering your child from reality?

My mother, unfortunately, has a life threatening allergy to shellfish. Does it stop her from eating out at seafood restaurants? Nope. She's just really careful and really clear when she goes to a restaurant. I think we're lucky in that she set a great example of how to live your life with a food allergy that can stop you in your tracks. Believe me, she's spent time in the hospital (and actually was stuck in British customs after cross-contamination from inflight dining - that's a story for another time though)...

What would you do (WWYD)? Thoughts? If you went to a family member's house and they made a cake (from a mix you approved - or from scratch with approved ingredients), would you let your child have some or would you still not trust it? Please let me know!

Oreo Cakester - So Close

I was in Target last night and saw these:



They're like whoopie pies - except like an Oreo! Chocolate cake, soft creamy white filling - oooh baby. Now, I love me an Oreo cookie, as does Bellaboo, so I grabbed a box for my cart. As a passing habit, I read the label and found:

"ALLERGY INFORMATION: MANUFACTURED ON EQUIPMENT THAT PROCESSES PEANUTS AND TREE NUTS."

Damn you Nabisco! Why do you tempt me so, only to pull the rug out from under me? Ah well, at least I still have regular Oreos.

How Do You Say "no nuts!" in Spanish?

I was doing some research for my job (in scientific publishing) and I came across this site.

"Food-Info.net and EFFoST offer on this page free dictionaries for people with a food allergy or intolerance. We aim to make this list of over 200 allergy-related words available in all European national languages, as well as the main world languages. Dictionaries can be downloaded as pdf files from the following languages: English Albanian Arabic Bulgarian Chinese Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Finnish French German Greek Indonesian Italian Japanese Lithuanian Macedonian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Slovenian Slowak Spanish Swahili Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian."

This will definitely come in handy the next time we're in the Ukraine (or more realistically Mexico).

The Things You Notice: Counter Burger, Palo Alto, CA

On my lunch hour yesterday, my coworkers and I decided to check out a new(er) place in Palo Alto, CA called Counter Burger. We ended up sitting at the counter (har har - no pun intended) and proceeded to have an amazing meal - great fries (sweet potato fries and regular potato fries), onion rings, burgers. Yum!

So what does this have to do with Peanuts? Well, this is definitely not the place to take Bella as they serve Peanut Sauce on their burgers (ick - but it's an option). I do, however, want to give them a shout out on their attempts at avoiding cross contamination. One of their other menu options is a milkshake - chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, or (drum roll please) Peanut Butter! I recoiled even seeing it on the menu! But as I was eating, I looked over at the milkshake machine. It was one of those that has the stick beaters and you put the metal canister over it to blend the milkshake - there were something like 6 of them on the machine.

But over the one on the farthest right was a label indicating that the last mixer was for peanut butter shakes only.

Now, would I let Bella have a milkshake there? Realistically I probably wouldn't, but I was touched by and appreciative of the attempt at making it a safer place for PA folks.

If you're in Palo Alto, CA on California Avenue and LOVE burgers - stop by. Mighty tasty.

How we got here...

My husband and I have a little girl named Bella (Isabella). She'll be 3 in October. We found out she was allergic to peanuts the hard way when she was 18 months old - a reaction from eating. I suppose we were lucky in that she didn't go into anaphylaxis. She had a tiny bit of toast with peanut butter on it. Within minutes her eyes were swollen and her face covered in hives, nose running. We called the doctor immediately who told us to give her Benadryl and get her in to the office right away. Luckily it did the trick and it didn't go beyond that - her hives subsided and we made our way into the office. In hindsight, I was pretty blase about it. I mean, I even took the time to shower and put makeup on before I left for the doctor's office. I can't believe I didn't rush right in! What an idiot I was!

Anyhoo, to make a long story short, a few weeks later we had a skin prick test that showed positive for peanuts (the biggest welt), along with almonds, walnuts, and cashews. Fast forward to May 2007 for our second skin test. She showed negative for all tree nuts (yay) along with sunflower and sesame. But we're still dealing with the peanut allergy. Is it weird that eliminating the tree nut allergy was a relief to me? I felt as if there was some hope of her body chemistry changing to accept peanuts in the future too...

Even after a year (plus), we are still educatiing our families about what they can and can't do around our sweet little girl. No, you can't eat them around her; no she can't hold them; no you can't hug or kiss her if you've eaten them within the last few hours; no really you can't; yes, i DO need to ask the restaurant about their allergy awareness - i do need to ask what's in each dish (you know, peanut butter can be in everything from spring rolls to enchiladas!).

I'm sure I am seen as overbearing at times, but when you have someone with a peanut allergy who can't discern for themselves what they can and cannot eat and I have to be their voice (along with her father), then yes, yes we are overbearing. it's a struggle, but one we live with day to day and one that we are overcoming day by day.

We try to live as 'normal' a life as possible. I don't want to be an alarmist, but I can't downplay how important this is either. This proves to be difficult when we encounter people who think we are exaggerating her allergy or think that she'll just be a 'little itchy' if she has nuts. The best is when we hear people tell us 'she'll grow out of it'. I just smile and say, "we hope so, but for now you need to know how to use an epi-pen."

I try to keep up with the latest research, and I am confident that before Bella is a teenager, there will be some sort of preventative treatment. I have to be. It's one of the only things that keeps me optimistic about seeing my daughter through high school and college.

How do you cope? I hope that other moms (and dads too) find me - I know I'll be looking for all of you.

1st Post

It's amazing to me that this blog name hasn't been used yet. It's also amazing to me that it's so hard to find moms blogging about peanut allergies.

I'm sure I'm not the first. I hope someone else with the same issues stumbles across the site.

Here's to the first of hopefully many posts aimed at commisserating, helping, and guiding the peanut free parent through the maze of schools, parties, and caregivers.