Food Allergy Awareness Week Information and Tip #2

Governor Herbert declared this week as Food Allergy Awareness week. So in honor of this I will be posting information to help raise awareness of why food allergies can be such a big problem to those that have them. And tips to help you be allergy aware when you are around someone who has a food allergy.

Information # 2 
What is Cross Contamination? You may have heard this phrase before and you may not have.

Cross contamination occurs when harmful bacteria or Allergens spread to food from other food, surfaces, hands or equipment.

Cross Contamination in the allergy world is when a certain non allergy food gets contaminated with an allergy food.

Example 1- If a pan has been used to cook something with milk in it and is not washed thoroughly, then is used to cook something without milk, there could be milk in the next food cooked in that pan.

Example 2-If a spatula is used to flip eggs then is used to flip a pancake without being washed, there could be egg on the pancake now.

Example 3-If there is a line of food out at a buffet table and a serving spoon has dished up salad with nuts in it and then dishes up salad without nuts, the salad without nuts could now have nuts in it.

Example 4-If a restaurant has an Alfredo sauce next to a marina sauce and the Alfredo sauce is dished over the marinara sauce, and a drop of Alfredo falls into the marinara sauce, the marinara sauce now has milk in it.  Or if the pans are close together and the Alfredo sauce bubbles over into the marinara sauce.

Example 5- If a knife is used in peanut butter to spread on a peanut butter sandwich, then that same knife is used in the jam to put on that peanut butter sandwich. The jam now has peanut butter in it. This is why my daughter never eats jam from other peoples homes.

Example 6-Sorry, one more buffet line example. If someone is dishing up their plate in a buffet line and the spoon from the carrots touches the cheesy potatoes on their plate as they are putting the carrots next to them. Then the spoon goes back into the carrots, now the carrots have cheesy potato in them.

The biggest question I get asked is Really? Could that little minuscule amount of the allergen cause a big problem?  For some maybe not, but for others, YES!!! The story of my daughter with the drop of milk. It was a drop barely visible to the naked eye, and yes it caused a major problem.


Tip #2

-Believe and respect those with allergies when they say that it is a problem.  They are not just trying to be an inconvenience or a picky eater. They are truly just trying to keep themselves or as in my case, their child, safe.
-If you are at a party with a buffet and I am there with my daughter, don't think we are rude if we always dish up first for my daughter. We go through the line and take what we know is safe before others dish up and cross contaminate things.
-Also don't be offended if you have a friend that either has an allergy or has a child with an allergy and they ask a million questions about what is in the food, how it was prepared, and dig through your trash to read the labels on all the ingredients used. Or after all that if they kindly refuse to eat it, just because they are not sure and don't want to chance it.
-If you are cooking for someone with an allergy think about the way you do things in your kitchen. Think about what utensil has touched what before it touches something else. Wash your pans and cooking utensils thoroughly. In my home I wash in and I wash out. I wash after I use a pan that has been used for an allergen food and I wash it again before I cook with it the next time.
(Also don't get offended if I wash plates and utensils at your house before I let my daughter use them. Or if I wipe off tables and counters. Just look at it as a free kitchen maid.)

-One more example of Cross Contamination is food manufacturers and labels. I don't have time to get into all that in this post, but I will just say that most of your allergy friends will have certain brands and things they trust and ones they don't. They will also read every label even if it is a brand they trust.  So my last tip is to always let someone with allergies, or their parent see a label of what they are eating. Tell them the brand. Don't feed them something and say it is such and such, you can have that. Let them know if it is a different brand. Knowing the brand is important. For instance, my daughter can have fruit snacks for the most part. But their are certain brands of fruit snacks that have a cross contamination warning for  peanuts and milk. So l need to know the brand of fruit snack before she eats it.

Food Allergy Awareness Week

     I know I have not blogged in a while but this subject is near and dear to my heart. I have a daughter with multiple severe food allergies. She is anaphylactic to Milk, Egg, Peanuts, Tree Nuts and Sesame Seed. 

     Governor Herbert of Utah declared this week as Food Allergy Awareness week. So in honor of this I will be posting information to help raise awareness of why food allergies can be such a big problem to those that have them. And tips to help you be allergy aware when you are around someone who has a food allergy. Feel free to share this so we can educate people about Food Allergies and what it really is all about. 

Information # 1
When somebody has a severe food allergy or has a history of anaphylactic reactions they don't only have to eat it to have an anaphylactic reaction. A lot of people think well if they don't eat it they are okay. Right? Wrong.
My daughter has had an anaphylactic reaction to a drop of milk getting in her eye and cause her to have an anaphylactic reaction. If the protein from the milk or the egg or the peanut butter, or whatever the allergy is,gets in the body through the mouth, nose or eyes, it can cause an anaphylactic reaction. So for instance, if my daughter sits at a table that has had peanut butter on it and she touches that peanut butter, then if she touches her nose, mouth or eyes it can cause her to have an anaphylactic reaction. 

Tip # 1
If you or child is eating something that someone around them is allergic to, wash their hands and mouth after and try to get as much of the residue off.
Also, try not to let your child carry their food on the playground while they are playing on the playground at the park or school. Kids love to play there and if the peanut protein has been left, or milk or other allergen, etc. it can cause a problem for unknowing allergic children that play after.
Also if I hand your child a wipe and ask them to wipe their hands and mouth after I see them eating something my daughter is allergic to please don't be offended. It just helps me let her play without worrying as much about her safety.

Show some Love this Halloween. Paint a pumpkin Teal.

With Halloween coming up, I feel the need to let you know what it means to paint a pumpkin teal.  Painting a pumpkin teal shows love and compassion to many little goblins, princesses and ghosts on Halloween night.  

Halloween used to be one of my favorite holidays. Probably second behind Christmas.  Pumpkin patches, corn mazes, cool fall weather, the beautiful fall colors, planning your costume for weeks and the excitement of finally being able to step out in it and show it off on Halloween night.  Then of course trick or treating for hours to get loads of candy.  And finally coming home to a warm house with chili and hot chocolate waiting for you. Then the best part of the night, dumping out the candy on the middle of the front room floor and trading with your siblings.  

     If you are one of 15 million Americans that deal with food allergies, Halloween is not as desirable as it was when I was a child. 

Creamy Cauliflower Alfredo -Dairy Free, Egg Free, Nut Free

My Daughter Saylor has SEVERE Allergies to Milk, Egg, Peanut, Tree Nuts, Peanuts, and Sesame Seed. When we make food for Saylor we deem everything as Saylor Safe or Not Saylor Safe.  This Recipe I am sharing today is SaylorSafe. In the past five years we have done a lot of trying new recipes and figuring out which ones are a win for the whole family. Allergies have been a hard thing for us, but one of the positives has been that we definitely eat more whole foods and overall a better diet then we were before food allergies entered our lives.
      My son that loves Milk, and Cheese and Cream really enjoyed this recipe we made the other night, so that is a win! This may become a staple in our home and with all the cauliflower it is a lot healthier for us then all the milk and cheese. Whether you have allergies in your family or not this is a great recipe to get some veggies in your picky eaters without them even knowing.  Just don't let them watch you make it and they won't even know they are eating lots of cauliflower.