author of Feeding Eden

Recalling Food Recalls

About a year ago I signed up for a free service offered by Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network site so I could receive food recall Alerts By Email. Here is an example of one:

MILK ALLERGY ALERT
Jan. 7, 2011

Homestead Pasta Company is recalling approximately 144,633 pounds of frozen meat and poultry tamale products due to undeclared milk.

The products affected by the recall were produced from April 2010 until January 2011. They were sold in California, Oregon, and Washington.

Etc.
These Food Recall Alerts have been quite illuminating. The foods or drugs described were rarely relevant to my family since they were usually sold in other states or weren't a products I purchase. However, the sheer volume of food and drug recalls (more often food) that takes place continually surprises. Such a simple thing to ask of a food manufacturing company: Please declare the contents of your food.
I do it all the time. "So guys," I might warn my children while serving up pasta casserole, "I added some bread crumbs mixed with those sweet potato chips on top. That's why the crunchy parts look kind of orangey." Like many, my kids like to be warned of every deviation within my culinary roster.
Since I don't really love to cook and so claim to be "all business" and "results oriented" in the kitchen, obviusly I'm not in the business of making food. Good thing. Seems to be a tricky business indeed.
Posted January 31, 2011 | Leave a comment

“Rock Paper Scissors!” Or “Asthma Allergies Children Oh Shoot!”

Remember the Rock Paper Scissors Game? Paper covers Rock, Scissors cuts Paper but Rock crushes Scissors? Your big brother pounds the back of your hand with his closed fist? You unsuccessfully retaliate by trying to pinch his flattened palm with your scissor fingers? Good times...

Now, as an allergy parent, I play a new game that goes something like "Well he hasn't outgrown any food allergies this year but his hay fever wasn't so bad!" Or - "Wow this weather is sure making his skin flair up but have you noticed that we haven't an accidental food reaction in a while?"

Like other parenting plays, mine involve Superstition and Odds, Hopes and Fears.
Which is why, my Guest Post for a wonderful site called Asthma Allergies Children, I wrote about the irony of being blindsided by my son's asthma despite his food allergies and my prior experiences with asthma. This piece illustrates how sometimes all parents think they can control all the Players they are going to let into their Game.

When a Cough Isn’t “a Cough”: Asthma Sneaks Up On Mom

By Susan Weissman

My son was three years old before he revealed the limits of his lungs. Eden’s onset of allergic asthma occurred after what already seemed like a fair lifetime of severe food allergies. When the Big Kahuna – peanuts, milk, etc. – rode in on his blood work just after his first birthday, our allergist has been crystal clear: “Watch for signs of asthma.” Of course. I understood about asthma. Or at least, I thought I did. As a child, I used to hear my mother’s coughs in the mornings; successive, deep and wet, quelled by sips of black coffee. Cigarette smoke, musty hotels, pet dogs, horseback riding – our family tried to avoid Mom’s triggers, hoping to spare her the uncomfortable antihistamines followed by a craving for 7-Up, a beverage she never drank unless medicated as such. Sure. I could keep an eye out for asthma....

Read full post at: Asthma Allergies Children...

Posted January 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

“The Howl of the Gym Mothers”

It isn't often that I write about parenting and health without a Food Allergy angle. But this piece is all about Mothers, a label that still, after eleven years, gives me inner-glee. Another thing that makes me happy is dancing. About that and more....

Posted January 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Keeping Our Mittens Crossed: Cold Induced Hives

Last winter I wrote a post about Cold Urticaria (An allergic reaction to cold temperatures!) which you can read here:

It's a new year. And just last week some of my Twitter followers started tweeting about this exact issue. Seems Eden is far from alone.
So I'm updating and the upshot is this: When I forget to put a thick cream on Eden's face, his cheeks reveal that tell-tale scarlet red that preceded his hiving episode last winter. And when I remember (most of the time) he's fine. While it's a shame that a kid with so many other allergies added one to his list, I'm grateful that an allergy to cold is easily addressed. It makes me wish there was a "barrier cream" for preventing food allergies!
Posted January 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

Book Review: The Cake Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free

While my son has multiple food allergies, it just happens that Gluten isn't one of them. However, like Anne Byrn author of The Cake Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free I love to play around with boxed cake mixes like Cherrybrook Kitchen. I also enjoy the texture of certain gluten free baked items (like gluten free chocolate cake) as much I enjoy our usual dairy, egg, soy and nut free version. When done right, gluten-free baking can be fluffy and delicate and it will melt-in-you-mouth a bit more.

What I appreciated about The Cake Doctor Bakes Gluten Free:
1. The baking instructions are numbered and each recipe is visually clear. That's a good thing for those unexpected and harried moments when I forget my son is going to a birthday party and need to bring a substitute treat.
2. Side Notes - There are helpful and informative side topics like "Making Mini's" or "Bundt" or Tube Pan...That Is the Question."
3. Quick Tip Lists - "3 Cookie Tools I Love" or "5 Cake Taking Tips" offer practical solutions for issues like travelling with your allergen free goodies or the never ending quest to provide variety.
4. "Keep It Fresh!" Each recipe has a "Keep It Fresh! section. As an allergy parent I'm forever stockpiling my son's baked goods for myself, teachers and the like. Very helpful.
5. Options, options, options - The Cake Doctor Philosophy seems to be all about tinkering and adapting recipes according to ingredients on hand, taste, and dietary restrictions. I love having a lot of options and I think it's important to offer my children variation within a restricted diet.
Readers Note: My son is allergic to dairy, soy and nuts. Nuts are an optional ingredient in some of these recipes however the Cake Doctor offers a viable dairy free alternative for every recipe. Also there are three eggs in most recipes "for texture." And even so there are many recipes for me to try.
And of course I wouldn't sign off without reporting on one recipe. I made the Pumpkin Raisin Muffins with an Orange Drizzle. Except I didn't have raisins so I substituted drained frozen blueberries. And three eggs is too many for my son (he is mildly allergic) so I reduced it to two eggs and some ground flax seeds. And I didn't have muffin tins or liners so I turned it into a cake. Oh . . . and I didn't bother with the "orange drizzle."
In other words, I doctored the Cake Doctor's recipe. But guess what? The cake was delicious, moist, fluffy and "just right" in sweetness. Oh I like this book.
Posted January 10, 2011 | Leave a comment

The Food Allergy Om

When I first began writing a memoir about my family and food allergies, I didn't have time to attend workshops or writing retreats because, well, one of my children (Eden) had food allergies and asthma. Manging those conditions felt like a full time job. Plus, since he, along with his non-food allergic sister, Dayna, was the inspiration for my writing, straying off with a notebook and cell phone felt wrong. I wrote where and when I could, during Eden's naps, Dayna's playdates, at the kiddie gym with my laptop and so forth. And read I a lot of memoirs. About 50 or 60. One trend I noticed: Many female memoirists (who were soul-searching types to begin with) engaged in soul searching forms of yoga.

So with my back aching from too many improvised writing moments on hard benches, I went to a small yoga studio a few blocks away from our apartment for a Level One Hatha Class. There, I listened to the urgings of the posture-perfect young instructor in a purple half-tank top and matching drawstring pants..

“Clear the clutter of your mind and think of nothing but your breath,” she intoned.

I tried. But with each breath I realized that my “clutter” was all food. What will Eden eat tonight for dinner? I wondered. Didn't Dayna say she missed having tacos? Oh sure like Eden’s not going to figure out that that his tacos are really his hamburger falling off corn chips . . . Om . . . God why didn't I try baking a corn tortilla into a real taco shell yesterday when I had that time in the morning? Anyway without beans or cheese he is just going to end up asking for chips if he sees Dayna’s shell . . . Om . . . But I promised her and she’ll end up eating more much lettuce and beans that way. She hasn’t had vegetables in so long . . . Om . . . So maybe I’ll feed them separately. Dayna can watch one extra T.V. show but I’ll still make hamburger and season Dayna’s meat after so that’s one less pan . . . Anyway I'll need to pick up sweet potatoes so Eden has something with the meat and shoot I’m low on his bread flour and that oatmeal so I’ll have to stop at the health food store and the supermarket . . . Om . . . maybe the one on First Avenue so I can get my vitamins . . . but I really need to call that company and find if Eden can have that other oatmeal . . . Om . . . I'd better start that list of food questions for the allergist . . .

And then I heard, “Slowly open your eyes and we will begin with a neck roll to the right.”

Meditation time was over. And mine were the meditations of most newly diagnosed food allergy parents. If that's you, my next recommendation is subjective: I went to jazz dance class the next week instead of yoga and I loved it. There was no time to think between the steps. Now that my children are older, I try to fit in more dance classes. Food allergy parents need to "clear the clutter" more than most people so whether you move fast, sit still, draw, sing, write or bake your worries away - it doesn't matter. Just find your Om.

Posted January 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

They say it’s your birthday / We’re gonna have a good time . . .

Eden turned eight this past week. Three things things I think I did right:

1. I acknowledged that unlike his parents, our son wanted to be one year older.
2. I tweaked the advised ratio: "Invite the number of guests to number of years of child's life " to "Invite less guests than number of years of child's life" (and then spent two hours in a dark movie house where vision clear vision requires use of 3D glasses.)
3. I bothered to bake chocolate and vanilla double-decker, allergen friendly) cake so that the "chocolate kids" and the "vanilla kids" felt equal (or perhaps equally dissed.)
4. I allowed myself to feel brave when the pick up parents commented "You're so brave!" as they attempted to pull their boys out of the bedlam that was my apartment.
5. I noticed (during) that it's a fantastic thing to have good friends like Eden's and an even better thing to have good friends plus a family who loves you.
Posted December 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

Traveling With Allegies: iPhone App Locates ER’s

There is a new, free iPhone app., called EMNetFindER, that allows user to locate the nearest emergency room to their location.

While my family hasn't travelled further than Florida in recent years (we live in NYC) I understand that many families with allergic children may visit more exotic and distant locales to vacation or see relatives. A tool that can locate an emergency room in case of an allergic emergency might come in handy. Though we all hope not.
Posted December 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

Holidays, Firesides and Allergies

In a few weeks we will be visiting with family where predictably the temperatures will be low and a fresh fire will burn cheerily for most of the weekend -- It's one of those gas fireplaces that light with a switch of a flip. But for children who have allergies and asthma, the holidays can bring on all sorts of allergic triggers like . . . wood burning fireplaces. So if your child has asthma and you're concerned, one of my favorite bloggers - The Asthma Mom has a great piece on making that situation more "friendly."

http://www.theasthmamom.com/2007/12/03/making-my-fireplace-asthma-friendly/

I remember one year when we were visiting the same relatives and our hostess decided to bake a large tray of shallots as side dish for dinner. Now, Eden is only moderately allergic to garlic. But at the time he was very sensitive to it and just playing in the house while those shallots baked was enough to swell his eyes and face into a teary puffball. Who would have guessed? So I gave Eden a little Benadryl, took outside until the swelling subsided and then we warmed ourselves by the gas fire.
Whatever it takes.
Posted December 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

Asthma Allergies Children: a parent’s guide

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. A cloudy statement since one of the authors, Paul Ehrlich, M.D., is the ever faithful and ever informative attending physician for my allergy support group (aptly called Parents of Allergic and Asthmatic Children.) For many years our group has met met in Dr. Ehrlich's waiting room where we anxious, confused and alternately reassuring parents turn to him every time we need medical reinforcement for a gamut of topics and questions on allergies.

So why wouldn't I have had high expectation for our Good Doctor's efforts? (Along with co-authors Larry Chiarmonte, M.D. and Henry Ehrlich.) Well, over the years, Dr. Ehrlich has been remarkably sage and honest in his remarks. His breadth of hands-on clinical experience is as great as his ability to admit (as he often does) that sometimes, when it comes to food allergies and asthma, there is no one answer because some research hasn't born truth just yet. Other asthma and allergy guidebooks I've read, have not very effectively translated that reality to the written page. It's a tricky one, the careful balance of in explaining the causes and treatments of a complex medical condition whose population of sufferers may be growing more rapidly than affordable and effective treatments.
However Asthma Allergies Children offers a well-paced, clear and simple body of detailed information that respects a parent's ability to both absorb its contents and to appreciate the painstaking trial and error that the devoted authors / doctors openly admit is the honing of an effective medical practitioner. Moreover, phrases used to describe an otherwise medication like "the pain in the neck factor" made me feel as if I was being spoken to as an equal partner in the fight against allergies. In fact, the overall tone of the book is plainspoken but in no way diluted.
I could go on: This book is fair in that the authors cover the range of treatment choices and options and assume (assert even) that parents are fallible yet we have an unmeasurable desire to help our children. Rather than chiding parents about the differences between an allergy "Controller, Reliever, Preventer and Rescuer" the authors succinctly narrate the advantages of applying those terms to real-life scenarios.
Chapters in Asthma Allergies Children include: Food, Glorious Food - Immunotherapy: Strengths and Weaknesses - Stages of an Allergic Life - Mom and the Rest of the Family and many more. The book also has an active and unique website called Asthma Allergies Children Dot Com where parent can participate and ask questions, as well as read current information.
Posted December 1, 2010 | Leave a comment