We Are..

This blog has been a learning experience, talking about my experiences as someone with a food allergy. This  was a lesson in how do you pick something you are passionate about for this long, and not get too repetitive. And while this blog was originally supposed to be about eating on campus, there are only so any ways that allergens are accommodated on campus. As well as the fact that with such complex allergies and intolerances are just generally difficult to manage. I know how to manage it and how to use accommodations through the dietary office, it is hard to write about specific things, as I don’t currently use the dietary office. Nor do I want to have to order food every day to get foods that might be safe, but that’s still not a guarantee, as things change with my reactions. This realization that there are only so many ways that Penn State labels the allergens in their food, led me to talk about how I individually adapt things to food allergies. This helped to expand what to talk about and to be able to write longer blogs.

With the holidays eating somewhere with food allergies is stressful. There are many common allergies that people tend not to have when cooking for potluck type gatherings. Like not nuts or labelling things that do have them. My family has historically tried their best to accommodate allergies since I was young. Some of these things are due to how common nut allergies have been in my family, and others are still a work in process.

The things we do are bring many desserts so that everyone can have a dessert. We tend to have many due to preferences and allergies. None of these have nuts because we just don’t make them. My family has had someone allergic to nuts for nearly 18 years now, one of us grew out of it and I grew into one so this has never changed. Something else we do is not making stuffing with the turkey. This is popular in many households but when cooking bread and the main dish together, it makes the turkey cross contaminated with wheat. This was a big learning curve for my family as they absolutely love to eat stuffing with every holiday, but since we have someone with a gluten allergy, this had to be separated. Along these same line’s, gravy, you can put gravy on everything at holidays, but one of the main ways to make gravy is to add flour to the drippings from your turkey or meat. This is one that can be not gluten free in a few ways. If there’s any type of flour or gluten in the drippings it cannot be used, and when making gravy most people use flour to thicken into the gravy.

These ways of making gravy, while very good, are not gluten free. When these types of allergens are a concern in a gathering you cannot always make a foolproof plan to make everything safe for everyone to eat all of the food. As many recipes that are adapted to one allergen can include an allergen for another person there. This example is very relevant to my life as many gluten free foods use corn starch to replace flour, like in gravy. With things like this you sometimes just make multiples of foods.  This is a reality for many people with allergies, as not all families are as accommodating to allergens or just can’t make a single food that everyone can eat.

 

Through my years of eating foods that have been adapted to my food restrictions I have found some interesting ways to make things taste flavorful and like the original:

• Find an almond butter that you like and substitute it for peanut butter.
• Many fried foods include corn starch so making your own is best and if not an option most ingredient lists are sorted by ratios.
• Having a list of snacks that are allergen free is a must.
• Knowing what should be in a recipe can help you choose what to eat when eating out.
• Learning how foods are preserved can help explain reactions.
• There are many more sweets out there that are not filled with peanut butter.

While this is not an all-encompassing list this is something that I wish I had known when I started reacting to foods. I had lived off peanut butter sandwiches for lunch most of my childhood so when I had to cut out peanut butter, it was a rough transition. This was one of the worst, as my allergy slowly progressed, the number of foods that I liked that included peanut butter felt like it was never ending. So, when I found an almond butter to replace it? I was so excited. Almond butter can be tricky with peanut allergies as they tend to be processed in the same facilities. Then on top of having to find one that isn’t risky, finding one that is good seemed impossible, but it was and then I could go back to eating “peanut butter” sandwiches. While peanuts are very clearly labeled one that is not is corn. Corn is seemingly in everything, most coffee flavorings, most candies, and a lot of breading has corn or its products in it. Some preservatives are even made with corn. This is a frustrating one, as it can be on many fruits and vegetables, leading to the question of am I allergic to this food or does it have corn? I have found that fruits and vegetables that can withstand scrubbing to get any type of residue off can help make this easier to figure out. Others that are too delicate can be cooked and this works with both the corn and oral allergy syndrome, as even just microwaving foods for a few seconds can break down the proteins in the food that causes the reaction. While this list is something not everyone can or should do, this is something that makes my life easier as someone who is currently eating out of dining halls and a mini fridge.

Living with allergies, for many, can be stressful. I have written mostly about foods that cause “true allergic reactions” for most of this blog, but something I’ve only touched on is food sensitivities.  These are reactions that don’t cause an allergic reaction but can feel very similar for some people. Having food intolerances can restrict your diet as much as an allergic reaction, though. Many people are familiar with lactose intolerance, which is where you cannot digest the lactose enzyme in milk. This process can happen with, as far as I know, most foods.

This type of reaction to foods is distressing when you just want to eat healthy, but the foods you try cause you pain. Trying to figure out what to eat that you won’t react to is a process that many people don’t want, or have time, to do. Dietitians and allergists have come up with different methods to weed out troublesome foods, but many of these take the time and money to be able to eat foods that do not trigger a reaction. At the end of these it is trial and error to figure these things out. Having this time to figure out what you can eat in a methodical manner is hard to do when you work or go to school, as it cuts out so much food you would eat in these settings.

I would not say there is a better way than these methods, as cutting out foods that you have intolerances to can be extremely challenging. I personally have a harder time with this as many of my allergies and intolerances present the same way, and so when these things are so intertwined, picking out each as a separate problem can be overwhelming.

This time I am taking a break from talking about how the dining halls are frustrating, I’m going to talk about how baking with allergies can be just as daunting but infinitely more fun. Growing up we always had an EpiPen in the house. Not having one around meant that if we were to cook chicken in the house, there could be a trip to the hospital. Since nobody wanted that, we would set up a fan in the kitchen to blow the air out of the house. While this is no longer the case in my house, we still have interesting setups for cooking. For example, did you know when you bake cookies with flour you still inhale the gluten? My mom learned that one the hard way. Now, one way we make cookies together is to split up the tasks. She helps set up and get everything except the flour measured and once all that’s left is the flour, she steps out of the room. While this process isn’t perfect, it works for us. Having cookies in the fall and winter is a must. We have adapted to each of our allergies. Granted baking with allergies is like running across a tight rope. You either make it through (without reactions) or you don’t.

Penn State typically has a clear-cut allergen system. They have Allergen cards that coordinate with what the allergen in each food represents. With that information many people would assume you could walk into the dining hall and know what allergens are in it. Alas, the dining hall is not perfect and that means sometimes what you get is a green card that says talk to the chef.

These cards do not have any allergens listed on them, but sometimes the people who are serving it don’t even know what is in it. You would think that someone should know, right? Those cards are not conducive to those with allergies, especially those who are anaphylactic. The little green cards in the dining hall can be a disappointing sight for students with allergies. While my friend and I are a small sample size of those on campus, we tend to not eat from the green cards unless we are certain. Well.  I will eat from them, on occasion, but that is only if I have taken precautions in case of an allergic reaction. I try to avoid it, but eating pizza every day because I know I won’t get sick from it is boring.

These things are stressful in a time where everything else is already very stressful. The situation of how to deal with allergies on campus can leave so many little worries throughout the day.  Those with allergies shouldn’t have to worry about whether they are getting a balanced meal or not.

One of the most well-known food allergies is peanut allergies. It’s so well known that some parents don’t feed their children peanuts without a doctor’s supervision. You can grow out of childhood allergies which is very common. What is less common is developing food allergies as an adult. Approximately 10% of adults have food allergies and only half of those adults had them develop into adulthood. I am one of those 5% of people who developed food allergies in adulthood. If I took time to list out everything I am allergic or have intolerances to it would be a grocery list. The short answer is peanuts, and corn.

If having an allergy to one of the most common food ingredients wasn’t enough, being a picky eater on top of that limits the food choices on campus. Penn State only does a limited amount of allergen warnings and corn is not one of them. I will eventually get set up with the dietary office but until then corn roulette it is.

A frustrating part of eating on campus is having to go through every dining hall to see what’s for dinner, and then trying to figure out what is and what it should be made with.  This semester I am going to document my journey in the dining halls and figuring out the allergy system at Penn State.

There are many things that make me happy. I love working with dogs, making food for people, and reading. The thing is though, living on campus I don’t have a lot of access to the things I enjoy, so one of the ways I make myself happy is by finding places my friends and I can eat together. Having different food allergies, we have very limited choices to eat on campus at the same place, outside of the buffets in the commons, so my idea for a passion blog is eating in state college, or just eating in general, with food allergies and sensitivities. I was thinking about talking about eating with a few different allergies, explaining some of the ways that eating with food allergies can limit the places to enjoy food on campus or even make it more expensive. I was thinking I could do a post on the ways Penn State makes eating on campus accessible, and the ways it could improve. I could tie in how since I am a first-year student living on campus I need to have a meal plan and talk about managing a meal pan and buying food for outside of when I don’t eat in the commons. I would like to focus on this because, while food allergies are a risk while eating on campus, food injustice ties into this problem as well.