Month: November 2023

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.