Why Do Kids Have to Eat Peanut Butter At School?

Why do kids have to eat peanut butter at school?  This is such a controversial subject in the food allergy world, though I can't for the life of me figure out why it's so heated.  I've read the reactions to food allergy parents who have given their opinions in the past.  I know what peanut butter advocates think.  I know that on the extreme side of this argument, peanut advocates think that severely food allergic children should not even be allowed in school--that they should be homeschooled.  In fact, I've heard this opinion so many times that this type of verbiage no longer fazes me.

How many times have I heard a parent say, "But she'll only eat peanut butter for lunch!"  I just can't figure this out.  Because if my kid looked at me and told me he would only eat one thing for lunch, and that one thing was something that could potentially kill another student, I'd tell him no way.  Forget that, if my kid told me he would eat only one thing for lunch, period, I would tell him no, that's not acceptable.

I just can't wrap my head around parents who insist that peanut butter sandwiches are the end all. Do their kids eat these for breakfast and dinner too?  Do they have a peanut butter sandwich waiting for them when they get home for snack?

Okay okay, I get it, I do.  People have rights.  They want to eat peanuts and they should eat peanuts.  Just not at school.  There are personal rights and then there's social responsibility.  What are we teaching our children if we're only teaching them one side of the coin?

I mean, if my son was playing in the park with friends, found a long sharp stick and proceeded to wave it around recklessly at the other kids, I would tell him to put it down.  Sure, he has the right to play with sticks, just not around other kids.  Hey, it's unlikely that he'll poke someone's eye out, but it's possible.  He could also unnecessarily scratch or puncture someone.  Wouldn't we rather avoid the risk altogether and tell the boy to put the stick down?  Or would we all sit around on the edge of our seats waiting to see what would happen?  If your child was the one with the stick pointed at her, would you just sit around and do nothing so as not to offend the rights of the stick-brandishing child or his parents?

Do we share the responsibility of helping to keep our kids safe?  Every day, my kids go to school and I pray that I don't get a phone call from the school office.  When I see the number flashing on my phone, I'm immediately filled with dread.  I'm hoping the caller is not about to describe an allergic reaction, and that I won't need to rush myself over to the pediatric ER to meet my child.

So why the peanut butter?  Of course, 99.9% of the time, peanut butter sandwiches in the school cafeteria aren't hurting anyone.  It's the less than one percent of the time, the time that after eating a peanut butter sandwich, a classmate accidentally spits into the mouth of a peanut-allergic child during a conversation they are having in line about to leave the cafeteria.

Yep, it happened to my kid, yesterday at school.

Within moments, my son developed a stomach ache, told the principal, and was whisked away to the office.  While I was on the phone with the principal (thank God I answered my cell!), my son reported trouble breathing, so I told him he needed the epinephrine injection, which my son administered himself.  I told the principal that he needed to go directly to the ER, and I would meet him there.

My 9-year-old son is officially a rock star.  He recognized his symptoms, got help, related his symptoms clearly, and administered the Auvi-Q auto-injector successfully and calmly.  He rode an ambulance alone to the ER, readied himself for a four hour stay, and worried that he didn't have his books to do his homework.

Why can't we just say that there are no nuts allowed in school?  Because we know people won't follow the rules?  Because we know people won't like it?  Because we're worried about people's right to eat what they want for lunch?

All schools have drop-off and pick-up procedures which are not to everyone's liking, and which are probably going to be challenged by a few parents, but we still have them.  We have them because we know it's the right thing to do, and because we know if we didn't, we'd have a lot more accidents.  If we could avoid just one accident with rules about how to pick up our children from school, would that help to justify their existence?  Do we even feel the need to quantify how safe we could be with the implementation of a particular rule?

How many food allergy accidents have to happen before we change our food policies at school?

I don't think most people mean to put food allergic children at higher risk of reaction at school; I just think they don't understand.  They haven't had to respond to an emergency situation--adrenaline pumping, hands shaking.  They haven't had to live through the ups and downs of managing food allergies on a daily basis, spend literally thousands of dollars every year on medications, ER visits, and specialty foods...in a constant state of worry.

I've always known that food allergy education is a slow evolution.  One step forward, two steps back.  We had our two steps back yesterday, I'm looking forward to that step forward.

It's A Small World

Tristan had three allergic reactions during our three week summer getaway.  (Don't worry, he was treated and fine each time).  We learned the hard way to look at every label every time and to take the "shared equipment" disclaimers seriously. Very seriously.  Every time.  I must admit we've been loose about the disclaimers in the past.

In our defense, since Tristan just turned nine, we have probably read 14,600 labels = (365 days x 5 labels x 8 years)!  Just for him just to make sure that what we were about to give him wouldn't make him sick.  And that's a conservative estimate, and includes labels for new foods as well as labels for foods we regularly eat.

Happy Birthday to our big guy!

So now that we are being overly cautious about ingredient labels and cross contamination, I feel like our world just got a lot smaller.  Our safe product world, that is.  I never wanted to be the kind of mom to stress and fret every day about how few foods are available to my son, but the fact is, this new development has gotten me to a heightened state of awareness.  Meaning my stress level went through the roof.

There is enough worry associated with the first week of school: new teachers, new kids, new classrooms.  On day 1, Tristan found out that his teacher has a cat.  Tristan is severely allergic to cats.  Oh yeah, and he was sneezing all day with a runny nose, and is now taking a daily antihistamine.  And thus is the life of an allergic child.  But I digress...

What I wanted to say was that my discovery of homemade bread and my mother-in-law's breadmaker actually helped to save my sanity.  Yes, I just said my mother-in-law just made me more sane.

Bread and other bakery items so commonly are made on shared equipment with several ingredients that my son is allergic to (egg, dairy, nuts, etc.), so I decided to try my hand at homemade bread.  We were on vacation and had no machine, but I tried it out and the bread was incredible, hot and fresh.  It was likely the best bread my son has ever tasted, as we are usually forced to buy from a short list of breads that are dairy-free.

The kids loved making the bread.  Definitely a great activity for a rainy day.

I googled "easy vegan bread" and found the recipe for the Easiest Simplest Vegan Bread Ever. Obviously, I made that one, and am officially experiencing a homemade vegan bread obsession. And I must say if you find a breadmaker with a timer feature (which I'm sure they all have by now), there's nothing like the smell of hot bread to wake up three sleepyheads during their first week of school (and one sleepy mommy who hasn't yet had her coffee).

So even though my world got smaller this summer, a few things opened up for our family in our food world.  Managing my children's food allergies has always been a journey--this is just another turn in the road.

Product review: I.M. Healthy Chocolate SoyNut Butter

This jar sat in our cold, dark pantry, unopened, for months and months after I had snapped it up on clearance at a natural foods market.  I had seen varieties of soynut butter but this was my first and only sighting of chocolate soynut butter.  I was intrigued at the time but tucked it onto a crowded shelf that eventually became even more crowded with our pantry staples.

I came upon this forgotten jar in the spring -- conveniently right before the "best if used by" date -- so I knew it was time to pull off the seal, and have a try.  Oh my.  What had I been waiting for??

I think I.M. Healthy's chocolate soynut butter is pretty darn tasty.   It's not as decadent and rich as the dairy-filled, hazelnut spread Nutella -- I.M.'s texture is fluffier and not gooey.  Even so I.M. Healthy's chocolate soynut butter has a pleasant cocoa taste, slightly nutty, even though it's nut-free.  (Must be those roasted soy "nuts"!)  I liked it.  But would my picky, picky kids like it?

The kids liked it more in the beginning when I made chocolate soynut butter and banana sandwiches but they grew quickly tired of the combo.  They will eat it sometimes on untoasted whole bread, no bananas, but they are not clamoring for chocolate sandwiches all the time.  This will be a good lunch option to mix things up a bit every couple of weeks.  I should be grateful that they are not particularly fond of sweet sandwiches, right?

In addition to sandwiches, I.M Healthy's chocolate soynut butter is great as a quick frosting.  We keep a stash of unfrosted cupcakes in the freezer so that we always have a safe treat to bring to friends' parties.  the chocolate soynut butter requires no refrigeration and is especially convenient when you just need to frost one or two cupcakes.

Sprinkles and I.M Healthy's chocolate soynut butter on top of a GF cupcake.  Yum!

The company, I.M. Healthy, also makes other soy nut butters.  Their products, as clearly labeled, are made in a peanut-free, tree nut-free facility.  I called the company's toll-free line, was momentarily rendered speechless when a live person answered the phone (so nice!), and found out that their facilities are also DAIRY-FREE, EGG-FREE, and WHEAT-FREE.  Woo hoo!

I.M. Healthy's chocolate soy nut butter has a little more fat, protein, and fiber than Nutella.  One thing that I.M. Healthy has a lot less of is sugar, one third of the sugar per serving than Nutella.  I was lucky to find a 6-pack of the spread on Amazon during a random sale in April (6 jars for $15!).  This stuff is definitely hard to find.  I have seen prices range from $5 to $6 per jar through Amazon, Walmart, and non-chocolate I.M. Healthy soynut butters for about the same at Vitacost.

Ryken has a classmate, we'll call him "Q" for privacy sake, who loved to bring Nutella sandwiches to school.  Q is a sweet and close friend who, upon finding out that Ryken was allergic to Nutella, gave up his favorite lunch option so that he could continue sitting with Ryken at the allergy-free table.  After finally trying the chocolate soynut butter and getting my hands on more jars, I gave one to Q's family to try out.  I hope to see this in Q's lunchbox this fall!


I.M. Chocolate Soy Nut Butter Nutritional Information*:

Product: I.M Healthy Chocolate SoyNut Butter
Product size: 15 oz
Serving size: 2 Tablespoons
Total fat per serving: 14 grams (compared to 12 grams in Nutella, 16 grams in Skippy No-Stir peanut butter, and 16 grams in Trader Joe's sunflower seed butter)
Dietary fiber: 3 grams (compared to 1 gram in Nutella, 2 grams in the peanut butter, 7 grams in the sun butter)
Sugar: 7 grams (compared to 21 grams in Nutella and 3 grams in both the peanut butter and sun butter)
Protein: 5 grams (compared to 2 grams in Nutella, 7 grams in both the peanut butter and sun butter)


*The nutritional information was taken from the company's website.  This information differs slightly from the nutritional info found on the label of chocolate soynut butter jars that I had purchased in May.  I am guessing that the company's website features the most current facts.

Getting Back on Track & Fish Tacos (No Egg, No Dairy)

During the summer, life slows down.  Without homework to complete, team sports practices to rush off to, or school volunteer commitments, you would think our lives are stress-free during the summer.  But as the weeks go on, a subtle regression takes place to a life where any semblance of a schedule is nonexistent.

Yep, sneaky little thing, the fall to chaos.  And then you're back dealing with the same old stuff you're dealing with during the school year: the repetitive dinner dishes, kids want to "help," but you have very little time to shop or prepare, and everyone's food allergies and disparate tastes exacerbate the situation.  Time for a change of pace.

First, get everyone back into a routine by making sure they understand their daily roles and responsibilities.  I am a true believer in incentives.  I found this website called Kidspointz where you can assign each child tasks/responsibilities/chores using a points and rewards system.  Kids can help develop their online charts, along with the rewards they are coveting (right now, the kids are really into computer time, online game subscriptions, special outings, etc).  We are into week two and beds are still made, daily reading time is still observed, and whining is down to a minimum.  Eventually their responsibilities will be habit and their rewards will come naturally--that's the hope, anyway.

As for the perpetual question, "What's for dinner?" we recently tried a simple recipe for fish tacos with much success.  The kids were able to help, the bulk of it can be made in advance, and the use of frozen fish sticks buys me an extra day or two between grocery store visits.

The key to making this recipe allergy-friendly is finding frozen fish sticks and a mayonnaise that work for your family.  We use Trader Joe's Lightly Breaded Fish Sticks Reduced Fat.  They contain wheat, but are dairy, egg, and soy free, which are the usual fish stick culprits.  If your kids are fish allergic, try substituting allergy-friendly chicken nuggets or grilled fish or chicken for a gluten-free option.

As for the mayonnaise, for this recipe we tried Nasoya Vegan Nayonaise.  It seemed to separate a bit in the jar and had a yellowish tinge, but when we made the coleslaw dressing, it was smooth as silk.

For picky eaters, try a plainer coleslaw (my 8-year-old swears by just cabbage, sugar, salt, pepper, apples, and raisins), and try creating a plate instead of putting it together into a taco.  Your kids might surprise you by piling everything together anyway (see exhibit A below).  Have the kids help you cook, or try adding in a favorite ingredient to make trying something new a bit easier.  I also added a bit more sugar to taste, and substituted apple cider vinegar for the red wine vinegar.

"Exhibit A:" She started off with everything separate, but quickly moved on to a taco.

Easy Fish Tacos (NO Dairy, NO Egg)

Ingredients:

Coleslaw, adapted from Tyler Florence's Ultimate Coleslaw Recipe

1 cup mayonnaise, like Nasoya Vegan Nayonaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
Juice from 1/2 lemon
Salt & Pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 store-bought bag of shredded green cabbage (8 oz)
1 store-bought bag or shredded red cabbage (8 oz)

Fish sticks (like Trader Joe's Lightly Breaded Fish Sticks Reduced Fat)

Corn tortillas
Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

1. Pre-heat oven and pop the fish sticks in to bake on a foil-lined baking pan.  Bake as directed on box.

2.  Make the coleslaw by combining all the dressing ingredients in a large bowl, then tossing it with the cabbage.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3.  Pan fry the corn tortillas and set aside for serving.

4.  Allow kids to assemble the tacos and enjoy!

Weekend Getaways: Food 101 for the Family with Food Allergies

For some, summer means travel.  I relish the lazy days close to home myself, but if we had the option to travel all summer long, I might very well consider it.  Unfortunately, for a food allergy family, traveling is a challenge with an enormous amount of planning involved.

With a severely food allergic child, I feel less and less comfortable eating out, especially when we're far from home.  I think I've got the Epinephrine to ER thing down pat when we're at home, but being on vacation with an allergic reaction is a different story all together.

So I try very hard to limit our restaurant eating and do as much preparing and cooking as I can.  We will be away this weekend for a rare mini getaway with the family, and although we will be within an hour from home, I still have a lot of planning to do.  Some tips to make the getaway more like a vacation and hopefully, less stressful:

1. If you can, book a hotel with a refrigerator at the very least, and for longer trips, some form of a kitchen or microwave is essential.  If there's no microwave in the room, there may be one available for use, like in the lobby.

2. Seek out the markets near your hotel before you go, and plan on making a few trips with a list of easy, allergy-friendly, low maintenance food options in hand.  Some forethought saves you time in the long run.

3. If there is a stove available, bring your own pots/pans and cooking utensils.  This cuts out the mystery and puts some of your cross-contamination worries at ease.

4.  Bring paper goods and disposable eating utensils.  No one likes to wash dishes on vacation, but this is especially important if all you have is a fridge.  An added bonus: kids can eat by the pool and not skip a beat!

5.  Bring drinks or water bottles and lots (and lots) of non-perishable snacks to pack for day trips, have by the pool, or satisfy a craving.  Some of our favorites are safe granola or breakfast bars, crackers, popcorn, fruit or fruit and gel cups (like Dole Fruit and Gel Cups), fruit leathers, seeds, and dried seaweed.

If you're a seasoned food allergy mama you likely already follow these guidelines religiously.  For those of you who might be starting out, know that you CAN have fun while on vacation.  And yes, we were the ones with the 8 grocery bags filled with food upon check-in, but we were also the ones who spent a fabulous 87 degree day by the pool.

Wishing you safe and happy travels this summer!

Bakery-style Chocolate Chip Cookies - free of the top 8 allergens

If you have followed Get Allergy Wise for awhile, you know that most of my recipes are adaptations of preexisting recipes.  I definitely need other recipes as road maps and realize how lucky I am to be able to search the web to find much of what I am looking for.  Recently acquired some parsnips but never cooked with them?  Search for recipes on the internet!  Only have carrots, onions, salsa, and a bag of rice in your cupboards?  Get meal ideas on the internet!  Seriously, we are spoiled with convenient, expansive information these days.

Despite the internet's bottomless pit of great recipes, I am still a fiddler by nature.  I can't help but play around with recipes -- sometimes a little and sometimes a lot -- to fit the needs of my milk-allergic, nut-allergic kids or to lower the sugar content, or to fulfill our family's lifestyle choice of eating more plants and less meat.

So it says a lot (and is pretty rare) when I do *not* find a thing to change about a recipe.  One such recipe is vegan author Dreena Burton's recipe for homestyle chocolate chip cookies.  The recipe is a favorite cookie recipe of mine.  When I first discovered it online two years ago, I think I made batches of it for three months straight, I was that addicted.  I love that the cookie uses oil rather than vegan margarine or shortening and also uses a good amount of maple syrup as the main sweetener.  Even Dreena's estimated bake time (11 minutes) was exactly right for my oven.  Okay, the one thing I did change was that I omit the molasses but that is because I never have any on hand.  Besides that, I couldn't find anything to change about this recipe!

I love Dreena's chocolate chip cookies but the tinkerer in me was curious.  I wondered if I might be able to do something about the wheat-based flour that the original recipe calls for.  Could I replace the flour with something that would be safe for those who are allergic to wheat or gluten-intolerant? 

I've tried the popular gluten-free flour blend of brown rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca starch.  But I seized the opportunity to go off the beaten GF trail and combine some flour alternatives that have accumulated in my pantry, flours that I must have bought after seeing recipes that I wanted to try but sadly haven't gotten to yet.  I opted for a more protein-rich mix of garbanzo flour (boy, I have a lot of that around!), potato starch, and quinoa flour.


The cookies turned out delicious!  Texture-wise and tastewise, they were very similar to the original recipe.  These cookies were able to attain a more golden brown color than when I make the original homestyle cookies.  (Perhaps the molasses that I always omit usually helps with browning?)  I think the quinoa flour adds a slight nutty flavor but this works fine with the chocolate.  And I don't know why, but big chocolate chunks elevates these cookies to another level.

Bakery-style Chocolate Chip Cookies - free of the top 8 allergens
Adapted from Dreena Burton's homestyle chocolate chip cookie recipe featured on her Vive La Vegan! blog and cookbook of the same name

Dry ingredients:
1 cup garbanzo flour
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup turbinado "raw" sugar

Wet ingredients:
1/2 cup oil
2/3 cup maple syrup
1 Tbsp vanilla extract

1 cup Enjoy Life mega chocolate chunks or 1 cup of safe chocolate, coarsely chopped
Extra sea salt (flakes are great) for sprinkling, optional

1. Preheat 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Grease or line 2 cookie sheets with aluminum foil.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients.  Make sure any clumps of flour or starch are broken up to ensure even mixing.
3. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients.  Pour oil, maple syrup, and vanilla extract into the well and mix the wet ingredients together.
4. Gradually combine wet and dry ingredients, stirring through the dough so that there are no pockets of dry ingredients left.  The dough will be a little thin, not as sticky and thick as a typical gluten-full cookie mix.  Then stir in chocolate chunks. 
   
5. Spoon out 1 to 1.5-inch balls of cookie dough on cookie sheet. Sprinkle with additional sea salt flakes if you so desire.  Leave 2 inches of space between each cookie -- these cookies do spread quite a bit!
6. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-12 minutes or until cookies begin to turn golden.  Promptly remove from oven and let cool.

I find these vegan chocolate chip cookies -- Dreena's original or this gluten-free alternative -- very easy to prepare.  We are planning to do some cookie sales this summer to raise funds for the FARE Walk for Food Allergy.   Adding chocolate chunks versus chips is a fun touch to look more professional.

Pasta with Garlic and Lemon

To echo the sentiments of my blogging "spouse" Sarah, I'm so sorry for being so quiet lately! 

My kids are in the home stretch of their school year and, as the last day of school draw closer, things have been getting busier and busier.  I am enjoying their futsal games, swim and soccer classes and helping out more with field trips, fundraisers, classroom, and schoolwide activities.  At the same time, I have needed to balance their school and extracurriculars with my other needs: exercise (my sanity keeper!), cooking, and household chores.  In addition, it didn't help blogging matters that the couple of times I did find myself with time enough to be creative in the kitchen, my dessert attempts were complete failures!  These wasted precious time, energy, and not-so-cheap ingredients while also zapping my kitchen confidence and enthusiasm.

The pitiful results of my attempt at making a vegan chocolate cream roll.

The blog has been patiently waiting its turn as it got temporarily pushed by the wayside by more immediate and urgent to-dos.  I hope, with summer vacation just days away, the blog can makes its ascent back towards the top of my long priority list!  (Here's hoping a lazy summer can help shorten that list, too.)

Having lost my baking mojo, I needed to find a recipe to get me back in the cooking mood.  I decided to go for a simple pasta dish (yeah, not a baked dessert --  I'm still licking my wounds from my recent cake failures).  I found a recipe on Pink Parsley Blog and knew it would be a perfect dish to try.

This dish is so easy, I've made it multiple times for my kids and they have loved it every time.  I added to the dish by incorporating some nutrient-rich leafy greens.  If kale isn't your thing, I have used spinach, mushrooms, broccoli, and chopped red bell pepper with yummy results.  And definitely add in Trader Joe's vegan mozzarella shreds as it makes for a delicious faux Parmesan cheese.  The ultra thin, short shreds have the right texture and taste that adds a punch to pasta dishes.   If you do not have a Trader Joe's near you, rumor has it that Galaxy Foods is the supplier for Trader Joe's vegan mozzarella shreds.

A quick word about kitchen tools: I bought a Microplane grater last year on the advice of one of my son's preschool teachers.  It makes grating lemon zest so easy.  I tried this with fresh ginger with less-than-ideal results (I stick with a normal, little handled grater for that).  I'm not sure how it does with hard cheeses because we are a milk-free house due to food allergies.  Having said that, I still love mine even though I only use it for citrus zest!

Pasta with Garlic and Lemon
Adapted from Pink Parsley's recipe for pasta with garlic, olive oil, and lemon
1 lb dry pasta (regular, whole wheat, gluten-free -- any pasta will do!)
Olive oil
Leaves of 1 to 2 bunches of kale, washed and torn into small pieces
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
8 cloves of garlic, minced
Dried or freshly chopped basil, oregano, or parsley (optional)
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 cup of Trader Joe's vegan mozzarella cheese
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Boil pasta to al dente according to package directions.  Reserve 1/4 cup of the cooking liquid.  Then drain and rinse completely to halt cooking process.
2. Heat a small amount of olive oil over medium heat.  (I use the same pot that I used for cooking the noodles.)  Add kale leaves to the pot and some salt.  Cook the kale, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.  Remove kale from heat and to a separate plate when the leaves have begun to wilt from cooking.
3. Heat up more olive oil (start with 1/4 cup) in the pot.  Add red pepper flakes and minced garlic to the oil and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring to avoid browning or burning the garlic.  
4. When garlic starts to turn golden, toss in pasta noodles.  Mix in basil, oregano, and/or parsley to taste.  Toss pasta.
5. Add cooked kale, lemon juice, and zest and toss pasta to mix.  
6. If the pasta looks a little dry, feel free to add small amounts of the reserved cooking liquid, more olive oil, or more lemon juice.  
7. When the pasta is well-coated with sauce, remove from heat.  Add in the vegan cheese.  
8. Taste test the pasta and add in more salt, pepper, lemon, or vegan cheese as needed.

Here's to some easy meals this summer.  After a long school year, we all deserve a little break!