Finding Our Own "Awesome": Learning to bake for my food allergic son.
by: Angie Matteson
My family is obsessed with food. I know every single ingredient in everything we buy and bring into our home. I make sure I don't use the same knife to butter my daughter's waffle as I do my son's. When we go out to eat, I drill the waiter about their cooking methods and ingredients in the food they serve, to the point that I'd rather just go back there and cook it myself. And, if you are in the same grocery store at the same time as me, you just might see a strange woman jumping for joy and excitedly telling her son, “You can eat this! It's safe for you!” To some, it might sound like I'm losing my mind. And really, some days I feel I could do just that.
However, I know I'm not alone. I'm just another mom to one of the three million food allergic children in the United States. My five year old son is severely allergic to three of the top eight food allergens and has numerous environmental allergies as well. He has never had a doughnut from a bakery, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or Cheerios. He has never had scrambled eggs or a pop tart for breakfast, french fries from McDonald's, or a simple saltine or graham cracker. If he did eat these things he could have an allergic reaction ranging from hives, an itchy throat, wheezing, or even go into life threatening anaphylactic shock, in which case I would have to inject him with his Epi Pen that would hopefully reverse the symptoms and allow him to be able to breathe until the ambulance arrived.
Since he was diagnosed at nine months old with these allergies to eggs, wheat, and peanuts, he never thought he was missing out on anything. It didn't take long for us to realize these allergies weren't going anywhere and that he was going to eventually want to eat the same things that other children eat. My husband and I knew our son should not and did not have to miss out on some of these things. It's a never ending process in learning how to replace foods instead of denying them altogether. Instead of peanut butter and jelly on regular bread, he has a sun butter and jelly roll up on a corn tortilla. He eats corn and rice based cereals instead of wheat flour based varieties. And, we have tried and tested numerous different allergy-free prepackaged foods finding his favorite crackers, cereal bars, pasta, and even french bread pizza, among other things.
I have spent hours upon hours searching for “safe” recipes online and I grab the new allergy-free cookbooks off the library shelf as fast as they arrive. I have learned about so many different kinds of wheat-free flours and what they are best used for. I have learned that applesauce makes a great egg replacer. I have learned that my son may have to miss out on goodies made at a bakery. But, when I see him smile and his eyes light up after eating something new I have baked for him, such as cinnamon rolls, doughnut holes, or his racetrack birthday cake a few months ago, somehow I don't think he cares too much about that other stuff. He thinks what I have baked for him tastes “awesome." And in the end, that's all that matters, right?
If you are a new food allergy mom or dad, or just want to learn more about food allergies, go to
www.foodallergy.org, www.kidswithfoodallergies.org, www.livingwithout.com.
Angie Matteson is a mother of two in Bloomington-Normal and the wife of a local firefighter. Her son attends a peanut-free preschool and she hopes this policy becomes common-practice for the health and safety all food-allergic children.
