I am still mulling over the doctor’s words last week,
Most children are allergic to only one food. A very small percentage are allergic to two. When you get to where a child is allergic to three or more, like yours, it’s really quite rare. If you find that he reacts to something else, bring it in, we’ll mash it up and we’ll test him. We can’t eliminate too many foods, or you won’t be able to feed him.
Six. He’s allergic to six.
- Peanuts
- Tree nuts
- Fish
- Eggs
- Coconut (which some say is tree nut, some say not)
- and now… SOY.
How do you keep track of it all, asked my friend Danielle.
I just have to.
And so far, it seems, soy is the most problematic of all.
Soy is insidious. It’s in everything. Enchilada sauce? check. Pizza sauce? check. Take out pizza? Never again will that cross our lips it seems. It’s not as easy to avoid as simply not eating tofu or not sprinkling his food with soy sauce.
It’s even in his beloved Triscuits, but thank goodness only in the form of soybean oil which is non allergenic. If you want to see what Food Matters and Food Rules were talking about, then just try to find food that is in a package but doesn’t have corn or soy in it. Then email me so I can buy it.
Last week, I walked out of the bread aisle at Wal Mart because every loaf had something he couldn’t eat. Expensive, cheap, it didn’t matter. All of it contained an allergen. I checked the bag of chocolate chips that I bought back before the allergenic awareness carnival started and that we recently had been using as potty training bribes tokens of our affection. “Contains soy. Processed in a facility that process peanuts and tree nuts.”
The only solution, really, is to go back to cooking everything we eat from scratch like I did last summer. All that scratch cooking had gone to the wayside when school started. I didn’t have time to make breakfast muffins or biscuits, baked bread, pizza crust, or tortillas and substituted the healthiest alternatives I could find. Now we’re back to Little House on the Prairie, now with bread machines and indoor plumbing.
What I can see though is that for the first time in many months his face is clear, free of rash, and the black circles under his eyes (allergic shiners) are gone. His nose isn’t running and his skin is smooth and free of all the itchy bumps. His appetite is better. I coaxed the pickiest child in the universe into eating a casserole that had yummy grain fed beef, carrots, tomatoes, onions, rice and CABBAGE in it last night.
I have to take my victories where they come these days and this week, cabbage is where it’s at.
