Is your whole household allergen free?

ABColeslaw · July 2011

DH and Asher have a lot of the same allergies. Their diet is extremely limited. Lately he has been pressuring me to eat allergen free with them so that we can eat the same meals as a family. And Although I want to do it...I'm also have food anxiety over it.

I am sadly an extremely picky eater. I have no idea how I'd survive on their diet.

MrsBeckO · July 2011

DD's only food allergy is peanuts/tree nuts so it wasn't too hard for us to make a household change.

magdusia · July 2011

yes.. and no. Our house is milk/soy/egg/peanut free but we both work and while at work i pig out on eggs/milk/soy.. (not as much as my DH though)

If we're at home we're completely safe.. last night was the first time we ordered Chinese food take-out "peanut free" after my son went to sleep.. about 4 bites into our food my son started screaming and we literally jumped and while DH threw everything in the garbage, i rinsed my mouth and washed up and ran to him (i was worried that the food actually did have peanuts and my son started reacting through the circulated air).. thankfully he screamed only b/c his paci fell out of his crib. I think i got a patch of gray hair last night.

I think that will be the last time we have Chinese food at home. not worth it.

that's hard to ask you to do that b/c there are just so many allergies. it's easy for us b/c we get to go crazy at work for breakfast and lunch so it's not soo bad to be careful at only dinner. not sure how i would do it if i had to do that for B, L and D.

mrs_kelly1014 · July 2011

We are a peanut/tree nut free house, but when DS was allergic to wheat, we did not all follow that. I would make 2 meals, but I wasn't going to eat WF/GF since he wasn't anaphylactic.

heyitsme · July 2011

Nope. My DH is a total foodie. He grew up in a family of restauranteurs and still works in a restaurant. I think it would possibly kill him if I had our entire house be Top-8 free.

That being said, he's not a huge fan of peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish or seafood. So we don't keep them in the house at all. (Although both he and DD consume products that say, "May contain traces of..." and "Manufactured in a facility...") If he has a desire to have one of those things (every now and then he'll crave salmon) he'll have it at the restaurant or go out by himself for a bit and enjoy it. We do eat meals as a family when he is home (most nights it's just DD, DS, and I--I make her meal and then a meal for me) and he usually just adds to his plate (like if he makes a Top-8 free Risotto for us, he might add cheese to his; or if we have breaded pork chops, we might use regular breadcrumbs on his [in a separate pan] and my breadcrumbs on mine).

I think the difference is that in my house, I'm the one with the allergies (so far). As an adult, I'm very much in control. While with a child, it's a lot more complicated. Besides wanting to eat the same meals together, does your DH also want you to eat allergen free because he's worried Asher will reject his food if he sees Mommy eating something else, or that his and Asher's food will risk cross-contamination with what you're eating?

Jen748 · July 2011

We are all peanut/tree nut free in our house (and most of our work food too). It just isn't worth the risk of something happening or Sammie getting into the cabinet.

g_belle · July 2011

not exactly. I'm on an elmination diet now- so I don't eat dairy or eggs. The whole house is peanut free. i do have eggs (for baking) and prior to my elmination diet we would eat eggs/things with eggs in them if J was at my mom's for the weekend or something. Never when he's here. I try to make all of our dinners allergy safe. But the extent of his allergies + my DH's aversion to "pretend" food makes that challenging. DH won't eat my GF baked goods (even when they are delicious) or any faux cheese product. He's making more of an effort to try things- but I usually just cook very simple meals- lots of meat and potatoes. We do have some unsafe foods for easy snacks (granola bars etc.) because the safe ones are so expensive.

loveemandle2 · July 2011

Peanuts/tree nuts for sure.. Eggs, just recently.. However, we do keep regular milk, and cheese in the house for dh and I to eat. I suppose with your lo's allergeries it makes a little more sense that you don't eat the samething that he eats. However, in our house it is a lot easier to find subs for eggs, dairy, nuts and us to eat the same things.

carlinlp · July 2011

Our entire house is gluten, dairy, soy, peanut free. We used to be egg free as well but when dh and I started a detox program our diets are so limited we started buying eggs again. We only scramble them as we don't fix a lot of baked goods. On the rare occasion something is baked we always do egg free just in case DD gets in to it. Once we are finished detoxing (dh is, i am not) we will probably remove eggs from the house again.

macchiatto · July 2011

Nope. But I had two different kids with two different sets of allergies, and neither DH or I have any food allergies. Will outgrew most of his by the time he was a little over 2; I think if he hadn't we might have moved in that direction to some extent, but we wouldn't have given up wheat. With some things we just had allergen-free alternatives, e.g. he would eat Light Brown Rice Loaf while we ate wheat bread. But there were things like PB that we still kept in the house, but we would only eat it when Will was upstairs asleep, and clean up carefully afterwards to avoid risk of cross-contamination. (His peanut allergy was not severe though and he wasn't old enough to be getting into the pantry on his own before he outgrew it, or he might have handled that differently.)

Miller238 · July 2011

We are only peanut/tree nut free. We are lucky she doesn't seem to react to being around the foods she is allergic to. Fingers crossed that can continue.

kms34 · July 2011

When DS was severely allergic to milk we only use vegan butter and soy milk in anything that he would come in contact with. We only ate cheese when he wasn't around. He's since started to outgrow that an can tolerate small amounts of dairy.

Eggs are our hardest. I don't really care for eggs but DH loves them. His favorite snack is a fried egg sandwich. I like to make fried rice and that gets tricky sometimes. We just make sure to keep DS in the other room and immediately wash any offending utensils.

After reading stories on here I'm so thankful that DS' allergies aren't super severe. His reactions to strawberries and peanuts are eczema and a facial rash/hives. With eggs he vomits within 10-15 minutes.

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