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Author Topic: Newly Diagnosed  (Read 2309 times)

Description: Need help

Offline keebler47

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Newly Diagnosed
« on: July 27, 2012, 11:36:11 PM »
Hello, I am a 47 year old person recently diagnosed with food allergies:  Wheat, corn, tuna, banannas, and pork.  I have been trying to find information on what to eat, but have found much contradictory information.  Don't eat soy, ok to eat soy. Ok to eat rye, not ok to eat rye.  :-/  Topic usually leads to gluten free information but it is my understanding that gluten is only one factor in wheat allergy, not the same as wheat intolerance (celiac disease).  Is there a list of do's and dont's or a place I can find recipes that omit wheat and corn.  Ahhhhh! Please help.

Thanks

Offline GoingNuts

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Re: Newly Diagnosed
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2012, 06:50:32 AM »
Welcome Keebler!

Can you give a little more information - what lead to your diagnosis?  Who diagnosed you?

In the meantime, check out FAAN's website - it has lots of recipes that are free of the top 8 allergens, as well as cookbooks for purchase.  www.foodallergy.org

"Speak out against the madness" - David Crosby
N.E. US

Offline YouKnowWho

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Re: Newly Diagnosed
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2012, 08:08:10 AM »
It can also come down to contamination in regards to barley, rye and oats which is why those who are avoiding wheat tend to go with a gluten free diet.  Oats are very suspect and unless they say gluten free are almost guaranteed to be contaminated with wheat.

Corn is a harder ingredient to remove from the diet because it is a non-top 8 allergen so it doesn't have to be clearly labeled.  So while it's easy to avoid things like corn syrup, it's harder to determine if the preserving agents are corn based and honestly CSR's are generally clueless when you call.  There are some extensive lists on the web of food that are corn free - I attempted to work with them and remove them based on other allergens we were avoiding.

Which brings me to this.  My son was found to be allergic to corn (and a host of other things) based on testing alone.  However, he has never had a reaction to it (short of being small in stature so I had an idiot allergist try to convince me he was allergic because testing showed it to be true).  True corn allergies are rare, I am not saying non-existent, just rare.  So if your allergist is going based on testing alone for any of your food based allergens without your body having an allergenic response, it might be time to find a new doctor.  If this is a naturopath, promise me you will run screaming.
DS1 - Wheat, rye, barley and egg
DS2 - peanuts
DD -  tree nuts, soy and sunflower
Me - bananas, eggplant, many drugs
Southeast USA

Offline CMdeux

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Re: Newly Diagnosed
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2012, 11:00:34 AM »
Recipes which omit wheat and corn?

Absolutely.  If you own more than one cookbook, you probably already have a plethora to choose from, in fact...


BUT (you know there'd be a catch, right?);

ingredients that don't-- much more difficult problem.


There are perfectly good ways of avoiding the allergens that you've listed without winding up nutritionally deficient in any way.  That's the good news.

The bad news is that the learning curve is horrific for corn and wheat.  More bad news is that only two of those allergens (wheat and tuna) are even required to be on packaged food labels in the US.

Thus our collective concern for you.  It's not at all easy to work this out even if your life depends upon avoidance.  If it doesn't, it's actually rather important to NOT go all-out for avoidance of a lengthy list that involves a ubiquitous allergen (like corn or wheat), because unless you're growing all your own food, you're going to find yourself severely limited in terms of what you can safely buy from a grocery store, which can lead to some serious nutritional problems in a few weeks or months.

What kinds of reactions led you to seek out a diagnosis?
Resistance isn't futile.  It's voltage divided by current. 

Western U.S.