The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook

200 Gourmet and Homestyle Recipes for the Food Allergic Family

allergy cookbook

Monday, March 12, 2007

Hi Folks:

First, a little PR update. Living Without's spring issue is now on the stands. Look for my article on "Tasty Traditions", which features some great new allergen-free recipes for Easter and Passover.

Next, my column is up on Lime.com at:
http://www.lime.com/recipes/story/8339/
change-an-ingredient-change-your-life

with recipes for
Whole Grain Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble (vegan and completely allergen-free EXCEPT for the spelt),
Tempeh Stir-fry with Broccoli (vegan and completely allergen-free EXCEPT for soy), and
Light Eggplant Parmesan (not allergen-free, but low fat and very tasty for those who can eat anything)

But enough about my foods....
I just came back from EXPO WEST where I'm happy to report I tasted some great new allergen-free and gf/cf products. Highlights include:

AMY'S KIDS MEALS -- GF/CF BAKED ZITI
Which includes baked ziti, broccoli and sauce, rice focaccia bread, and apple crisp. You can bet it'll be on my table come this spring when it hits shelves!

KINNIKINNICK Foods
GF products that totally rock! Their sandwich bread actually holds together, looks normal, and tastes good. Same holds true of their cookies. Look for this Canadian co's products at your local grocery store or health food store and check out www.kinnikinnick.com.

WOW Baking Company
GF brownies and cookies that taste better than the kind with wheat. Really really good. Not free of eggs or dairy tho....

ENJOY LIFE Natural Brands
Now has awesome lunch box-sized cookie packs. So now you can throw a couple of Snickerdoodles in for dessert. Also try yummy new cookie flavors from them, like their new
Soft Baked Happy Apple
and
Soft Baked Lively Lemon


Enjoy!

Cybele

posted by Cybele Pascal @ 2:03 PM  

18 Comments:

  • At 8:49 AM, Blogger Robin said…

    Hi Cybele,
    EXPO WEST sounds like fun, to sample new healthy foods...yum. I still rely heavily on convience foods, especially for school lunches for my high schooler. BUT, she wants and asks for more nutrional choices. we do have a Whole Foods here, are those Enjoy Life cookie packs available yet? do they sell Living Without there? It's where I bought your book.
    I'll have to go check, thanks for the latest info on yummy healthy options. (that earth balance buttery spread is really good stuff, I woulda never known..)
    Hope you are enjoying the beautiful spring weather here in California, take care, Robin

     

  • At 11:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Cybele,
    I know you write mainly on what goes inside on the body, but I thought maybe you might recommend a topical wheat-free sunscreen for kids. Do you know of any?

     

  • At 2:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I like the sound of kinnikinnick foods.
    I bought and tried some gluten free rice and fruit bread recently and it was very flaky and tasted stale even though technically it wasn't supposed to.

    I've been experiencing severe depression due to post traumatic stress disorder and one of the first things I did a couple of years ago was to go to a naturopath. He highly recommended yeast-free bread, but over the past couple of years I have been considering gluten-free also. I'm also Australian, so I'll keep an eye out when I go to health food shops and see if any of the products / brands you've listed can be bought over here.

    Starting to cook again has helped and visiting your site really inspires me.

    Warm Wishes from,
    ~Joanna

     

  • At 3:52 PM, Blogger Cybele Pascal said…

    Dear Robin:

    The Enjoy Life cookie packs are available, but not as widely as their other products. If you can't find them, I would request they be ordered. That's what I'm going to do at my local whole foods. Living Without is sold at Whole Foods, as well as most health food stores. Glad to hear you found my book at a Whole Foods too!!

    We are enjoying the weather sooo much. Every morning we count our lucky stars.

    Dear Anonymous:

    Have you tried www.glutenfree.myarbonne.com

    They make gluten-free cosmetics, skin care, baby care. That would be a good place to start, I think.

    You could also try kidsallergystop.com

    Dear Joanna:

    I know what you mean about some GF bread seeming stale even though it's not. So much gluten free bread is hard and crumbly like that. I'll bet you can have the Kinnikinnick bread sent to you. Also, Ener-G has Seattle Brown Bread which is made with Montina flour, which is pretty good in flavor and texture. So sorry to hear about your Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Cooking comfort foods should help you feel a little bit better.

    best,

    Cybele

     

  • At 9:55 PM, Blogger Nancy said…

    Hi Cybele,

    My sister's son is allergic to gluten and is a 6 foot beanpole. He couldn't eat foods he liked so he gave up eating. I've been passing on info from you and hopefully it will help. Thank you!

    I wanted to write about a very strange thing that has happened with my daughter, Chelsea. She began allergy shots (cats, birds, horses, dust mites, grasses, molds)in 9/05. I wrote previously that she is having the best year ever in school (following a disasterous year last year). She is more organized, tests better,...etc. She hasn't needed her inhaler in months and her colds last seven days now instead of seven weeks. No more embarassing coughing fits in school. She was scratched by a neighborhood cat and not even a welt showed up. In a small room full of 7 kittens, my eyes were watering and I was sneezing and she walked out totally unscathed (I used to have to give her benadryl, toss her in the shower and launder every stitch of clothing after even a minimal exposure and still she'd get hives and eventually bronchitis). Nothing short of miraculous!

    The weird part... and can it be just a coincidence? She has been eating ice cream in school every few days (without my knowledge) since the holidays. I know some kids grow out of dairy allergies but what coincidence! Is it possible that environmental allergies exacerbate food allergies? In some people?

    I think I'm going to try allergy shots (a good idea on its own) and then try to reintroduce some of my allergy-producing foods in a year or so. I miss chocolate so much.

    Here's hopin' :)

    Nancy

     

  • At 8:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Cybele, this is OT but I'm sure you are concerned about the recent pet food recall. So many brands (and the real good stuff too)! I hope everyone checks there cans against the posted recall list and I wouldn't be shocked if the dry food is affecting dogs as well. It's upsetting.

     

  • At 10:16 AM, Blogger Cybele Pascal said…

    Hi Nancy:

    That is odd about the ice cream. She must have outgrown the dairy allergy. Have you done any other dairy trials since learning about this?

    I have heard that environmental allergies can make food allergic reactions worse. So, for example, during ragweed season, I seem to have a more extreme reaction to fish/shellfish. I think your body is just in hyper-allergic mode. I'm sure there are more scientific explanations out there on the web. I would assume it has to do with high levels of histamine circulating in your body, due to the environmental allergies, and that any histamine releasing foods (tomatoes, strawberries, citrus fruits, shellfish, cheese, chocolate, red wine), whether or not you're allergic to them, can exaggerate hives and headaches.

    Let me know how the allergy shots go. My husband is supposed to start them too.

    best,

    Cybele

     

  • At 8:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    hi! love your column
    i just had a question about your opinion of allergy shots. i used to get them when i was younger each week (around when i was 10 years old) and each time i'd get a shot, the injection site would get red, hard and hot and swell to about the diameter of a 1/2 dollar. my doctor told me not to worry about it. is this normal? also i had a lot of weight gain while on them. my mom took me off of them about 6 mos later and the weight pretty much came off. its been about 9 years since and i was wondering if i should go back on them since i have bad allergies. thanks!

     

  • At 9:50 AM, Blogger Cybele Pascal said…

    Hi Anonymous:

    It sounds to me as if you were having huge welts from the histamine reaction. These are "wheels". I don't know if you should do shots again. I think you need to go to a new allergist. Where do you live? And about the weight gain, I've never heard of that, but anything is possible. First, consider that with the release of histamine, there is swelling in the body and in turn, water retention (read: weight gain!) But as you yourself said, once you stopped the shots, the weight came off. Allergy shots aren't a lifelong thing, and it might be worth the short term side effects for long term gains if your allergies are bad enough. But only you and an allergist can really determine that. So again: Get yourself to a new allergist! Also, things may have changed in the past 9 years, both in terms of your own chemistry, and what's in the shots.

    Let us know how it goes.

    all the best,

    Cybele

     

  • At 1:15 PM, Blogger Nancy said…

    Cybele,
    Good luck to your husband! Does he have a lot of allergies? Are your husband's and your allergies any better since moving to California? My sister moved from CA to North Carolina and said that her allergies have come back with a vengence. In Los Gatos, she said, she hadn't used her inhaler in years.

    Anonymous,
    I hope you don't mind if I comment as well.

    My daughter, 12, still get those wheels. They swell up to between mosquito bite size and two inches in diameter. There is no predicting on any given day. The nurse measures them and keeps a record of them (to decide whether or not to move her up to the next vial). She takes claritin on the mornings of the shots (she gets three shots, biweekly). They turn her away unless she has had her claritin. She hates the swelling. It hurts and itches at the same time, she says. Ice helps a lot. If the swelling is over an inch, I give her benadryl and it clears up within a few hours. She even had an asthma attack (long ago) after one administration but her inhaler made it stop pretty quickly. Her doctor has her wait in the office for a 1/2 hour afterward so that he can be available for any bad reaction. Still, for her, they are paying off. I used to have to talk her into going -no easy task- (when we were going twice a week) but now she reminds us that it's the morning of a shot.

    The doctor has said that she will soon have to come only once each month (and she was thrilled).

    She has gained some weight, but I just attributed that to puberty. Our doctor never mentioned that as a side effect...hmmm...

    Nancy

     

  • At 3:21 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    thank you all so much for all the useful information. i dont know if the weight gain was directly attributed to the shots or not, it just seemed like it. i never knew those red things had actual names. i remember them being really annoying and slightly itchy. i also remember i did use ice on them to get the redness down. the advice is really useful. i live in virginia. right now im at college at gmu but i'm from va beach. both are horrible places for a perosn with allergies haha. i think this summer when school is out i'm going to look into a new allergist. thanks again !
    ps. how is california? i have family out there and i love it! no humidity is the best. i almost went to UC orange county, but decided that was too far from home.

     

  • At 9:22 PM, Blogger Heidi said…

    I loved your recipes in Living Without this month!!! I hope you keep posting recipes in the magazine. I love when I find recipes in Living Without that beyond casein and gluten free. We are sooo lucky to have you :):):)Heidi

     

  • At 8:28 PM, Blogger Heidi said…

    I just had to share...I just had a great eating out experience at a local restaurant (Turtles in Eugene, OR). I ordered a great steak, with bake potato and salad. On the bake potato I had green onion, bacon and Italian dressing. I love their Italian dressing, it is a lot like Cybele's Red Wine Vinaigrette. I love being able to eat out!

     

  • At 9:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hello. I wanted to say that your cookbook is prominently displayed near the checkout aisles at Whole Foods Market in New York.

     

  • At 6:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi! I really like your recipes, even though I'm not allergic to anything (that I recently know of). I think you should some of your recipes on Yahoo Food. It's getting pretty popular, although it's a fairly new part of Yahoo. You should totally think about it :]

    -Grace

     

  • At 11:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi Cybele. I work at a summer Camp on Long Island for disabled children. A majorty of them have food allergies. Is there any way to buy in bulk, or get the food cheaper the camp has a buget.
    Cassie Rivera

     

  • At 1:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Cybele, where have you gone? Your loyal readers hope you are OK!

     

  • At 10:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi Cybele,
    My son has egg, all nuts, soy and a little milk allergies. I can't find any granola bars or on the go foods that don't have all that in them or they are without all those but are then processed on a shared line. I'm going crazy. He's 16months, and I need some healthy snacks for him.
    Thanks Erin

     

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