(no subject)

[the_rck]

Now that Delia's food issues are pretty much resolved (we haven't retested peaches yet, and we should now that she has a good vocabulary and sense of her own body), I'm coming to realize that it's my issues that are going to cause the family the biggest problems in grocery buying and meal preparation and all. The worst part is that what I can eat is changing so that things that used to be safe and even smart are now dangerous.

My big problems are a new (and still, thank goodness, mild) allergy to tree nuts, an increased sensitivity to peanuts (they used to give me rash if I ate a lot of them. Now they make my mouth itch), unpredictable heartburn due to greasiness and vast troubles with a lot of different spices. On that last, I know more about which few spices are safe than I do about which ones are specifically really bad.

Sage, dill, rosemary, thyme, mustard, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and cardamom are safe, generally. Oregano, turmeric, black pepper, white pepper, cumin, paprika and anything derived from peppers (bell, jalapeno, whatever) are very bad. Tomatoes may or may not be a problem. I don't care for them, and they're often mixed with things that I know are problems. For a long time, I thought that tomatoes were definitely a problem, but then I realized that all of the times I could remember having problems involved oregano, too.

I'm trying to keep track of what causes me problems now because I can't afford to lose sleep to reflux (or to aggravated asthma problems) because I need to be at my best physically (which isn't all that good) in order to take care of Delia. Something that Scott pointed out a while ago is helping me-- He commented that, when I say that I don't like something, what I generally mean is that I don't like how I feel after I eat it. About the only thing I can think of immediately that I don't like but can eat without problems is cucumbers.

Pepper and peppers are the worst problems because they're in so many things just as an automatic ingredient. Black pepper's generally only a problem if there's enough that I can taste it. If I can taste it, I know that I'll be sick later. Peppers, on the other hand, are a problem whether I can taste them or not. I'm checking ingredients more carefully now, and there are a couple of restaurants we may have to give up on because, though I love the food, the pepper content makes me too sick afterward. (The main restaurant I'm thinking of has two menu options, vegetarian and not vegetarian, so it's not as if I can select something different to eat. It's also my parents' favorite place to eat in town and a place that's been very welcoming of Delia.)

Comments

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

If that restaurant is welcoming enough to your daughter for it to deserve special mention, it sounds like a good place. You might wish to call and ask if the food is prepared in quantity or in individual servings -- if the latter, you can probably order it 'sans peppers'.

[the_rck]

I'm pretty sure it's prepared in bulk. Everybody gets exactly the same food in the same portions. It's an Ethiopian place. They bring out a central tray for the table (more than one if the group's large), and people use bread to take food from that tray. The portions of each dish on the tray aren't very large, and several of them are long cooking things.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

. . . crap.

[sageautumn.livejournal.com]

Tomatoes should be easy enough to figure out... can you deal with ketchup?

Also, if they are very accomodating, perhaps they could give you a larger serving of whatever they have you can eat... or if they are very very accomodating, they'll allow you to bring in something from someplace else. (I know at least one restraunt around here will do that without a fuss... so long as everyone else is eating there.)

[the_rck]

Well, I dislike the taste of tomatoes (except in cocktail sauce for shrimp), so I've lacked motivation to test. My husband dislikes tomatoes, too, and our daughter now refuses cherry tomatoes (she's tried them a couple of times and has spat them out). We've never had ketchup in the house. My suspicion, based on cocktail sauce and an occasional bit of steak sauce is that I'm mildly bothered by tomatoes in terms of the GERD and that I can enjoy the flavor if it's melded with vinegar or horseradish or both.

I'll consider both options on the restaurant. I think the first few times would be hardest because I'd have to exercise extreme self-control in the face of temptation. It's very easy to lie to myself and say that I'll enjoy the food more than enough to make up for the misery later or to tell myself that just a little bit won't hurt and that I'll limit myself to just a little bit.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Eating in restaurants will probably become easier in the future, even with more restrictions on what you eat. Four-year-olds generally have better restaurant manners than babies or toddlers. Most people who work in restaurants know this, and they smile at 4-year-olds and bring them crayons (even if they get grumpy when someone brings in a toddler). If I were you, I would look for restaurants specializing in relatively plain food, where the staff speaks good English and can accomodate requests. Steakhouses and seafood restaurants might work, though they're expensive. They cook food to order, so you can get it without spices (and you can get food other than beef at a steakhouse.) Diners are also likely to be accomodating. I realize the helpfulness of cooking food to order works against the problem of dealing with a child's attention span, but maybe you can bring a board game or something.

[the_rck]

We tend to avoid steakhouses both because of Scott's severe beef allergy and because I loathe anything that's got even the slightest bit of charring. I really can't understand why anyone would voluntarily eat anything that's been cooked on a grill or otherwise blackened. ::shrugs:: Obviously other people enjoy the flavor.

Being able to request things to order is one of the reasons I'm trying to figure out what all the problems are. We'll still have to watch for places that lie about ingredients or that consider minor contamination to be the same as no contamination, but everybody with food restrictions has to do that.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Possibly useful: Seva has a "book of ingredients" for people with food allergies, which lists every ingredient in every dish and sauce and condiment on their menu. And when you go there with a child, they bring you crayons, a paper menu with kids' activities, and a tub full of recently-washed Duplo to play with. *However*, I'm not too convinced that they (or any restaurant, for that matter) are any good at avoiding cross-contamination.

[the_rck]

I'm most concerned about beef cross-contamination which shouldn't be a problem at Seva, and a list of ingredients should let me steer away from obvious problems. It might also give me leads on spices that are or aren't a problem. (In fact, the last time I was there, I had their hummos and had trouble. I should find out what's in it.)

We've tended to avoid Seva because, for a long time, there was nothing safe for Delia to eat.

[kyrielle]

Agreed, check whether the good restaurant can tolerate you bringing in food for you, or can do something to accomodate.

Maybe test tomatoes by just eating a cherry tomato or two by themselves? That would tend to nail them down fairly solidly....

Good luck. Food allergies are no fun. And watch the nuts! That one might be worth a doctor's visit, if you haven't done. Peanut allergy can be nasty if it gets to an extreme (yours doesn't sound like it's there, but getting worse is not-good).

Then again, I get itchy mouth from some tree nuts, and have been told it's not at all dangerous in my case, because I test as non-allergic. I have my doctor's okay to eat whole filberts if I want to! (They make my mouth turn red and itch and burn. WHY would I want to?? But it's not, apparently, dangerous to me physically, just aggravating.)

[the_rck]

I've been to an allergist about the nuts and peanuts. My skin test was negative, but I'm avoiding them anyway, given the unpleasant feeling that eating them gives me. My body's been reacting more strongly to allergens in general during the last couple of years. I can't, for example, sit next to lunargeography on a couch because the hair from her cats will set off my asthma after not too long.

I'm being extra cautious about nuts because my mother developed an allergy to tree nuts during her 40s. It started with an itchy mouth and progressed to hives over the course of a few years. I'd like to avoid or delay the progression (deterioration?). So far, I've gone from no problem to an itchy mouth. I guess I'll see.

[kyrielle]

Yeah, that makes sense. :/ Good luck.