just thought I’d share

Most-Allergenic Foods

• berries
• buckwheat
• chocolate
• cinnamon
• citrus fruits
• coconut
• corn
• dairy products
• egg whites
• mustard
• nuts
• peas
• peanut butter
• pork
• shellfish
• soy
• sugar
• tomatoes
• wheat
• yeast

Least-Allergenic Foods

• apples
• apricots
• asparagus
• avocados
• barley
• beets
• broccoli
• carrots
• cauliflower
• chicken
• cranberries
• dates
• grapes
• honey
• lamb
• lettuce
• mangoes
• oats
• papayas
• peaches
• pears
• poi
• raisins
• rice
• rye
• safflower oil
• salmon
• squash
• sunflower oil
• sweet potatoes
• turkey
• veal

Potentially allergenic foods may be listed under another name in packaged foods. The most common are:

• wheat flour: durum semolina, farina
• egg white: albumin
• dairy products: Casein, sodium caseinate.
  TIP: Food without ANY diary products will say “Parve” on the package. You will usually find these foods in the kosher section.

Careful label reading will help you discover what you are eating:

• Cocoa mixes, creamed foods, gravies, and some sauces contain milk.
• Noodles and pasta contain wheat and sometimes eggs.
• Canned soups may contain wheat and dairy fillers.
• Most breads contain wheat and dairy products.
• Margarine usually contains whey.
• Hot dogs, cold cuts, and “nondairy” desserts contain sodium caseinate.

For persons who keep kosher , the word “pareve” on a label means the food does not contain milk or meat. However, recent studies on persons who suffered severe allergic reactions to pareve—labeled foods revealed milk residues.

Here’s a three-step method for uncovering what food could be bothering you or your child.

STEP 1: KEEP A FOOD RECORD
Over a four-day period record everything that gets eaten. If you are keeping records for yourself, be sure to include snacks or meals you eat at work or at restaurants. If you’re keeping a food record of what your child eats, do it during a four-day period when your child is home all day so you know exactly what he eats. Don’t make an issue of your child’s food choices during this time or he may sneak (because he craves) the very foods he’s sensitive to. Enlist your child’s cooperation so that together you can keep an accurate record. Also, keep track of any symptoms that you feel may be caused by food allergies.

STEP 2: TRY AN ELIMINATION DIET
On your list, circle the foods that you most suspect, paying particular attention to the nasty nine:

• dairy products
• soy
• egg whites
• wheat
• peanuts
• tree nuts
• citrus fruits
• shellfish
• food additives

If you have no hunch what you or your child may be allergic to, seek medical help from your doctor or an allergist. Start your elimination diet at a time when there are no outside influences that make the diet impossible to follow, such as during holidays, birthdays, vacations, parties at work, etc. Once you have picked out the most plausible offenders (with or without your doctor’s allergy-testing help), eliminate these for at least ten days (preferably two weeks) and keep track of any reactions. Avoid multiple-ingredient foods during this time, since these may contain multiple potential allergens, making it difficult to isolate the single offender. Focus on objective signs and symptoms; changes in mood or behavior are harder to evaluate.

STEP 3: CHALLENGE YOUR FINDINGS
It’s humanly impossible to be perfectly objective in pinpointing offending foods and what quantities of them cause reactions. Because you don’t want to eliminate nutritious foods from you or your child’s diet without good reason, it’s a good idea to test your findings by reintroducing suspicious foods one at a time, seeing if the concerning signs and symptoms reappear. If they do, that food goes on your no-no list, at least for a few months. Later you can find out whether or not your allergy is dose-related by reintroducing the food, beginning with a small amount once every four days and then increasing both the amount you eat and how often you eat it until your most annoying signs reappear. This threshold effect is especially characteristic of dairy allergies . Some people can’t even drink one glass of milk a day, but they can tolerate a cup of yogurt every other day.

THE QUICK-DETECTION METHOD FOR ZEROING IN ON FOOD ALLERGIES
Use this method if you are a well-disciplined adult. It is more difficult to use successfully on a child.

1. Eliminate the possible suspect foods, beginning with the nasty nine, for a period of at least a week or ten days. During this time, eat only the least allergenic foods, such as: fresh fruits (except berries and citrus), avocados, rice, barley, millet, poultry, and lamb. All the foods, if possible, should be organic and free of additives, dyes, and colorings.

2. Reintroduce one new food each week to see if symptoms reappear.

How much time, energy, and expense you are willing to spend on tracking down food allergies depends upon how much they bother you or your child, and whether your symptoms are getting better or worse. The good news is that food allergies are one medical problem where you can truly say that children will “grow out of it.” Most food allergies in children either become less severe or entirely disappear as they get older. Of course, if the child is miserable and is making everyone else miserable, too, you may not want to wait for him to grow older to do something about them.