Healthy Eating With Severe Food Allergies

[Hackbart]

Hello everyone,

I am new to all of this. I have been searching everywhere online for different websites, articles, forums, etc. that would help with my problem. I am interesting in eating healthier, but i have a major dilema. I have food allergies. Not just any, but specifically allrgies to raw fruits, raw vegtables, and all tree nuts. I grew up eating fruits and veggies and dealing with the itchy throat and nausea. My parents would alwaya tell me to just get a drink of water or something, thinking i was being a normal kid and not enjoying my healthy snacks. A few years ago, back in 2011 i ate a cherry in between soccer matches, and it set me off. An overnight stay at the hospital, and a few trips to a specialist, and i found out i am allergies to what seemed like, everything.

I know a lot of people with try and say that i should eat around the allergy and deal with it, but my allergy is not just a common case of OAS (oral allergy syndrom.) i become anaphylactic when i eat any of the foods listed above. My throat closes and my uvula swells, which actually blocks my airways. This sends my anxiety over the edge when trying to eat certain things. Half the time i cant tell if im beginning an allegic reaction to a new food, or its all in my head and im freaking myself out.

Anyway, i cane here to see if anyone has any ideas to try and create a meal plan that could possibly involve cooked fruits and vegtables, as well as alternatives that i can eat that will be healthy, bur avoid the allergic foods (again, raw fruits, raw veggies, and any tree nuts)

All help and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Penel]

Hi Hackbart

Sorry to hear about your severe OAS, it can be quite terrifying. Are you able to talk to an allergy specialist about this? And carry an epi-pen? In the U.K. we have Allergy UK which gives advice and support.

If you are ok with cooked fruit and veg, there are many recipes on here, hopefully there will be some that appeal to you.

[Hackbart in reply to Penel]

Yes i carry around an epi pen. I have spoke to an allergy specialist, we have it under control. But i just cant seem to manage to find many breakfast, and lunch foods that don’t include fresh fruit and/or nuts

[Zest]

Hi Hackbart

I'm glad to hear you've spoken to an Allergy Specialist and that you have it under control. I would like to welcome you to the Healthy eating forum, and I will certainly have a think about your wish to have breakfast and lunch foods that don't include fresh fruit and or nuts, and if I think of anything, I'll pass it on. It certainly sounds very challenging for you - and I very much hope that you can find some foods you can tolerate - so you can enjoy your meals and stay safe.

Zest

[Zest]

Hidden did a really great post about food intolerances and allergies and has a couple of websites that might be of help to you within it - her post is here:

healthunlocked.com/healthye...

Zest

[Hidden]

Breakfasts - how about stewed fruits mixed into overnight porridge - batch cook and freeze the cooked fruit in portion-sized pots. Lunch - cold roast veg mixed into salads, cold noodles with various nice cooked things mixed in, some sesame oil, drizzle of chilli sauce (if you can have those?)... Look up winter salads - these often contain cooked veg rather than raw. Why not consider it a food adventure! You may find a culture somewhere that traditionally includes exactly the foods you can have - e.g. Russian cuisine perhaps? How are you with pickled foods - maybe Scandinavian cuisines? Think tapas style - lots of nice small dishes that you find work perfectly for you - take a stack of small separate containers to work and dip between them with crackers/oatcakes. Perhaps it's more a challenge of discovering the right sort of tupperware... Good luck

[Hackbart in reply to Hidden]

Wow this has so many good ideas that i never thought of! Honestly never though of stewed fruits or cold roasted vegtables! I am definitely going to try some of these this week, i hope they work out

[Hidden in reply to Hackbart]

You can roast a whole load of roast veg and freeze in portion-sized pots, defrost one at a time and add to wraps, salads, on top of pizzas, stirred into pasta, just have on their own with a fried egg etc I really recommend getting a lot of different sized tupperware pots, I use loads of the small ones (about the size of a hummous pot).

[Hidden]

here - cooked salads like this - just miss out the green leaves hungryhealthyhappy.com/roas...

and some stewed apples breakfast-y ideas here bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide...

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

I was also thinking of this sort of thing when I mentioned winter salads/Russian cuisine. avocadopesto.com/russian-ol...

You've got me thinking of lots of creative cooked veg salads now

[Penel]

To add to the great suggestions... you could make pancakes to have with an egg or some bacon. Make your own granola with oat flakes, pumpkin, sunflower seed, and have it with a plain yoghurt. We often have omelette filled with cooked veg too.

[TheAwfulToad]

That sounds fearsome, but there's absolutely no reason why a "healthy diet" has to include any of those things - for you, clearly, they're not healthy at all. And the popular idea that we all have to eat lots of nuts is just daft. There's nothing in nuts that you can't get from other things.

Cooked vegetables are fine. Most plants create poisons and antinutritional factors to protect themselves against being eaten, and these can be rendered harmless by cooking. Many types of bean, for example, should not be eaten raw.

The main reason humans can eat modern vegetables raw is that the commercial varieties have been heavily selected to remove the unpleasant chemicals: you would find a raw wild lettuce or a wild carrot completely unpalatable. This is also, incidentally, why they're so appealing to pests.

If you find that you're becoming allergic to everything, it could be that you've been consistently eating something that provokes a reaction and you're hypersensitized. Try deleting absolutely everything that makes you uncomfortable from your diet, and then reintroduce them one-by-one very cautiously. You might find that you're not as allergic as you thought.

I'll also suggest that you give low-carb a try. Diets with limited fats and an excessive amount of starchy carbohydrates (as recommended by the health authorities) tend to cause a generalised inflammation, which may well lead to food sensitivities. It's very commonly reported by people who start a LCHF (low-carb healthy-fats) diet that skin problems, digestive discomfort, and similar niggling issues just disappear. I'm not saying it's a miracle cure, but it's well worth a go.

[Kai--]

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Hackbart, Dr. Joel Fuhrman has an exclude option ("Does not contain") in his Recipe Search 🔎: drfuhrman.com/recipes/searc... 👍👍

[benwl kindly noted this useful ‘exclude’ function: healthunlocked.com/healthye... 🙏 😌 ]

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Dr. Fuhrman’s Recipe Search 🔎 also allows us (in conjunction with excluding ingredients) to search for ingredients we’d like to include ("Contains") as well as "Recipe Categories":

. . . > Breakfast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Desserts

. . . > Burgers, Pizza, Wraps & Chips . . . . . . . . . > Soups & Stews

. . . > Salads, Dressings, Dips & Sauces . . . . . . . > Main Dishes - Non-Vegan

. . . > Smoothies, Blended Salads & Juices . . . . . > Main Dishes - Vegan

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Very useful multi-search functions combined. 👍👍

Hoping 🤞 you find tasty 😋 recipes that avoid severe allergy 🤢 triggering foods (raw fruits, raw veg, & tree nuts), Hackbart. ☺️ 🙏 🍀 🌺 🌞

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