Multiple Severe Food Allergies

Have they joined the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network? FAAN supports research and education on food allergies. They have a monthly newsletter containing articles and recipes and they also have recipes on their web-site www.foodallergy.org Good luck - that's a tough combination!

It is difficult - we have mild allergies to most of that list, so even though I don't have to exclude them all together, I do avoid them.
First of all, I recommend a couple of good vegetarian cookbooks. You can always add meat, but vegetarian cookbooks seem to be organized more by vegetable, making avoiding allergens a fair bit easier. Preparing from scratch gives you much more control, and a variety of unusual foods is, when the allergies are so pervasive, no longer merely a fun option. "Vegeterian cooking for everyone" by Deborah Maddison and "the Clueless Vegetarian" by...I don't remember are good starts. "Cooks fast and easy" and "The gluten-free gourmet" by the same author (which I don't remember) also list recipes by main ingredient and have sections for "dairy-free" and "egg-free" - I would flip through them and see if there's enough to be helpful - I think there might. All of these books have some recipes that won't work, but enough that will that you'll probably find it useful to at least check them out of the library.

Also, check your local natural food store- here in Utah I use the Good Earth, a lot; elsewhere I would try to find a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's.

Some basic, useful substitutes (for those "what can I feed this child!" days)- baked potatoes work instead of bread, even for a sort of funny "sandwich" - so if you don't have time to read labels on every loaf (or if the only loaf that's corn- and soy- free is $6, and that's going to break the budget for lunch every day). Sweet potatoes have much more nutrition than white potatoes, and make a fun change - I find most children can only eat 1/3-1/2 of a sweet potato, too, so that'll give some leftovers.
Sushi, I've realized, is essentially sandwiches out of rice. Round instead of flat, but you can put pretty much anything in them- avocado, seafood, carrots, cucumber, etc. Just only get the nori (seaweed) wraps, not the soy ones, obviously.
And refried beans can be used as a sort of peanut butter substitute - you didn't mention peanuts, but you have both soy and tree nuts on there, so I'm surprised if peanuts aren't a problem.

Hope this helps some; good luck!

Look at the website - Wildtree.com. (see the link below) They sell food prep items that are made to help people with allergies. I am not sure if they cover all of the foods that you mentioned, but you may find some products there to be helpful. The company was started by a woman who had to come up with ideas based on her families food allergies.
www.amydipippo.mywildtree.com

My good friend had a child with 60 food allergies (same stuff you listed, and more) and completely solved it with nutritional supplementation which provided the essential nutrients and trace elements to resolve the allergies. The child needs to have things ADDED to his diet to allow him to process and digest what he takes in - he doesn't need anything more eliminated from his diet. Contact me and we'll exchange phone numbers, and I'll connect you to my friend and many others, and we'll show you what can be done by working slowly and carefully. You will see a huge change within a couple of months - my friend Stephanie resolved all of her son's issues in 5 months, with many improvements along the way. There is hope!

I write a blog and cookbooks with my friend, a registered dietician. Our blog and upcoming book, Welcoming Kitchen, contain recipes that are all free of the 8 most common allergens (eggs, dairy, wheat, nuts, peanuts, soy, fish and shellfish) and are gluten-free and vegan. All of the recipes also taste great and have been tested on lots of people, with and without food restrictions. Though our recipes are not all corn-free, many are, and if you use a cornstarch-free baking powder, most should be ok. Vanilla extract almost always contains corn, though, so unless you make your own by soaking vanilla beans in vodka or rum, you should probably skip it. (There are more detailed instructions if you search the internet.)

Our blog address is www.welcomingkitchen.blogspot.com

Good luck!

Have you spoken to his doctor? The doctor should be able to direct you to a nutrientist and a website to help with this.

Growing up I had almost these same exact allergies, corn & dairy are the really hard ones. You will have to do a lot of cooking from scratch as most ready to prepare meals have corn products of some sort. Is the reason for the meat because the animals are fed corn and it gets into your nephew that way? You are going to have to read a lot of labels and try different things to figure out what will work for him. Once my mom figured out what worked for me we stuck to the same staples. Goats milk is a good replacement for the dairy and you can find a lot of things made with it as well. I am now in my 30s and am usually fine with eating things that contain corn or milk as I have mostly grown out of my allergies.

My daughter has a food allergy... I bought a bread machine from Amazon.com and make our own. If you make french bread (which is made with water not milk), you should be able to avoid both milk, butter and corn syrup that is in retail bread. True french bread from a higher end grocery store should also not have dairy or HFC syrup... but you'll have to read the labels. The bread machine also has settings for making pasta dough.

Typically, higher priced grocery products will contain sugar instead of HFC syrup (because sugar costs more than corn syrup). There are spaghetti sauces made with sugar (I think regular Prego, for example). Homemade soups (with vegetable stock base) are an option: lentils, bean soup, barley. Vegetables and fruits. (Is fish an option?)

I do cook a lot from scratch... His mother should try to not to feel overwhelmed. I'm a FT working mom; if I can find time to cook non-processed food--anyone can! I'm not saying I'm a fantastic cook, but after a while, you will develop routines.

I know that we have all but forgotten, but you don't need to rely on prepackaged products!
It is more time consuming but if you fix your food from the most simple, basic ingredients, it is really easy to avoid the stuff he can't have, because you simply don't buy it.
Once you have figure out a few meals and combination that he likes, cook in batches and freeze meals for those "quick fix situations".

In a situation like this it is more important to learn basic cooking skills, so you can make the foods he can have tasty and interesting by using different techniques, rather than wasting time on finding a few prepackaged items he may be able to have.

I know exactly how you feel, my son was born with multiple severe food allergies. He is five now and we deal with food allergies everyday its hard I know, but it does get easier! Some day I really hate food allergies then some days I feel like I can handle it. There are some great websites and books and I found a bakery in RI that specilizes in egg/dairy free cakes and cookies and the bakery is completly nut free! Its called A and J bakery in cranston. The websites that I like are FAAN, and kids with food allergies! If you would like you can call me and I can give you all the websites that I used in the beginning and the cook books that I found. My phone number is ###-###-####. Good luck and if you need someone to talk to please don't hesitate to call.

A. Brennick