Recent Posts by mel

Pumpkin is now a suballergen of squash. Please update your profile to take advantage of this allergen.

Chickpea is listed under the Bean allergen (which is a subset of the Legume category)

You could try onions or shallots. They might not be as pungent, but can have a similar flavor.

I recently ran across a post on another forum about some insect repellents containing cornstarch. If you’re allergic to corn, please stay away from Off Family Care repellent. There might be other variants of the brand, so be careful

The blurb from the site:
Finally, a bug spray that doesn’t feel like a bug spray! OFF!® Smooth & Dry has a unique cornstarch formula that dries on contact, leaving your skin feeling smooth & dry, unlike ordinary repellents. Feels good on… Keeps bugs OFF!® Repels mosquitoes, gnats, ticks, biting flies, chiggers and fleas.

Here’s the product website:
http://www.offprotects.com/mosquito-repellent/

Eggs were an allergy for me – I’ve tested positive for it multiple times with allergy tests. For the past 10 years or so, I’ve had really bad symptoms from eating eggs and getting vaccines (like the yellow fever vaccine).

Once I realized that I was allergic to eggs, I strictly (and I mean strictly) avoided things with eggs or egg by-products for about 2 years. After this time, I was retested and the allergy was gone. I slowly introduced eggs and found that I had no problems with them. On an interesting note, a lot of my allergies changed to things I ate more often in those 2 years while trying to avoid others. For instance, I gained a horrible cucumber allergy but lost an apple allergy.

My doctor explained this by saying that allergies can be different (per allergen and per person). Some allergies are dynamic and can change depending on your diet. This is why doctors recommend a rotation diet for allergy sufferers. By eating too much of one food, if you are allergy prone, you can develop a new allergy to it. By avoiding this food, sometimes your allergy can go away again. This case happened for me because I relied too much on my “safe” foods and didn’t have a varied enough diet.

On the other hand, some allergies are constant. They will not go away, no matter if you avoid them entirely for the rest of your life. Some examples are shellfish and nuts; once people have an allergy, it will not go away.

That being said, I think anyone trying to figure out if they’re still allergic to something should be very careful and talk to your doctor. I wouldn’t have introduced the egg to my diet without the new test and an epipen nearby…

The following page also has a nice chart of acidic versus alkaline food. This should be useful/handy for you.

http://www.essense-of-life.com/info/foodchart.htm

I’ve marked the vitamin C crystals related to yeast.

Actually, I marked the cured meats as having the “fructose” allergen, instead of making a new category. I think this should suit your needs and make it easier for me to maintain. Let me know if this won’t work for you.

I have added the “Sulfites” allergen under the Miscellaneous category. Please update your allergen list to take advantage of this.

The ingredients that I linked to sulfites were gathered mainly from the following sites:
http://allergies.about.com/od/foodallergies/a/sulfites.htm
http://www.allergycapital.com.au/Pages/sulphites.html
http://www.webmd.com/allergies/guide/sulfite-sensitivity

Happywheather – I haven’t read too much about this. However, this one page seems to indicate that while goat’s milk is less allergenic than cow’s milk, this doesn’t translate to the whey.

http://www.cnpprofessional.co.uk/blog.php/cow%E2%80%99s-whey-protein-versus-goat-whey-protein-blog-150.html

Buckwheat is a member of the knotweed or smartweed family, and is therefore not a member of the grass family. Despite the name and similar uses, it is not the same as wheat.

From what I’ve read, tangerines are a variety of mandarin oranges, so they are not safe. This comes from the book “Food Lover’s Companion”, which is actually pretty highly trusted in the restaurant industry.

Yeah, its a toss up on whether it will help/hurt. I think this year, I might try to get it. First, I am in an at risk category for flu complications (bad asthma). Second, my egg allergy seems to have gone away; I got a new set of allergy tests and have found that I can actually tolerate eating eggs now. I might give it a shot this winter – no pun intended :)

On other sites, I’ve seen suggestions to use celery for texture (but gives a different taste), daikon or asafoetida powder (small amount since its pretty powerful).

Ideally, vegan should be no animal by-products as you mentioned. However, I think some of the recipes are in the wrong categories right now. We’re planning on reorganizing the categories soon to make the categories make more sense and to eliminate some of the confusion. If you (or anyone) has any suggestions on new categories, just respond to this thread.

I’m in the process of adding sulfite. I’ll add reply to this thread when I have uploaded the new content to the site.

I’ve updated the ingredients marked as fermented. If you see any ingredients that aren’t properly marked, please let me know. Additionally, I have not found proof that vitamin C crystals are fermented. Can you please point me to a website related to this?

Is the brewer’s yeast allergen not sufficient for this purpose? If you check out the following link, you can see that all alcoholic ingredients like beer and wine are related to this allergen: http://www.cookingallergyfree.com/allergens/allergen_listing/brewers_yeast_allergy

I’ve added stevia as an allergen. As any recipes are entered that use stevia, I will link those ingredients to the allergen.

On a side note, stevia has been denied by the FDA as an unsafe food additive. It is allowed as an herbal supplement, but is debated as a sugar substitute.

I have broken out the artificial sweetener category into 5 subcategories: saccharin, aspartame, sucralose, neotame and acesulfame potassium. If you check out the allergen listing (http://www.cookingallergyfree.com/allergens/allergen_listing), then you can see the items associated with each of these. Also, please update your profile to indicate your allergens.

I definitely need to look through the ingredients again. The problem so far is that the problems you’re talking about are only in specific brands of commercial products, so its hard to figure out how to mark them as ok versus not ok for you, since it really just depends on what you buy. However, I can try to figure out a better way to address this issue.

Are you just allergic to green pepper or other types of hot peppers? Currently we have capsaicin/peppers as an all encompassing category. I can break it down to subcategories if you need me to. Just let me know.

There was an issue with our server were the below post was deleted. I’m recreating it here. Originally this was from user ‘lisachalfant’ where she said:

“I’m allergic to green pepper and did not see this on the allergen checklist.”

Lilly,

I do have some of the foods that you mentioned as being fermented already (olives, vinegar, and pickles). Alex is updating how the allergen hierarchy is displayed when looking at an ingredient, so it should hopefully be more clear soon. I can investigate the other foods – dry fruits and non-vitamin C citric acid.

I’ve added a new Dairy category of allergens. Under these are cow milk, sheep milk, goat milk and cheese. Please edit your profile to correctly note your allergen risk. If you see any ingredients that should be linked to these allergens, but aren’t, please reply to this post.