Chloe's food list

This is by no means a complete list of the safe foods Chloe can eat, but it is meant to be user friendly. At the bottom is a list of foods she absolutely cannot have, and to make it easier I've listed some of the common things milk, eggs, wheat and peanuts are found in. This list is meant to be care-giver-friendly!

Note: Chloe has not been exposed to fish or shellfish, nor has she been tested for them. So for now we are going to assume she IS allergic to them, and avoid a reaction, rather than go through the whole explanation.

CHLOE IS HIGHLY ALLERGIC TO MILK, EGGS, WHEAT, NUTS, and FISH
Giving her even small amounts of these foods can cause a life-threatening reaction.
She will get hives if she comes into contact with dog, cat, or horse saliva or hair.

Foods/Drinks Chloe CAN eat:

Rice Dream rice drink (blue box)
Plain juice like apple or apple/grape (and water, of course)

Plain baked (not mashed) potato or yam, seasoned with salt
Other roasted veggies such as eggplant, red pepper, etc. with oil/salt
Plain white/brown rice
Plain cooked or canned beans (like green beans, pinto beans, etc.)
Rice noodles
Any plain cooked meat (cooked in oil, not butter) such as roasted chicken, roast beef or pork with no sauce cut up into tiny bites (the size of a pencil eraser), or ground beef, cooked with just herbs or salt/pepper
Plain fresh, canned, or frozen fruits or vegetables— with no creams or sauces such as canned peaches, pears or pineapple, canned corn, fresh mango, frozen berries, applesauce, bananas, black olives
Oatmeal cooked with water, seasoned with sugar and salt
Gluten, dairy and egg-free pancakes which I have made and labeled “Chloe-safe”
Tamales labeled “Chloe-safe”, corn tortillas
Rice chex, corn chex, corn flakes, Crispix cereals
Plain jams/preserves (check ingredients for just “fruit” and “sugar”)
Sunbutter sunflower seed spread
Any dish/recipe I have made and labeled “Chloe-safe”
Approved allergen-free products
Plain corn or potato chips (check ingredients for just corn or potato, vegetable oil, salt)
Plain lunch meat ham or turkey (check ingredients for fillers; we prefer nitrite-free processed lunch meats)
Plain rice cakes, depending on ingredients (some have hidden lactose)
Juice popsicles

Ingredients to 100% AVOID when cooking for Chloe:
DAIRY: Milk, cheese, cream, “creamed” anything, Parmesan cheese, butter, mayonnaise, casein, lactose, ice cream, yogurt, margarine, whey
EGGS: Eggs, egg whites, egg yolks, albumen, scrambled eggs
WHEAT/gluten-containing flours: wheat, barley, regular pasta noodles, flour, rye, bread
NUTS OR SEEDS except approved products like the sunbutter
FISH or anything with Omega 3 (you never know)
COMMERCIAL BAKED GOODS, like crackers, cereal, granola bars, pasta, pop tarts, cookies
Peanut oil and sesame oil
Mysterious or not so mysterious sauces such as Chinese sauces, bottled salad dressings
Processed meats such as hot dogs (they often have wheat fillers)

eggs

The next discovery was that Chloe had a possible egg allergy.

It wasn't too difficult to avoid giving her milk, because at nine months she was still nursing several times a day and we'd give her juice to drink. I honestly don't remember when we started giving her rice milk, which is now a staple beverage for her.

Anyway, we hosted a family reunion party at our house on June 22. My husband's three sisters and their families came, along with his mother and her husband.

My oldest sister in law made potato salad, and her recipe--quite delicious--calls for hard-boiled eggs and of course mayonnaise.

Chloe was a little fussy and in order to help me eat, she took Chloe on her lap, and gave her a baby carrot to gum (she had no teeth yet).

There must have been a smear of mayo on the carrot because after about ten minutes I noticed that Chloe's upper lip was blotchy and swollen. There were red circles that looked like hives.

I gave her some benadryl (which the doc also prescribed we have at hand always) and it cleared up within about twenty minutes.

I remember feeling a little concerned, but not too alarmed. It was a little bit of a mystery. Knowing that she had a definite milk allergy, this came as a possible, and we decided to just avoid egg for the time being. No scrambled eggs for Chloe!

Unfortunately, this meant all quick breads, pancakes, and things like that. By this time, we were giving Andrew scrambled eggs, banana bread, and pancakes, but we couldn't do that for Chloe.

It was a little bit of a difficult summer, with me not eating dairy (no ice cream on the swing in the front yard!) and trying to figure out things Chloe could eat to help her grow. She was getting a lot of pureed veggies, rice cereal, baby oat cereal, juice, and of course, breast milk.

Let me stop and say what a delight Chloe is to be around. I haven't said anything about her personality, but she is absolutely cheerful and sweet. She loves to be social and smiles all the time. She won't put up a fuss when it's time to go to bed. The only time she cries is when she's hungry.

With these allergy discoveries, we were fast eliminating good sources of protein for her, and that wasn't going to help her grow.

the beginning

I was trying to think of healthy foods to feed my eight-month-old, Chloe, and my sister suggested whole milk yogurt.

In no way do I blame her for what happened next: Chloe ended up in the emergency room with an anaphylactic reaction to the milk. Her oxygen was low and she was itchy, red, hoarse, and crying.

They gave her benadryl and steroids, and prescribed an epi-pen to carry with us everywhere.

When we got home I knew that her reality had changed for the foreseeable future, and mine and our whole family's along with it.

We have a three-year-old son and a fifteen-year-old nephew living with us. We all like to eat, and we aside from carefully introducing foods to Andrew, our son, we never really thought about food.

Now we have to think about it all the time. Or at least, as the primary chef, and chief organizer of the family, I do.

The hardest part about it is feeling like we have to reinvent the wheel all over again. We're on the learning curve, no one else is, so it's all up to us.

Sometimes the responsibility of keeping her alive and growing is overwhelming. It often feels like the juggernaut of the food production industry is totally against us.

This blog will hopefully address all the issues we, and other families coming to terms with a child's severe food allergies, often have to deal with.

In addition to being severely allergic to cow's milk, Chloe is also allergic to eggs, wheat, peanut, dog, and cat. We haven't tested her for tree nuts but it often goes along with a peanut allergy. And speak nothing of fish and shellfish--we won't test for those until farther along the road, or even introduce them.

I have my up days and my down days. Like most parents, we love our daughter so much and would do anything for her, so when people say, oh, it must be so hard!, we just smile and say, she's our daughter.