Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Which First... the Chicken or the Egg?

For Junior the choice is clearly chicken!
Yes, he is allergic to eggs, too!
Originally, we thought he was able to tolerate eggs that had been cooked into foods like pancakes, or banana bread - but, over the last month we have realized how wrong we were. Now, that we have been removing allergens from our home it has become painfully obvious that when Junior eats pancakes his face is red and blotchy within minutes and the other day when we tried boiling eggs his eyes began to water and his nose started to run... we haven't cooked with an egg in two weeks.
Let's just say, we are very glad we never invested in the chickens we were thinking about buying last year :)
So what do we do with egg allergies?
Read the Label!
Key Words in the Ingredient Lists are:
albumin or albumen, egg (dried, powdered, solids, white & yolk), eggnog, lysozyme, mayonnaise, meringue and surimi
Foods the Doctor Suggested We Avoid:
egg flavoring (natural & artificial)
lecithin
macaroni
marzipan
marshmallows
nougat
pasta
This allergy is definitely taking some getting used to - no more marshmallows, miracle whip and cheap pasta from the store.
Did you know candy corn contains eggs? Well you do now!
Now everything is made from scratch and I'm experimenting with ingredients I can substitute for eggs. Luckily, my eggless pancakes have been a success - Junior loves them so much he talks about them in his sleep!

Now if I can just figure out how to make eggplant parmigiana without eggs we'll be okay!