Coping with Food Intolerances

EstherH

Hi, I have just found out that I am intolerant to various foods including:
Cows Milk, Eggs, Yeast, Haricot Beans and Lentils. There are others but as I have been following OS principals and bulking out mince etc with lentils and beans I thought I'd mention those two.
What I am really having problems with are the milk, eggs and yeast. (Also can't have goat's milk and have to limit soya).

I was wondering if anyone could help with recipes for soda bread with out milk - I've noticed it's usually made with buttermilk or yoghurt. Also cakes without eggs? Also general help on keeping down the cost overall. Supermarkets do 'freefrom' ranges which has helped this past week, but I would like to build up a range of things that I bake/cook myself.

Thank you.
Esther

nesssie1702

Hi EstherH

Sorry to hear about your intolerances, but can I ask how they were diagnosed? What kind of symptoms do you get?

I avoid dairy products as I find they make my catarrh (sp?) worse. But there are times when a pan of macaroni cheese is just the best.

My sister developed an intolerance to wheat in her mid-30s and she now eats rice and corn cakes as though they're going out of fashion and has learnt that pasta is not the quick meal solution that it was previously.

I've never tried it, but what about trying soda bread with oat milk?

I don't have a recipe, but I'm sure if you google "Eggless sponge" you''ll get plenty of options to try.

HTH

tawse57

The first link has no milk in it at all. Deliah has a few bread receipes on her site with no milk - just type bread into the search function on her site.

Walnut bread - no milk
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/walnut-and-raisin-bread,1022,RC.html

Wholemeal - no milk
http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/quick-and-easy-wholemeal-loaf,1351,RC.html

Irish soda bread - no milke (uses yoghurt)
http://gotnomilk.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/mary-os-irish-soda-bread/


All below use small quantities of buttermilk or yoghurt. You might get away with using live yoghurt and subsituting it for buttermilk.


http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/soured-cream-soda-bread,1415,RC.html

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/irish-oatmeal-soda-bread,1422,RC.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/irishsodabread_67445.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/sodabread_82421.shtml


A friend of mine is a nurse who does intolerance testing. She pointed out to me recently that the tests they do in hospital are not very accurate due to people having to free their bodies of whatever they are being tested for for several days prior to the test. She told me that even minute quantities of milk, eggs, or butter queers the test and most of us do not realise that we have eaten them in third party foodstuffs... so the tests are not that reliable unless you live on water for a week beforehand... not advised.

A lot of the milke allergy and milk intolerance websites advise live yoghurt instead of milk. I have a friend who cannot take milk but who eats live yoghurt everyday. Hope this helps.

tawse57

Also, one last thing. I am no expert but I am suspicious when people say they have been diagnosed as being intolerant to milk and eggs - they are told they are allergic to dairy.

Bottom line, eggs are not dairy. Dairy comes from a cow. Eggs just happen to come from a farm where cows live. If you look online you will see endless websites devoted to why eggs are bad for you and lump them in as dairy. However, if you look long and hard you will find articles pointing out why it is silly to lump eggs and milk together - not meaning to belittle how you are feeling - but I do wonder whether some people convince themselves they have a problem with eggs after being diagnosed as milk intolerant. Milk and eggs are as different as apples and oranges.

Was your test done in a hospital by nurses or was it done by one of these people with a 'machine' who advertise doing the testing for about £40 per time? I would not trust those machines. Some medical professionals consider such machines to be quackery.

Finally, I can suggest that you do some googling on Fish Oils and Omega 3 - there is more and more evidence pointing to Omega 3 as being a natural anti-inflamatory for the body. For hundreds of thousands of years oily fish was a major part of our diet and in the past 30 or 40 years most of us in the West have stopped eating fish.

There are more and more medical people who are now connecting a lack of oily fish in our diets with inflamatory dieseases such as asthma, sinus problems, hayfever, etc, and also with allergies. So eat tinned sardines, tinned mackeral - Lidl sell delicious ones cheaply for about 50p or less a can - 2 or 3 times a week or look into getting a good Omega 3 supplement such as ones sold by Natures Best online.

Edit: typo

thriftmonster

Is it dairy or lactose that you have a problem with? Ds1 and I are lactose intolerant and use the Lactofree milk and yoghurt that you can buy in most supermarkets. It's not cheap (£1.36 a litre for the milk) but for us it's a lifesaver as it works just like normal milk in everything.

EstherH

Hi,
Thank you for your replys and help.
It was a York Laboritory test. They are the only ones to be endorsed by allergy UK and the Tonight programme found them to be 100% accurate.
The milk and eggs show up separately. Altogether 113 foods are tested for and the severity of each intolerance is shown. Hense, for me, cows milk is the most severe together with egg white. Egg yoke is less severe and is tested for separately as some people can be intolerant to the white but not the yoke.

I have a range of symptoms and illnessess but had noticed that after eating white bread my stomach swelled up and I got a lot of pain. This happened with other things as well and some days were worse than others. I knew there were some things, just needed to know what exactly.

EstherH

Just to amend the post above. The Tonight programme was 100% accurate on the liver test which York Labs do.

Furpurse

I had the York test a couple of years ago. I was getting bad pains in my stomach, I would then decimate the toilet :eek:
I am not sure if they still do it like this but they graded the severity 1-4 (4 being the strongest reaction) I had 4 for Cows milk and 2 for Wheat, Gluten and Egg white. I gave up the lot to start with and ended up loosing a lot of weight but I wasnt getting the pains. I eased myself back on the Wheat, Gluten and Egg White without many symptoms but if I try even a small amount of cheese its back to the toilet. I can sometimes get away with small amounts of butter or a chocolate bar but I try and stay clear. I much prefer good quality dark chocolate now and I use an organic olive spread (tesco & Sainsburys) in cooking and sandwiches.

EstherH

Hi Furpuss,
They say that I can try to re-introduce things after time - 3 months for those that are less severe upto nine months for the cows milk and eggs.
I think it's worth giving it a try and being really strict in order to get it all out of my system and give myself a chance of getting right, hense wanting the advice for replacements.
They sent a free book and it had a list of symptoms, 14 in all that could be food intolerances. They said if you ticked four or more you may be intolerant and I had ten of them.

EstherH

thriftmonster wrote: »

Is it dairy or lactose that you have a problem with? Ds1 and I are lactose intolerant and use the Lactofree milk and yoghurt that you can buy in most supermarkets. It's not cheap (£1.36 a litre for the milk) but for us it's a lifesaver as it works just like normal milk in everything.

I dont think it's lactose intolerant. I just know that it's cows milk, eggs and yeast plus a few other things such as cashew nuts and cranberrys ... things that I can live without. Is the lactofree milk cows milk with the lactose removed or something else?
Just had a quick look at the recipes from the links above and they all have yeast or eggs in even if they don't have milk. I can have one portion of soya a day, so some soya milk or a yoghurt etc. I dont know if you can substitute soya milk for buttermilk in the soda bread. I suppose I shall have to just try it and see what happens.

daska

We have a large and varied range of intolerances in our family: my dad sleeps all day if he has cow dairy, my cousin can't take any of the belladonna family (potato, chili, tomato) and my BIL is allergic to rennet... The only thing I can suggest is to start with your favorite dishes and work out alternatives.

How about oats instead of lentils for bulking - personally I find them better for bulking bolognese as they give a really unctuous texture where lentils can make the texture a bit dry (which doesn't seem to be a problem with chilli)