Where to buy nut free foods?

persa

GlasweJen wrote: »

Daisie are your allergies anaphylactic? Your strategy sounds risky! I once went into anaphylaxis eating a Cadbury product that doesn't contain nuts so I'm not risking that again.

I do the same as daisiegg and yes, I also have severe allergies. If I avoided everything that said "may contain traces of nuts", I'd probably be dead by now from starvation rather than anaphylaxis!

Nicki

persa wrote: »

I do the same as daisiegg and yes, I also have severe allergies. If I avoided everything that said "may contain traces of nuts", I'd probably be dead by now from starvation rather than anaphylaxis!

But perhaps aren't also a recent post transplant patient, who needs I would imagine to be very careful not to trigger auto immune or inflammatory reactions needlessly?

OP asked for sources of products she could trust not to injure her health I would imagine names and addresses would be more helpful to her than advice to eat stuff she isn't sure about and keep her fingers crossed it doesn't kill her!

jacqhale

Thank you Daisie, I shall look out for that egg replacer I'm sure we must have some independent health food shops around here. I hadn't thought about vegan recipes, that's a great idea so I shall have a trawl around the internet :j

Thank you FireFox, it's difficult as she gets older and mixes with more kids to see her not able to have anything at parties, Easter:eek: :rotfl:, Christmas etc.. And her older brother can eat whatever he likes. Her allergies have come from nowehere, there is no family history. It's a balancing act between not allowing her to feel left out but also as she gets older she needs to understand that she can't eat what everyone else eats so if she is offered a quiche at a party (as she was once when my back was turned!!) that she can't eat that. Very hard

I have seen all the gp's at my surgery and they are all as useless as each other. She only got to see a dermatology nurse after she was rushed to hospital with the egg allergy as a baby, even though i was at the doctor's in tears most weeks begging for a referral ..... the eczma was under control up to a point but then it wasn't getting any better so I am seeing someone privately who does allergy testing and that's where the dairy intolerance was flagged up, also hay, straw, dogs catsetc etc....!! She had a lactose test (stool sample) at the dr's which was negative but the allergy testing shows an intolerance to the whey caseins (?)

She has only been 'officially' tested at the hospital for egg, dairy, wheat and soya so we saw a dietician who just said 'don't eat egg' !

We are hoping she will grow out of it so it's just a case of wait and see.

Thanks for all your kind replies x

daisiegg

Nicki wrote: »

But perhaps aren't also a recent post transplant patient, who needs I would imagine to be very careful not to trigger auto immune or inflammatory reactions needlessly?

OP asked for sources of products she could trust not to injure her health I would imagine names and addresses would be more helpful to her than advice to eat stuff she isn't sure about and keep her fingers crossed it doesn't kill her!

Where did the OP say she was a recent post transplant patient? I must have missed that bit.

daisiegg

Nicki wrote: »

But perhaps aren't also a recent post transplant patient, who needs I would imagine to be very careful not to trigger auto immune or inflammatory reactions needlessly?

OP asked for sources of products she could trust not to injure her health I would imagine names and addresses would be more helpful to her than advice to eat stuff she isn't sure about and keep her fingers crossed it doesn't kill her!

But there aren't many sources of products that are guaranteed completely 100% nut free. For them to say that they have to have really stringent processes - all ingredients have to be tested regularly and often they won't be able to source ingredients from the usual places, employees have to be completely sterile, the environment has to be regularly tested, etc. There is a reason why there are so few products that can claim to be totally free from even the chance of nut traces. This is why we were advising on ways to cope with the products that are available.

Nicki

daisiegg wrote: »

Where did the OP say she was a recent post transplant patient? I must have missed that bit.

She hasn't said it on this thread but she is a long time poster on the boards, and has referred to it on several threads.

This doesn't mean of course that everyone reading the thread should know that by osmosis, but equally she asked a fairly simple and straightforward question, which was where can I buy xxx products, and received in return a host of responses which suggested she should just not look for them, which wasn't the question she asked, and I suspect not very helpful.

If someone posted that they loved lemon curd and their local supermarket didn't stock it any more so where could they buy it, I don't think they would get a host of responses saying she should just eat chocolate spread instead. Or if they were looking for a good pair of black trousers for work as an optician, posts saying that the poster was also an optician but wore red miniskirts and OP should do that too would be equally unhelpful! All OP is asking, which seems a reasonable question, is where can she buy some speciality nut free products which she has been using up to now, not general advice on how to live with her allergies.

persa

Nicki wrote: »

This doesn't mean of course that everyone reading the thread should know that by osmosis, but equally she asked a fairly simple and straightforward question, which was where can I buy xxx products, and received in return a host of responses which suggested she should just not look for them, which wasn't the question she asked, and I suspect not very helpful.

[...]All OP is asking, which seems a reasonable question, is where can she buy some speciality nut free products which she has been using up to now, not general advice on how to live with her allergies.

And without giving the full background, it's difficult to offer help properly.

Many people with allergies, particularly the newly diagnosed, insist on reading labels all the time and as daisiegg and I have tried to point out, labels are usually meaningless. "May contain nuts" - what does that mean? That there is a genuine risk of contamination, or that it's just a stupid legal disclaimer? More often that not, it's a legal disclaimer rather than a helpful warning.

If the OP is suffering from medical problems other than allergies, then the safest thing to do is to stick to what she's eating now and avoid introducing new foods until she's stronger more generally.

As I hinted, I do often chance it with new food, but I wouldn't do deliberately so, say, in the same week after suffering a serious allergic reaction, as my body wouldn't cope particularly well with another one of those in rapid succession.

As for "speciality nut free products" - you need to go to the bottom of the food chain. In the opening post, the OP mentioned cakes - cakes that come ready made have been on so many different factory lines, the risk of contamination will be higher. Safer to buy nut free ingredients, batch bake and freeze. I'd do as daisiegg suggested, re testing new foods with the ingredients though - awfully sad to bake a batch of cake then find out you've put a brand of chocolate in that just doesn't agree with you. (E.g. Lindt is my danger list, allergic reaction every time.)

GlasweJen

I am 12 months post transplant. the bonus of having a transplanted, artificially paced heart is that they don't let you carry an adrenaline auto injector. You're also only allowed basic piriton and salbutamol for emergencies.

I mentioned bakin' boys cakes because I've eaten them for 5 years with no problems, they even say "nut free" on them and they genuinely taste good.

As this board isn't for medical advice I didn't give a full medical background, I just asked where I could buy nut free products and a few people posted some helpful links I've never come across before, unfortunately I've not found my beloved free nut butter

daisiegg

persa wrote: »

(E.g. Lindt is my danger list, allergic reaction every time.)

That's interesting - I'm fine with Lindt but I can't have Divine dark chocolate, it really must contain traces because I too react every time!

I suppose we're all guilty of assuming everyone has the same experiences as us and I guess that's not true. My 'test and try' approach to foods is not as crazy as it sounds because my allergy is so acute and sensitive that I can tell if something contains an offending ingredient literally the second it hits my tongue - so I can spit it out without even swallowing any. Yes, if that has happened I'll still get a reaction even without having swallowed the food but I won't die! Maybe other people's allergies don't behave in the same way so of course everyone should continue doing what works for them.

daisiegg

GlasweJen wrote: »

I am 12 months post transplant. the bonus of having a transplanted, artificially paced heart is that they don't let you carry an adrenaline auto injector. You're also only allowed basic piriton and salbutamol for emergencies.

I mentioned bakin' boys cakes because I've eaten them for 5 years with no problems, they even say "nut free" on them and they genuinely taste good.

As this board isn't for medical advice I didn't give a full medical background, I just asked where I could buy nut free products and a few people posted some helpful links I've never come across before, unfortunately I've not found my beloved free nut butter

Well, obviously if we'd known you're not allowed an Epipen or antihistamines except for emergencies (god I glug enough antihistamines on a weekly basis to single handedly keep the Piriton brand in business) then our advice would have been different. Sorry I was unable to help you with the exact products you wanted to find but still wanted to try and help. Obviously had I known your extenuating circumstances I wouldn't have said what I did!

As for bakin' boys cakes, I have just had a look and Ocado does them, so maybe that means Waitrose do? http://www.ocado.com/webshop/getSearchProducts.do?clearTabs=yes&isFreshSearch=true&entry=bakin+boys

I've also just done a quick google for freenut butter (I remember that - used to get it from the free from section in Asda years ago!) and it seems amazon has it http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Freenut+butter and so does goodness direct http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-local/frameset/detail/513131_Eskal_FreeNut_Butter_Smooth_450g.html although that says it is temporarily out of stock.

I didn't look online after your first post as you said you had done so and couldn't find anything. But this was just a quick google and these are UK suppliers so hopefully it helps!

I hope that helped - sorry for earlier unhelpful replies.