Front Burner: Food allergies on the rise
John Holst and his wife, Andrea Teague, cook a wheat-free dinner in their home kitchen. Photo by Rebecca Barnett l The Roanoke Times
Special thanks to blog reader John Holst (Other John) and his wife, Andrea Teague, for letting us into their lives for this story. If anyone out there is on a gluten-free diet, I would urge you to try the cookie recipe. John has tested it well!
- Lindsey
Elizabeth Good of Roanoke learned that her daughter, Ariel, has food allergies the hard way — by rushing her to the emergency room in a state of anaphylactic shock.
For John Holst of Fairlawn, the realization came in much less dramatic fashion. He felt crummy after eating sometimes, so he eliminated different foods from his diet until he figured out what worked.
Even though Ariel and John fall on opposite ends of the severity spectrum, they can both agree that food allergies are no fun at all.
In the three years I’ve been writing about food, it seems that readers have been calling with increasing frequency to talk about their food allergies. Meanwhile, publishing companies are cranking out cookbooks filled with wheat-free or gluten-free recipes.
Is the incidence of food allergies really on the rise? I looked to some experts to find out.
To continue reading this column, click here.
For a gluten-free flour substitute and a recipe for gluten-free cookies, click here.
June 16, 2010 - 10:18 AM
RSS feed 
I have a colleague that is allergic to all citrus, which I had never heard of before. It is amazing the amount of things that contain citrus, especially marinades and sauces. She has to be very specific with restaurant servers when ordering to make sure they don’t add any garnish or cross-contaminate her food. I love citrus so that would be a huge bummer if I became allergic to it!
Great story Lindsey, thanks! My mom suddenly developed an allergy to some types of seafood in her 40′s, and I can no longer eat pancakes or waffles without feeling fatigued afterward. I can eat french toast with no problem though. I really didn’t eat any of these foods often, but I also never noticed a problem until the last couple of years.
Hey OJ, I the article noted that you cook several pots of rice a week. Do you use one of those larger sized Asian rice cookers?
I have never been allergic to anything except maybe pollen some years… and all of a sudden the last 6 months, I’ve developed what I think is an allergy to dairy products. I noticed it during school, I’d drink coffee with a little extra half and half (to give it that frappuccino creaminess) and i’d start getting these terrible itches in my inner ear to my throat. Then the last week or two, I’ve been eating cereal with skim milk, and the same thing happens, right after I eat it. I’m hoping this will not be the case as I eat a slice of pizza
Hmm, I typed up a long post and thought I submitted it, but it appears there was a user error! I’m going to try to recall this:
We also figured a very good cake recipe that is adapted from The Joy of Cooking. It’s the 1-2-3-4 Yellow Cake recipe. It’s somewhat labor and bowl intensive, but well worth it. We use the recipe exactly as it says in the book, with the following adjustments:
1:1 substitution of the GF flour substitute (in the link above) for the wheat/cake flour (we used Bob’s Red Mill white rice flour, Ener-G tapioca flour, Rumford non-GMO cornstarch, and NOW Xanthan Gum)
We used Silk Almond Milk (original flavor) instead of regular milk
And we added 1/2 teaspoon of Sure-Jell to maintain moisture a little better (we add that to the dry mix)
Other than those changes, we make it exactly like in the book and it turned out great for us both as a cake and for cupcakes. I found Bob’s Red Mill rice flours to be more flour-like, while the Arrowhead Mills flour we tried was a bit more grainy like cornmeal. Depending on the recipe and your personal preferences, either seem to work…but Bob’s Red Mill was much more like what we’re used to for cakes with a smoother texture.
I have unfortunately not had success yet with bread and biscuits, as the article mentions. The GF flour mix seems to need more liquid (or I need to use less flour mix) because the resulting dough is drier than conventional dough, and the bread and biscuits bake up flatter, denser, and a lot less fluffy than they used to when I used wheat or spelt before. I’m going to keep experimenting to find the right adjustments to make to my bread and biscuit recipes, and once I nail them down, I’ll post them. They taste great, but need some work to be edible past the first day. After that they resemble something I would consider Gluten-Free hardtack.
After I get those 2 recipes licked, the only other thing I need to get good at making ourselves is pie crusts, and thankfully Bob’s Red Mill rice flour had a recipe on it! I’ll be trying that out on baking some Kentucky Chess Pies later this summer. I also want to experiment and see if we can make flour tortillas, since I’m getting a little tired of only using corn tortillas and corn chips for Mexican food. It’s a good thing I like cooking!
Magpie, yes we do now. I’ve got one from a company called Aroma (got it at Wal-Mart). I have tried to keep my pots to no more than 2 cups of dry rice to avoid over-flow from the boiling, because the clean-up from an over-boil in one of those is a real mess. Thankfully that makes several servings worth of rice when it’s done, so it works perfectly for us. For a lot of my lunches, I make a pot of rice and then make some stir-fry chicken separately and take both to work, and then combine them in a bowl to re-heat for my meals at work. They’re surprisingly good, and affordable. I can do an entire week’s worth of lunches that way for less than $1 a meal, excluding the beverage. I generally either have a Coke, or brew some unsweetened iced tea for that.
My fiance’s father is in his 70′s and has been eating oysters all his life. One Christmas, two years ago, he suddenly broke out in hives and was taken by rescue squad to the hospital after a meal of oysters. I believe that the things that humans are doing to their environment with pesticides and other chemicals are causing a rise in food allergies.
OJ, a Japanese friend got us a Zojirushi rice cooker a couple of years ago. You can use from 1 cup to 5 cups (dry measurement) of rice, which makes it really convenient. I’ve never had it overflow, so maybe yours is a different type.
Here’s the one we have: http://www.zojirushi.com/ourproducts/ricecookers/ns_rnc.html
I’ve been doing some cooking for a couple of years for my 15 year old neice who has celiac. In researching GF flour mixes and recipes, I found that incorporating other flours into the rice flour blend helps boost the nutritional value that rice flours lack. Try subbing in some sorghum flour or amaranth flour. Also, sorghum flour added to the blend can really help improve the texture of dumplings and gravies. For great cornbread – try the recipe on the back of Bob’s Red Mill GF Cornmeal (I use half the sugar that the recipe calls for). The cornbread mix is pretty good, but this is better. My neice gets her french fry fix at Red Robin which is also GF friendly.
I had to have allergy testing done about 10 years ago, when I ended up in the ER after eating crab cakes and fresh strawberries for lunch one day. A little while after lunch, my hands and feet started itching intensely and turned red. Then my whole body turned red and I broke out in huge purple hives. I was quite colorful.
My throat didn’t swell, but my tongue did. I took a couple Tylenol allery pills and went to the hospital.
By the time I got there, the pills had started working and I was feeling better, but they hooked me up to an IV and kept me for a couple hours. The nurses were taking bets on whether it was the berries or the crab that caused the reaction, since both are in the top 10 for reactions.
When I had the testing done, I found out that I’m allergic to crab, lobster, mint and beer. Ha I never cared much for mint or beer so that didn’t bother me. I dearly love crab, lobster and shrimp though. I didn’t react to shrimp, but the Dr made me give it up since it’s in the same group. So sad, but it definitely is not worht dying for.
OJ,
Have you tried quinoa flour? I bought a bag but haven’t tried it yet. There’s a recipe on the back of the bag, for sour cream fudge cupcakes that sounds good.
I also found that making taco meat (we try to make our own seasoning blend now) and tossing that on top of a bed of rice, with traditional taco toppings and cheese can make a good, though slightly different, meal. We’ve also done the same thing with chili, since while I really like Cincinnati-style chili, it’s served on a bed of spaghetti…though since we’ve found some very good GF pasta, I can try it the traditional way for the first time.
King Arthur Flour is a great source for gluten free products and recipes. While my family is free from this issue and I don’t have a lot of knowledge about it, I do cook breakfasts from time to time for people who are gluten sensitive. Keeping some of these products in my pantry has been a big help when making breakfast feasts for folks with gluten issues.
http://search.kingarthurflour.com/search.jsp?N=0&rt=p&Ntt=gluten+free&x=0&y=0
http://search.kingarthurflour.com/search.jsp?N=1000014&Ntt=gluten+free+recipes&rt=r
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/?s=gluten+free
Debbie, I have tried that but only once and it was a while ago, but we’ll be experimenting with it and sorghum flour quite a bit this summer and fall. Anheuser Busch makes a GF beer from sorghum, Redbridge. It’s got a more porter-like flavor that I don’t care for since I prefer lighter lager and Pilsner styles, or Irish ales…so I’ll likely also start experimenting with home brewing since I know several people who do that.
Magpie, our cooker looks very similar to that one. I’m not really sure what caused ours to boil over like it did…it might (probably) have been user error! I’ve got to make another batch tonight, and since we have several additional folks living in our place temporarily, I’ll be making a larger batch so we’ll see what happens. I may play it safe and set it on a cookie sheet just in case…
OJ, that is weird. Do you soak the rice before cooking? I put the rice and water in the cooker, and let it soak at the very least for 20 minutes. If I have time I’ll let it sit for about an hour or so, so the rice absorbs the water. There’s usually about 1/4″(?) of water over the rice after that. It makes it fluffier too.
Magpie, that might be my problem. I’ll try that when I make more tonight and see if that fixes it. I generally stir the rice around in the water a bit, but I never waited to hit the start button…I guess I’ve been too impatient, or hungry.
For perfect rice everytime: Step one- put the rice steamer back in the cabinet. Step two- take out a sauce pan (any size) with a matching lid. Step three- pour enough jasmine (or other long-grain rice) into the pan to fill it anywhere from a 1/4 to 1/2 full. Step four- rinse the rice 3 times. Just swish some water around in it and pour it out. Step five- level the rice in the pan and place the tip of your index finger on the top of the rice. Add cold water to the rice until it reaches the first knuckle of your finger (unless you have extrordinarily long fingers, this is a one size fits all measurement). Step six- bring rice to a boil (after removing finger!). As soon as it reaches a rolling boil, cover with the lid and reduce temperature to the lowest setting. Step seven- let the rice cook undisturbed for 15 minutes. Resist any temptation to lift the lid and sneek a peek. This is the most important step in the process. Do not look at the pan; don’t even look over your shoulder at it. Step eight- turn off heat and let the rice sit, still covered, for about 10 minutes (or until you can’t stand the wait any longer.). Voila: Perfect rice!
I know this is an old column, but my daughter and one of my aunt’s have gone gluten free and I have a question for Other John. Did you say once that you make a good gluten free pizza? Will you give out your recipe? I’d like to pass it on to them.
Thanks