We had two missions today:
Find safe food
and
Conquer the fear.
We left town today searching for safe food for Matthew. The goal - have food to feed the child. Mealtimes have become frustrating, overwhelming....annoying. I am not a "from scratch" kind of cook. I am an "open the bag and heat it up" kind of cook. Sadly, this seems pretty impossible when dealing with food allergies. Slowly I am learning, but unfortunately we've had to sample many not so great meals to find just a handful of delicious ones.
Brad is mastering the art of the fake smile when dinner is placed before him. Love that man and the way he can laugh with me at an awful dinner :-)
We're getting there, though, and today was a big step on the way to a greater variety of foods for Matthew. Did you know there was such a thing as soy yogurt? How about dairy-free mac and cheese? I must admit, neither sounds particularly appealing to me, but we'll see what Matthew thinks. I am pretty excited about the dairy-free chocolate chips - cookies here we come!
The second mission today was to conquer the fear about eating out. Well, just my fear I guess. Brad was not overly-worried about it (that's just him) but after Matthew's reaction I kind of felt like I would never want to eat out with him ever again (that's just me!). If he could have a reaction like that at home, the chances of him having one at a restaurant are so much higher (cross contamination, people not following the restaurant's guidelines...so many things could go wrong). But we know of one restaurant chain that seems to take allergies very seriously and that has a great plan in place, and we feel confident that they do all they can to make sure the food is safe. We had a lovely meal (oh so thankful I didn't have to cook!!!) and Matthew did great.
9 comments:
I don't envy your having to be so careful with food and Matthew! But it sounds like you're making an amazing effort. I'm happy to share recipes or cookbooks with you, as Adam and I were vegan for many years and got to know ALL kinds of dairy-free stuff. So yes, I did know there was dairy-free mac-n-cheese and soy yogurt. ;)
I hope you can find some palatable things for everyone in the family!
I can imagine that this will be a tricky endeavor, but you might discover a love of cooking along the way!
which restaurant is allergy-consciencous......? (totally aware that I most likely spelled that word wrong)
Red Robin! We LOVE them!!! Too bad we don't have one here :(
I bet he sits nicely out to eat lol
YAY!!! You mission is accomplished. Go Mama!!!
Please know that at Culvers if you let us know that you have a food allergy we can tag the order and will be extra careful to avoid cross contamination. :) Hope you find many more places soon!
Red Robin?!?!?! YUM! I'm seriously drooling right now!
I'm so glad that you got to go out to eat and that he did ok too. Hope you found lots of yummy foods to try!
We belong to a co-op and those types of stores have LOTS of dairy-free foods and more options for people with food allergies. A co-op and/or natural foods store will probably become your best friend. I think it is hard enough to figure out what to feed a toddler (D's likes/dislikes seem to change a lot), so I cannot imagine how much harder it is when you throw several food allergies into that process.
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