The diagnosis of a food allergy is at once a blessing and a source of anxiety. It is a blessing as it may explain symptoms from which you have been suffering, but it creates uncertainty in that you now face change in your lifestyle or circumstances to accommodate or overcome the allergy.
This is compounded by the fact that almost all pre-cooked food or ready meals cannot be eaten by most food allergy sufferers. This becomes a severe restriction, not just for food and eating, but in almost all areas of life.
So….
I’ve been writing a book to give the food allergy sufferer the tools they need to conquer these problems. It will change the sufferer’s perception of themselves from “allergic” and “restricted” to “normal” and “free” or “unrestricted”:
- It gives practical, real, hard-earned advice on the adjustments that you need to make to everyday life; at school, at home, visiting friends and travelling;
- It explains why dairy, egg, wheat, nuts and soy are so ubiquitous in the food we eat and how they are used so that you can understand how – and with what – you need to substitute to remove these ingredients.
- It gives a primer on basic cookery techniques to enable the reader to cook tasty, varied and appealing food from scratch.
- Finally, it shows how you can take these lessons and apply them to recipes elsewhere that have not been designed specifically for food allergy sufferers.
The book is organised into a brief introductory chapter, discussing the main themes and aims of the book as a whole, with all following chapters grouped into three main parts.
Part I outlines the basic information for coping with food allergies: how to avoid cross contamination in the kitchen and at mealtimes; guidelines for ordering off the menu in restaurants; what to do and what to take when travelling.
Part II is the meat of the book. This section explains when (and when not) to substitute ingredients for the various food allergens and, more importantly, the basic cookery techniques needed to get the most out of fresh food. It also contains a chapter on nutrition and other sources of the key nutrients that may be lost when the allergens are cut from the diet. It is in this section that the reader will learn how to adapt recipes from other sources to make them allergy free.
All the recipes are collected together in Part III and Part IV covers recipes for babies and children.
