Basic Gluten-Free Flour Mix

I thought I'd pass along this Basic Gluten-Free Flour Mix courtesy of Cybele Pascal's Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook:

'The key to the very best gluten-free baked goods is Authentic Foods Superfine Brown Rice Flour; it is the Cadillac, or cashmere, of brown rice flours and is worth its weight in gold. It is not grainy like other rice flours, and bakes the most fantastic cookies, cakes, pie crusts, and so on. If you can’t find it at your local natural foods market or Whole Foods, order it online. Both Ener-G and Bob’s Red Mill brown rice flours will also work in these recipes, but they won’t turn out quite as well. I do not recommend Arrowhead Mills brown rice flour, which I find too gritty. The brands of potato starch and tapioca flour or starch are not important; I find them all interchangeable. (Please see Resources, page 177, for more information.)'

4 cups superfine brown rice flour
1 1⁄3 cups potato starch (not potato flour)
2⁄3 cup tapioca flour (also called tapioca starch)

1. To measure flour, use a large spoon to scoop flour into the measuring cup, then level it off with the back of a knife or straightedge. Do not use the measuring cup itself to scoop your flour when measuring! It will compact the flour and you will wind up with too much for the recipe.

2. Combine all ingredients in a gallon-size zipper-top bag. Shake until well blended. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Makes 6 cups

All recipes reprinted with permission from The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook: How to Bake Without Gluten, Wheat, Dairy, Eggs, Soy, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, and Sesame. Copyright © 2009 by Cybele Pascal, Celestial Arts, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, Berkeley, CA.

The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook

Cybele Pascal is my hero. We own her Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook and love it. Due to Rowan's allergy to chicken and turkey, we haven't tried many of the dinner recipes...but we use the muffin recipes almost every week. They're super healthy - made with whole grains and no refined sugar. And most importantly, no allergens.

I am really excited about her new cookbook, dedicated to allergy-free baking. The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook is available on Amazon and I can't wait to try some of the recipes. Our girls can never have store-bought bakery items, so I love being able to bake safe treats for them at home. The red velvet cake looks delicious.

The Bugabees: Friends With Food Allergies

I love the concept of this book. I'll probably buy it for our girls and also give a copy to Rylie's preschool classroom. 'A whimsical tale of eight friends with food allergies. Food allergies are never fun, but best friends always are! This light-hearted story explores the daily routines of eight best buggy friends such as Beetle, Cricket and Butterfly, as they face their respective food allergies with positivity and poise.' Available on Amazon for $12.20. Hardcover, 32 pages.

AllerMates Wristbands

I found these great AllerMates wristbands and I think my girls would really like wearing them. The character illustrations are pretty cute and they have humorous profiles for each character. They have wristbands for peanut, egg, tree nut and dairy. $7.99 each, for kids ages 2 and up.

Rowan's updated blood test results

We had Rowan's blood re-tested about a month ago to see if anything had changed with her food allergies. We just got the results and they were very disappointing.

The range for moderate is 0.7 - 3.5. High is anything over 4.0.
Last year, she was at an 85 for eggs and milk...extremely high. Peanut was around 9.34. Wheat was 5.3, Soy was 4.6. Chicken and turkey weren't in the blood test, but the skin test showed she was allergic.

This year, her numbers actually went up - which surprised me, because she was already so high. Her current numbers are below. Anything over 4.0 is high.

Milk: above 100
Egg: above 100
Peanut: 28.3
Turkey: 16.3
Wheat: 10.3
Chicken: 4.6
Pork: 3.0

I was hoping that the turkey, chicken and wheat numbers would drop and we could try reintroducing these foods. She was already eating a little bit of wheat every day, so I need to ask the doctor about that one. For now we'll try to avoid it. Citrus still makes her wheeze, so we'll avoid that too.

The numbers of the top 3 or 4 on the list are an indication that she will not outgrow them. I feel like it would be a miracle if she could just outgrow a few of them.

We'll just keep avoiding all the things we've been avoiding, and be super careful about touching her after handling any of these foods. Rylie's last test was above 100 for peanuts, and 3.0 for milk and shellfish, so nothing new there. We never go anywhere without our epi-pens!

Possible Changes to US Food Labels

Has anyone seen the articles regarding possible changes to U.S. food labels? Among the suggested changes would be to have minor ingredients and allergens listed separately, with allergens in red. I would love to see these changes happen - it can be easy to miss hidden allergens in long ingredient lists and this would help tremendously. I also work in packaging design, so this could effect some of the processes we have in place.

Here is an article from the Well Blog on the subject: A Makeover for Food Labels. Ms. Pope also links to other sources with additional information and insight on the topic.

Crane Animal Humidifiers

The cold weather has arrived and the air is getting dry - a great time to buy a cool-mist humidifier for your kids rooms. We found these really cute animal humidifiers at Target for $34.99, and bought the frog and the penguin. There are so many more animals on Target.com...I wish I would have waited! Ours are really quiet and will hopefully help when our girls get coughs and colds this winter. Both of our girls have also been dealing with asthma.

I would not recommend the filter cartridge. One of ours broke apart and emptied into the water the very first night.