ⓒ iStockPhoto - sjlocke

Halloween is yet another hurdle one has to maneuver regarding food allergies.   It can be “tricky” but it is important to have a plan that covers school parties, trick or treating and beyond.  In order to make this celebration a not-so- scary one, check out a few of these suggestions.

School Parties

• Attend the party to insure proper safety.
• If you can’t be there, speak with the teacher in advance.  Bring in safe snacks that your child can eat.
• If you don’t want your child to feel left out by eating something entirely different, you can provide a safe snack for the entire class instead.  (Check out Dr. Lucy’s cookies, www.drlucys.com).  Each individually wrapped package comes with three cookies and is very tasty.
• If you are friendly with any of the other parents, encourage them to bring in safe snacks, i.e. apples, grapes etc.
• If the class receives goody bags, encourage room parents, and/or the teacher to fill them with small prizes instead of candy/food.  Pencils, erasers, small activity books, key chains all make great gifts.  (continue reading…)
  

ⓒ iStockPhoto - LajosRepasi

You might be just a beginner or may be experienced in your exercise regimen, but there are many mistakes most of us make while workout. These mistakes become a part of our exercise routine like bad habits, and can lead to injury, joint pain and delayed or no results. In order to get maximum benefit out of the hard work you put in during exercise to remain fit, it is very important that you identify problem areas.

Avoiding the Warm Up

Warming up before beginning the strength training or other work out may sound so boring and like a waste of time, but the warm up is a very important part of the exercise regimen, with many benefits. It should be the base of any fitness plan. Warm ups prepare muscles and connective tissue to loosen up and bear with the stress during the exercise. Your muscles work better because of blood flow toward the muscles, giving better results. Joints are lubricated, which decreases the chances of joint pain. If you skip warming up consistently, you are at high risk of injury and delayed result gains. (continue reading…)

©iStockPhoto.com - Ahmad Hamoudah

Back to school activity/preparation was somewhat bittersweet for me this year as my five-year-old (a.k.a my baby), trotted off to kindergarten.  I simply dreaded it.  In fact, I think I cried when the back-to-school Staples commercials began airing in August.  Nonetheless, we encourage our children to achieve these milestones, so, I suppose we can’t complain when they actually do it.  Like most parents, I was plagued with the standard questions such as; will he like it or not?  Will he make friends?  How will he cope in such a big environment?  However, since my child suffers from food allergies, the questions were even more complicated.  Who gets the Epi-Pen? Is there a food policy? How can I keep my child safe?

Food allergies are very daunting, especially when you have no daily control over your child’s environment.  This is where a plan is integral to your child’s safety and your piece of mind.  Since school has already started, you may have done many of these already…but just to be safe, review this list and make sure you have covered all your bases. (continue reading…)

©iStockphoto.com - MonkeyBusinessImages

Just knowing your nutrients and nutrition facts is not enough. Health issues start at the farm and extend all the way to our tables. The concerns are endless, but the main concern is that foods are safe and loaded with full quota of nutrients.

Take, for example, some fresh organically grown zucchini, placed in cool conditions of the store, brought home in a cool bag, stored and prepared soon before lightly cooked. In another scenario, you buy the zucchini which has been sat too long in the store, carried in a overheated shopping bag and  kept around in the vegetable rack for more that a week before it is cooked. The first zucchini  is loaded with Vitamin A and other nutrients, but the second has lost almost all of them. (continue reading…)

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©iStockphoto.com - Floortje

People continue to be sick even after following the gluten free diet scrupulously. Problem for those who are celiac can lurk in unexpected places, like the glue used on the envelopes and mailing labels, which is made from the wheat. You can use a damp sponge, self sticking envelopes and stamps, or simply let somebody else in the family do this job.

Some celiacs  are sensitive to gluten as well as to some chemicals. Those with dermatitis herpetiformis, a skin reaction to gluten, should be careful while using craft kits, paste and spray waxes and cleaners. If you cannot avoid using these, only do so wearing a mask and in well ventilated area. Celiacs with highly sensitive skin must avoid wheat germ oil in cosmetics and in personal care products like skin creams and lotions, toothpaste and false teeth fixatives. Ask your dentist which is the best toothpaste for you. (continue reading…)

ⓒ iStockPhoto - CagriOner

The recall of eggs potentially tainted with salmonella has been expanded to affect more than 500,000,000 eggs. Aside from the health hazards of salmonella poisoning, half a billion eggs is a lot of wasted food. The recalled eggs, out of their shells, could:

• Fill 11.8 Olympic-sized swimming pools
• Cover about nine city blocks 1 foot deep
• Fulfill the caloric needs of the entire state of Florida for a day

With raw leafy greens, fresh produce implicated in foodborne illness outbreaks alongside eggs, dairy and meat, avoiding the foods that may carry pathogens doesn’t allow for a healthy diet. Paying attention to where your food comes from, not just what you’re eating and feeding your family, can greatly reduce the risk of exposure to foodborne pathogens. (continue reading…)

ⓒ iStockPhoto - CagriOner

Allergen warning labels are everywhere. I once came across a transparent plastic bag of whole cashews bearing the warning “May contain cashews” and couldn’t help thinking to myself that, labeling aside, a person with a life-threatening allergy really ought to be able to identify the whole, intact form of his or her allergen. In my kitchen now, I have a tin of “Jumbo Hand-Cooked Virginia Peanuts” with a boldface warning “Contains Peanuts” and a box of nonfat dry milk powder with the “Contains milk ingredients” warning, which I mentally put in the same category as the warning label not to use my snow thrower on my roof or put my electric waffle iron in an automatic dishwasher.

There are practical business (really, legal) reasons for putting warning labels on products where allergen is an intended ingredient rather than a contaminant, like “Contains wheat” on the jar of wheat germ. With the way industrial food goes these days, the line of what’s an “expected” ingredient in anything is getting harder to find. Cool Whip, long engineered as a bastion of dairy-free fluffiness, actually has milk in it now (well, sodium caseinate, which was once part of milk). Given the litigious society we live in, companies may find a few obvious warning labels preferable to defending a lawsuit, so they develop a blanket policy of allergen advisories on all of their products that contain common allergens, whether it’s an intended ingredient or a cross-contaminant.

There’s a down side to the proliferation of allergy warning labels. People are ignoring them. A 2007 study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found a drop of 10% in the attention paid to food allergy warning labels between 2003 and 2006. The surveys the study was based on were conducted at patient conferences for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network; if anyone were to need to pay attention to allergen warnings, those are the folks, mostly parents of children with serious food allergies. (continue reading…)