When in Brazil, don't eat the nuts

Yesterday Hubs and I took the kids to the allergist in Philly. It was a pretty good visit. S got further nut testing, resulting in discovering a Brazil nut allergy. We opted not to get tested for peanut allergies. Since he eats peanut butter with no reaction, he should be fine. There is a 40% chance of a false positive with the test, so I'd rather just watch for symptoms. We have an epi pen, so I'm not too worried. He has grown 3 inches and gained enough weight to be too big for the epi-pen junior. For school's sake, he's allergic to all nuts. Cross contamination is a huge risk, so if he goes for an almond that brushed up against a cashew, pistachio, or a Brazil nut, he'll have a reaction. School is allegedly a nut free zone, but I don't believe it. Parents don't understand that one simple food can simply kill another child.

Trinks needed no further allergy testing and can come off her daily asthma meds. I don't like daily meds for her type of asthma and I've been itching to discontinue it. If it was me, I would have simply stopped, but I tend to require doctor's supervision before I act medically for my kids. We have a new asthma plan, and it's similar to mine. Phew!

So today we walked for food allergy awareness. I was happy to see lots of educational materials and samples. I picked up the new epi pen tester and some epi-pen paraphernalia. I picked up 2 dvds about epi-pens (one's for you, NJ teacher)and a pamphlet about knowing the risks. I signed up for a meeting at the local library for food allergy support. I skipped the samples of soy butter because I currently believe that soy in the processed form is evil (that is another blog post and watch Food Inc. to see why the soy seed company is very very evil). I did snag some free samples of the sunflower butter. I used to buy this and forgot all about it. I didn't tell S what it was and he really liked it. Trinks loved it as well, so I can keep some on hand.

SO I've learned it's all about knowing what goes into the food you eat. And I'm learning to act on what I really do know - processed food is really bad, whether you have allergies or not. If I can't pronounce the ingredients, or if they go on over an inch, I don't want to eat it. Chemicals aren't food.