Green Options » food allergy

Wheatless Wednesday: Chocolate Cake Fit for a Gluten-free Queen

Gina Munsey — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:46:47 +0000

Summer is my favorite season. It’s the time of year for sunset barbecues and dinners on the patio, and for strings of tiny Italian lights and flickering Moroccan lanterns. Summer plays the beautiful hostess of longer days and breezy nights, polka-dotted sundresses, and peals of joyful laughter coming from children playing in the backyard.

There’s no better time than summer to indulge in a sliver of chocolate cake, so rich in contrast to the simplicity of the gingham tablecloth and the mason jars overflowing with wildflowers. This cake is made without using wheat, corn, or dairy ingredients, yet it is unmistakably, deliciously, chocolate.

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Chubby Kids and the Food Allergy Risk

Cate Nelson — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:38:10 +0000

Obese children have a 26 percent higher chance of allergies, especially to food, than their slender counterparts. The food allergy rate was 59 percent higher for this risk group.

Researchers aren’t sure yet whether the heaviness is the cause of allergies. But further study is clearly needed, as the asthma and allergy rates for kids is higher than in the past.

Altogether, 4,000 kids were surveyed through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Said director Dr. Darryl Zeldin,

While the results from this study are interesting, they do not prove that obesity causes allergies. More research is needed to further investigate this potential link.

So what defines “obese”? And what can we do for these kiddos?

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Corn-Allergy Sufferers Face Hidden Corn Everywhere

Gina Munsey — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:54:03 +0000

Lick a gummed envelope flap to seal it, and you’ve just tasted corn. Lather up with shampoo, and you’ve got corn seeping in to your pores. Brush your teeth, and you’ve got corn in your mouth. Walk past the perfume counter in any department store, and you’ve just inhaled corn into your lungs. The madness doesn’t end here. Corn is everywhere.

For those of us with corn allergies, it’s not just the corn-on-the-cob and the hush-puppies that are the problem, thank you very much. No, it’s the vitamin D in fortified milk, the food-grade wax coating fresh produce, the dextrose mixed into iodized salt, the citric acid used to rinse loose greens and baby carrots, and the cornstarch filler in baking powder. A friend of mine used to joke that I couldn’t even drink water, and that’s not far-fetched. If you’ve taken a sip from a bottle of mineral-enhanced water recently, you’ve swallowed corn.

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Holiday Recipe: Wheat-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Derek Markham — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:00:05 +0000

If you are allergic to wheat or you have celiac disease, or if you just plain love dessert, these chocolate chip cookies are sure to be a winner in your house.

This wheat-free cookie recipe is quick and easy to make, and by substituting the oat flour with rice or quinoa flour, it can be a gluten-free dessert. It also happens to be vegan, but you’d never know by the taste.

Wheat-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

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