Bruce-Gardyne - How to cook for food allergies: understand ingredients, adapt recipes with confidence and cook for an exciting allergy-free diet

This book is dedicated to my mother, Margie Monbiot, whose health would have benefited hugely from the improved understanding and wealth of information on food allergies that we have today.

INTRODUCTION

The diagnosis of a food allergy is at once a blessing and a source of anxiety. It is a blessing because it often comes after a long and frustrating search for the cause of the debilitating symptoms from which you have been suffering. And the anxiety? That is inevitable, as you now face changes in your lifestyle or circumstances to accommodate or overcome the problem. At first it may feel as if your can eat list would fill no more than a Post-it note in comparison to the tome that is your cannot eat list and, if you allow it to, this can quickly impact on the rest of your life. After all, many of the things we enjoy in life celebrations, birthdays, get-togethers with friends revolve around food and when you see food as a problem, it dampens your enjoyment of life.

In a funny way, we were lucky. Our eldest son was a tiny baby when we discovered he was acutely allergic to both dairy and egg. Because he was so small we had time to adjust as a family and we adapted and grew together. He has never known the taste of dairy products and so does not miss them and, because his reaction was so severe, there was no decision to be made: we had to go dairy and egg free as a family and that was that.

That was seven years ago. We now have three boys who, between them, cannot eat dairy, eggs, anything containing gluten and, bizarrely, potato. Yet despite these restrictions we manage to have an interesting, varied diet, using the wide range of ingredients that we can eat. Our experience is that allergies can be conquered without the need to adopt the sort of hair-shirt approach that necessitates living on a limited range of foods. How? The answer is simple: cook your food yourself using fresh ingredients.

When you cook your own food from scratch, youll find that there are surprisingly few restrictions as to what you can eat. Gone are the days of worrying about the traces of allergens in all those ready-made meals. In addition, youll find that your food is fresher, purer, tastier and will become a focus of family life. And if that conjures up images of hours spent slaving over a hot stove, think again. Contrary to what you might believe, cooking from scratch doesnt have to be time-consuming or difficult. By taking a few minutes to plan the weeks menu, writing out a shopping list, cooking in advance in batches and freezing, it is possible to eat an exciting, healthy and varied diet without spending all your time in the kitchen. There is also no reason why eating this type of diet should be more expensive. In fact, it can be cheaper to buy fresh basic ingredients rather than processed versions or the few ready-made meals that will cater specifically to your dietary requirements.

More importantly, being able to cook for yourself will help you cope better in everyday life. If you understand the ingredients to which you are allergic and how they are used in food, you will be able to anticipate problems when eating away from home and hence avoid them before they arise. It will help you to be more confident in suggesting easy alternatives to friends and family who would like to cook for you. An understanding of how food is cooked will also help you identify safe foods on the menu when eating in a restaurant and the right questions to ask to check that your needs are understood by the staff. In short, it will give you far greater control over your life.

I have had to find out how to do all of this over the last seven years. Even as a professionally trained chef, I have found this challenging and I have been surprised that I havent been able to find a book that approaches food allergies from the perspective that food can and should be normal and enjoyable naughty even (after all, everyone needs a treat now and then). With this book I hope to fill that void its full of delicious real food; its food that we eat all the time and its the stuff we really enjoy.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part, Living with Food Allergies, looks at the key rules that will help you cope with food allergies in daily life, such as how to avoid cross-contamination of food in the kitchen, preparing for travelling, and eating away from home. Theres also plenty of help for those with children, including how to help your childs nursery or school cope with their allergy and how you can ensure your child enjoys birthday parties without feeling excluded or different. The section also covers the basics of nutrition and balancing your diet. When you have to cut things out of your diet, you may well be missing a key source of nutrients, minerals or vitamins and Chapter 3 provides a checklist of alternative sources of these nutrients. It is by no means an exhaustive guide but it will help point you in the right direction.

In Part Two you will find out why ingredients are used and the general rules for using substitutes for the foods you cant have. The most common food allergens dairy, wheat, egg, nuts and soya are also some of the most common and versatile ingredients and in order to be able to adapt a recipe successfully you must first know the purpose that the food is serving in the recipe. Armed with this knowledge youll find that food will come alive for you. Rather than look at a recipe in a book and think I cant have that because it contains ..., your response will be That looks delicious Ill just use ... instead.

Of course, you have to walk before you can run, so before you launch yourself into adapting your own recipes, familiarize yourself with the cooking techniques and recipes in Part Three. In all of the recipes I have aimed for simplicity. Firstly, as far as possible I have used normal ingredients that you can find in your local supermarket. If you are on a gluten-free diet, you may need to visit a health food shop to get some of the gluten-free flours, but even these are gradually becoming more widely available. Secondly, I have kept the methods as simple as possible. After the formal testing process for the recipes, I gave them to my husband, Hew, to try to make sure that the instructions were sufficiently clear and complete for the novice cook. He was really pleased with the way they turned out and how much he learned in the process. If he can cook them, anyone can (sorry Hew!). Lastly, I have tried to be realistic. There are limits to what can be adapted. The more a recipe relies on an ingredient that you cannot have, the harder it will be to effect a workable substitution. While it is important to recognize these limitations, dont beat yourself up over the food you cant eat: look at all the delicious things you can enjoy

If you havent cooked seriously before, this book will get you up to a very good level of proficiency. Its not as hard as you might imagine, and the rewards in terms of conquering your allergies, regaining control over your life and improving the healthiness and taste of your diet are definitely worth the effort.

USING THE RECIPES

Before you begin cooking any of the recipes please note the following: