How to get enough fat into dairy/nut free toddler diet

[plupedantic]

DS came up as sensitive to milk products and peanuts, so I have been cooking without dairy for about 4 months now. However, thanks to another thread (about poo, as it happens), I now suspect even more strongly that my poor DS is not getting enough fat.

In the past, it was easy: milk and cheese took care of so much in the way of fat intake. I am trying hard with meat and oil, but are there any other ways to bump up the fat in his diet? Soya and rice milk are sooooo low-fat it's depressing!

Many thanks for any ideas!

DS1 has always had home-made cake for afternoon tea - I try to reduce the sugar a bit, but at least it has quite a bit of fat. It's not easy though, and he is still skinny as a rake (now aged 7).

we live on avocado here!

Thanks very much for your responses. Weta, DS has been spoiled with his granny's cake and pancakes, so we are definitely trying on that side!

mamacheeks, that's something we haven't had in a while, but thanks for the reminder.

Drizzle olive oil onto corn on the cob - and most veg. DS dips 'nice bread' into olive oil. Look at lots of dip recipes and see which are high in fat in the form of olive oil.

Aren't prawns surprisingly high in fat? Mackerel, salmon, tinned sardines, make mackerel pate, other pates, spread on toast, make sausage rolls - most of the ready made flaky pastry in the chiller cabinet is vegan, so dairy free.

As above: avacado, fried foods (fried in olive oil), cake and fatty meat (hard to get cause most people don't want it), oily fish.

We were advised to give vitamin D supplement too. If you do this watch out for the ones tat use peanut oil.

Ds1 was allergic to nuts and dairy as a until age 3 (now just nuts) and I spent a lot of time worrying about fat cause he was tiny and thin. Now back on dairy - he is ~still tiny and thin, so don't worry too much.

Not ideal but I used to allow my DS to have a packet of crisps each day, justified by the fact that he needed the calories as well as the fat..

lard / dripping?

suet as in mince pies / dumplings.

sounds a bit gross but this used to be part of everyone's diet.

The Alpro Junior milk is slightly more in line with normal milk and has a higher fat content - 2.3g per 100ml as opposed to 1.8g.

Was recommended by dietician to spread the Pure on more thickly on toast etc. Olive oil for dipping too - dd took to sucking the oil off the bread without actually eating it...gross!

We always do a Sunday roast of some sort e.g. chicken, lamb, pork with roasties.

Oh, I had never seen Alpro Junior - thanks!

Found some mackerel in the shop today, so am going to offer that alongside our evening carrot and hoummous crudites (which keep DS's fingers busy while I cook, as he is a meddle-monster).

Thank you all for the ideas. It's really lovely and reassuring to be able to discuss something as perverse as Where To Find High-Fat Food, as food labelling and marketing are of no help - who markets high-fat stuff?!

We are already doing lots of meat and fatty frying ( for me), so certainly will not stop those!

prawns are surprisingly high in cholesterol.
More eggs? they have quite a high fat content (the yolks, anyway)
and avocadoes and oily fish as suggested.

too much high temperature (deep fat) frying will not help - the oils get damaged --> trans fats. These are not healthy and will not be usable to create nerve tissue and cell membranes, which is what your child needs to grow. Cooking in olive oil isn't such a problem but try to keep the temps below 200 deg C.

Oily dressings on salads will help, and things like pesto dressing (if he's ok with pine nuts). Can your DS eat other nuts or is he barred from all of them? Peanut allergy doesn't necessarily = ALL nut allergy; has he been tested for other nuts and seeds? He could eat sunflower seeds as a snack, for e.g.

Ahhh, that's how transfats are created! How does one know if fats are above or below 200C in the pan? Is it only deep fat frying that gets this hot? I must remember to tell my MIL, as she does deep-fry some things, like chips and fish.

I'm really not sure about the other nuts, to be honest. The test we had was only for a few things, half dietary and half environmental. Because DS is so young (not yet 3), I understand it's a bit of a fluid situation, and some allergy testing is just meaningless (the pharmacy-based tests, which I found out about through the Allergy UK site, turn out not to be valid for such a young child).

The test was done abroad in a hospital, through a family contact, and I'm grateful for what little we do know, as, quite honestly, I would not have noticed a real difference in DS's eczema if we had tried dietary exclusions. Now that it's been about four months, I do see his skin is better, but it was gettting better before that, and if it weren't for the threat that asthma might get worse (thanks to the irritation of the things he is sensitive to), it might be worth giving up on the dairy-free life, so that DS could get a bit more meat on his bones.

Thanks again for listening, and for the suggestions.

P.S. We're hoping that, by excluding the irritants at this stage, DS will be able to have dairy again. It's much easier to avoid nuts in this life, so that is not quite so crucial as milk and cheese .

deep fat frying and roasting at top temp are the usual way that fats get too hot - anything where it is really spitting by itself, not because of the food that's cooking in it (any water-containing food added to hot fat will make it spit).

Has your DS been seen by a consultant in the UK to have a series of pin-prick or RAST tests done - the scores you get off these will be a good indicator as to whether or not he is allergic to other nuts, for example. I think it is worth going to get it done - because then you will open up your possibilities of fat-containing foods (and of course nuts have other nutrients to offer). You might have to go through the GP for a referral; if you have private health cover you might be able to go straight for the consultant (not sure how it works exactly! )

Talk to your GP first to see what can be recommended and how long it would take to get him seen.

Another possibility to consider - has your DS had wheat/gluten allergy excluded? Because if he has any level of coeliac disease, it will interfere with the absorption of all nutrients and also restrict his weight gain. So if it hasn't already been excluded, it probably needs to be.

there are other ways to create trans fats, btw but most of them aren't available to the home cook! Heat and direct sunlight don't help though - so keep your oils cool and in the dark; and try to buy narrow bottles to minimise the oxygen exposure too.

We did have a GP refer us last year, but waited for months and months - nothing - so we took it into our own hands. It was a prin-prick test in a grid. Gluten intolerance was - thankfully - excluded. We're going back later this year, so we will hopefully get some more clarity about the test itsefl, as well as seeing whether the period without the dietary irritants has allowed his system to settle, and might allow us to reintroduce dairy. This was a regime which worked with a child we know (who did get his referral, probably because he ws obviously suffering, and it would have been awkward for the health authority to ignore it!)

I am on another allergies thread as well, the one asking whether or not her DD needs an epipen - a lady on there has posted about her DD who can finally eat something she was previously allergic to (I think it was dairy!) aged 10, iirc. It can take a while!
I'll try and find the post and copy it over here.

Here you are:

"SeaStrand Sat 05-Mar-11 09:24:10
Morning all..I'm a MN newbie and just came across this thread..my 10 year old daughter was dairy/egg/lentil (same protein) allergic from birth...she stopped being allergic (we think) last August time..I have a friend whose son also stopped being allergic at around the same age...I just wanted to tell you this because I have lived with the lifestyle of being an obsessive label reader..taking packed lunches to parties etc...she's always taken it in her stride..never got upset when couldn't have stuff...supermarkets are so much better these days...10 years ago it was a very bleak choice of products..my circle of friends have always been so supportive and thoughtful at times like parties and Easter (she could have dark chocolate) etc. So I never thought it would happen and she would always be allergic..just wanted to tell you my experience and there is hope..the consultant always said she might grow out of it but after each stage (by school start, by 7, next year etc) I'd given up hope but then it happened with no explanation."

That's good news. Incidentally, I think a similar age was the magic age for the daughter of an old colleague. She had eczema was was horribly allergic to various things, but at about 10 it started to go. I was so relieved for the family: they used ot have to wet-wrap her at night for the eczema - poor, poor girl and family!

Definitely get RAST tests done if you can, though unless his eczema/asthma is pretty severe you may have to push very hard to go through the NHS, but if you can get them done also try and get a dietician referral as they can help/reassure you with ideas for increasing fat content in your son's diet.

If it helps, ds is allergic to milk, eggs, soya, nuts and all fish except salmon and we just use extra Pure spread when cooking and put lots on things like mashed potatoes/rice etc. We also cook a reasonable amount of salmon (and use the tinned stuff to help out with calcium - the bones can be eaten, providing more calcium). You can buy tins of sardines in tomato sauce which dd loves on buttered toast - maybe try this (obv this doesn't work for our ds!). Avocados are good as are seeds if he can have them. Biscuits are also good source of fat (again, homemade means you can control sugar portions...).

I forgot to mention that we are eating houmous regularly, on carrot sticks I make to keep him occupied while I cook. Otherwise, it's let's-put-all-the-metal-objects-in-the-microwave-and-turn-it-on and let's-hang-off-Mummy's-jeans-pockets-when-she's-handling-something-hot.

Al of the above plus good mayo - egg yolk and olive oil!