brief sob and moan about the cost ££ of allergies on our food bills.

[eragon]

we are a large family with two grown up student kids, and two teens at sch.
one child cant eat, peanuts/brazil nuts/ egg/ yeast extract/kiwi
another cant have milk. both IgE allergic.

I have IBS and am careful but sometimes need to have lactose free milk and avoid wheat, (boring long story here)

so meal planning is tricky and its costs us a fortune. am hitting over £200 a week, (which includes toiletries and cleaning stuff etc) .
i often have to buy a more expensive brand because of a labeling issue, and as I dont feel I can take any risks reaction wise with food, due to the severity of allergy. Its so expensive having allergies in the family. anyone else struggling with this at the moment? prices have gone up anyway and add allergies on top its shocking.

Yes, we are struggling too. It has always been hard to make ends meet, but has got even harder recently. Only one DS, but he is allergic to a lot of foods and we all eat the same family diet (I have to anyway as I am still breastfeeding him).

We cook nearly everything from scratch, and I seem to spend my whole life cooking, shopping around and planning meals. Cheap meals involving beans and other pulses are no good as DS can't eat them. He can't tolerate tomato sauces, anything cooked with onions, garlic, seeds... It gets very wearing.

can you not get some of the foods on prescription?

forgot to add the bean allergy!
asian /indian foods have spices and seeds cross contamianted with nuts etc, and hot peppery foods freak him out as it feels like it does when he eats his allergens.

he can now eat cooked tomatos, but not raw , same for spinach and any other high histamine food, sometimes mature cheese will irritate, but of course the milk allergic daughter can have that cooked or otherwise.

we do eat from scratch.

you dont get food on the nhs for ige allergies or intolerences.

workshy I wish it was possible to get some foods on prescription!

yes yes to all eragon has said about asian/indian foods. They are a wonderfully cheap way to eat (especially where I live because there are lots of really good Asian supermarkets within a 10 minute walk). However, it is just too much of a risk with these allergies, and DS distrusts strong/spicy flavours in any case.

Before I had DS, my favourite cookery books were Pat Chapman's Curry Bible, and Rose Elliot's Bean Book (lots of cheap wartime recipes involving pulses). They are now sat on a high shelf in my kitchen gathering a disgraceful amount of dust.

I always did cook nearly everything from scratch, even before I had DS. It has got much harder now that I spend so much time thinking about ingredients. We can't take advantage of special offers in supermarkets, and we don't use Approved Foods (they don't list ingredients on the website).

However, I will look at the positives:

• Food labelling is a million times better than it was even a decade ago.
• We are lucky that DH is still in work in these difficult times
• I am a SAHM / childminder so I have the time I need to shop around for food and spend hours cooking.
• DS can tolerate wheat and soya - avoiding those would be so hard and anybody that does it has my serious respect!!!

I agree eragon it's ridiculously expensive. We are lucky enough to get the basics on prescription for DD1 as she's coeliac plus our wonderful dietician fought to get 1 loaf of Glutafin bread & 1 packet of wf pasta per month for DS2 (allergic to milk, wheat, eggs, nuts) but our grocery bills are still sky high. Yes, I probably could cook more from scratch if a) I didn't work, b) I could cook or c) I didn't mind spending all my time in the kitchen but none of these apply so I'm stuck with quick and easy alternatives that don't come cheap. I do thank my lucky stars that both my kids can have soya as I know what a nightmare it is to avoid this along with the other stuff (DS had to avoid soya when he was a baby until it was ruled out via skin prick tests).

I wish I could bulk out the food I make with lentils and chickpeas but DS is allergic to them and won't eat spicy stuff as he thinks his mouth feeling a bit burny is the start of an allergic reaction.

YANBU, the only little eggs(actually they were chicks!) I could find that DS could eat for the egg hunt were a frigging fortune. DDs came from the pound shop.

I've been complaining about this too. Have a combination of intolerance issues in my house including gluten, wheat, dairy, soya and can't tolerate beans, pulses, onion, tomatoes etc.. either. It's an ongoing nightmare. I try and cook from scratch. Sometimes it's just marginally tiresome and sometimes I've seriously had enough. The fact that we spend 50 quid a month on bread alone, if we don't make it, irks me. If anyone has a bread recipe that excludes all of the above and is eaten by kids, please share it! Making Easter fun for them has also taken time and effort. I could now hold down a job in logistics anyday!! Sorry for the rant and that others are experiencing the same problems.

It is a lot of effort. To get everything I needed for Easter I visited 3 of the supermarket chains, holland and Barrett and an independent health food shop. It would be so nice to be able to get everything in the one shop.

Eragon, I also spend a fortune on things like bread and pasta so it's good to know I'm not the only one.

DD has allergies including to wheat so although she can't have this she isn't a celiac so we don't get anything on prescription. Seems a bit unfair that the only option apart from baking my own bread, which I have tried with no success, is to spend alot of money on GF food as it's the only version she can have.

We also spend alot on meat and I still buy fruit pouches as it's the quickest way to get my kids to eat fruit. If I sliced up an apple, DD would take forever to eat an eighth of it, so the pouches give her 1 of her 5 a day in about 30 seconds flat.

We also spend a fortune on food. DS1 allergic to eggs, beans, nuts, lentils, peas, shell fish and kiwi fruit whilst ds2 is allergic to dairy, beans, nuts, lentils, peas and mango. I am pescetarian (was vegetarian but after 20 years strict veggie, the allergies finally made it too hard). We easily spend £120+ on food a week for 4 people and that is being frugal.

DD3 is allergic to wheat and we seem to spend a fortune on her food even though she is 2 1/2y and eats very little to be honest! I imagine the food bills will be even higher when I go wheat-free (for bfing her).