DS with various grain allergies - looking for tips!

[ZucchiniPie]

DS who is 8 months has recently been diagnosed with allergies to wheat, corn and rye, plus eggs and possibly peanuts (they're going to challenge that soon, in case it was a false positive - fingers crossed!). The trickiest thing is the fact he's allergic to those other grains, as so many of the substitutes to wheat involve corn or rye in some form. He's having rice pasta but so far I haven't experimented with anything else much (some quinoa in a Plum Baby pouch). Which non-wheat flours work well if, for instance, I wanted to make a white sauce or bake a cake (as long as he can tolerate egg in baked form, which the doctors said he might be able to!)

which meals do you find difficult to organise ?

carb side of things is tricky.
i take it rice, rice cakes , rice noodles, sweet potatos, potatos , are all ok?

I am sure other people can suggest meals for you as we all have a pretty wide range of allergies to deal with. i only avoid wheat for my ibs, however we do deal with other ige allergies with my children. we have the egg peanut bean milk and other stuff at the moment!

well I'm not finding things too hard at the moment as you're right about that list of things that are ok (though have a suspicion that sweet potatoes may be a problem - though can you even have an allergy to them?) so I guess it was more wondering which flour substitutes work best, given I don't have corn flour, polenta, etc. at my disposal. Also, which brand of wheat-free breads that aren't rye-based are good. Other than that, he's fine with oat-based porridge for breakfast and then as you say there's rice or potatoes for carbs for the other meals. I've always cooked things from scratch, so I'm not having to suddenly make sure I'm scrutinising ingredients labels (apart from little things like stock cubes which have maize starch in and things like that)

Hi ZucchiniPie, if you're having to avoid wheat, the Doves Farm Gluten and Wheat free flours are great and I don't think they have the other things in them that you have to avoid. These are available in most supermarkets in the free from section.

Stock is a funny one. I've given up looking for one that DD can have and just make my own which is a pain but takes the uncertainty out of it.

I hope this helps a little.

Thanks muma39. I've been making stock too (usually do anyway if I have a chicken carcass) but that's good to know there's not much point searching for one in the shops! I'll try the Doves Farm flour - thanks for the advice x

I've just checked my own packets of Doves Farm gluten-free flour (plain and self-raising) and unfortunately they both contain maize flour . But you might like to contact The Cake Crusader (I don't have the link but you can google) whom I met at the allergy show in Olympia last weekend. She makes (and sells, I think) a special baking flour made from brown and white rice, potato and tapioca flour.
You might also like to try Amisa buckwheat crispbreads, which are made with buckwheat and salt only. Clearspring organic make buckwheat soba noodles, and Orgran do a pasta made with only buckwheat and rice.
HTH!

I just looked at the Doves Farm ingredients list online too - it's so annoying about the maize! That's a good lead about the Cake Crusader... I'll track her down and thanks for the other suggestions.

Blimey - I can understand why you're finding it tricky. I'm coeliac so don't have a huge list of things to avoid but we use Doves Farm Rice Flour to cook with and it works very well with things like cakes, biscuits etc.

I've just googled and it's just made from brown and white rice so you should be fine with that?

I think you can get it from big Tesco's or health food shops: Rice flour

Try the marigold Swiss vegetable buillon which is available in most supermarkets for stock. It is wheat free.

Gosh Zucchini. I'm so sorry about the doves flour. I've been using it a few years now and hadn't ever noticed the fact that it has maize in it. The rice flour and buckwheat flours might be a good alternative. Sorry.

Trixy, thanks for the tip about the stock. I have seen some others by Anthony Worrell Thompson in the free from aisle the other day but didn't have a chance to have a proper look.

I know it's a bit expensive, but the ready-made Sainsbury's and M&S fresh stocks have no major allergens in them (and are also great if you can't be bothered to make up stock)

Thanks everybody. The only thing about fresh stocks is that they usually have salt in them and as DS is still only 8 months old I shouldn't really use them for him... The Kallo Low Salt ones were the ones I used to use until I realised they had maize starch in them. So I'll have to carry on making my own stock for now! (Good thing I'm not back at work yet :))

Marigold also do a low salt version I've seen it in Tesco and Holland and Barrett!

Cool, I'll check that out!

it comes in a tub like this

Unfortunately the reduced salt one has maize starch in it, but the above will be fine for once your DC are a bit older and you don't need to watch salt so much.

Have you seen the goodness direct and dietary needs direct websites? They'll have a greater choice then the supermarkets and will probably do pure rice flour and other specialist flours.

Ah! I was just wondering why I hadn't bought the low salt one, now you mention the maize, I remember!

I haven't seen those websites but I'll check them out. Doves Farm do a pure rice flour which I've now bought and it seems fine for thickening sauces, etc. We'll see what kind of cakes it makes, but then at 8.5 months, DS isn't really on to that kind of thing yet anyway...