How do you cope and what the heck are you supposed to feed them?

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DC newly possible gluten allergy, seems to have regressed in dairy allergy, can’t eat potatoes, soya or rapeseed oil. Doesn’t like vegetables, may be allergic to bananas, jury out on eggs (will only eat cooked in things anyway). Hasn’t had nuts.

All the Gluten free food is gross and full
of additives. Can’t find a gluten free flour with no potato in. Am super lost as to where to go from here.

Can you ask the allergy doc who diagnosed your child for a referral to a dietician? Some allergy teams have specialist dieticians on staff who can be super helpful, especially with multiple allergies.

Yeah, I just more wanted to see how other ppl
cope.

That’s a tough one. I’ve had wheat & dairy allergies to cook for, but could always do meat & 2 veg type meals. Potatoes on top puts a block on that. So as not to be completely negative, quinoa and rice can be used in place of wheat & pasta and taste ok, especially if cooked with meat or vegetable stock.
Gram flour and buckwheat flour are both gluten free, have a look online for recipes. As an example, galettes are savoury pancakes made with buckwheat flour & can be filled with tasty savoury fillings. Legumes such as chickpeas can be made into tasty dishes such as felafel. On the plus side, your DS might decide he does like vegetables after all if his diet is restricted in so many other ways.

Rice flour works well. Or cornflour eg polenta based meals?

My children were dairy and gluten free with random other things thrown in for good measure at different times. Plain simple works well. You can crush cornflakes to make breadcrumbs textures, you can use chickpea juice instead of eggs for some things eg meringue

If meat is okay, and you have vegetables that work then build up slowly from there. Coconut milk and cream are good for cooking / baking. Sweet potato can be used in lots of different ways eg mash, sliced instead of lasagne sheets, in wedges or chips.

Find some go to meals if you are out and about as well for emergencies - we really struggled with eg delayed journeys as we couldn't easily eat at services, so always had "emergency" snacks to hand.

It will get easier!

He can't hate all veg surely???

The allergies sound really tough, I agree with the person above who said about a referral to a dietician. But I'd also say to little one he needs to be brave and keep trying his veg

There are decent gluten free things out there. I will only eat schar bread and the Warburton's multi seed as everything else is rank. I can honestly say give up biscuits, you'll never find good ones outside marks and sparks (££££). Cake is easy once you have flour blend sorted.
Gf pasta always works as well but obviously I don't know the ingredients.
Is potatoes a definite allergy? Sweet potato not related so should be safe but other nightshade family items like pepper and tomato might be problematic. Also it's often the case that raw items provoke reaction when a cooked item doesn't, especially tomatoes.

I’ve been gluten free for 35 years and for a few had to avoid potatoes and eggs. I never used substitute food just made other choices. Instead of potatoes I used sweet potatoes and yams - both are delicious. I simply ignored all cereal products including rice. Cauliflower rice works well in most dishes. Just use lots of what he can eat and likes. Put beans and similar products in the mix so you have filling foods to replace the bread etc. if later he can have nuts you can make some lovely cakes using ground almonds.

Oh that's tough. Re. gluten the gluten free biscuits made from oats are nice I agree the rice flour ones aren't nice. I just made soda bread with hand blended oats which is nice.

Doves Farm do gluten free flours
https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/products/organic-oat-flour-450g

Why no potatoes? Is that allergy or choice? My son is coeliac and there are so many foods that are naturally gluten free. Simple and natural works best. Meats, fish, tofu, halloumi are good bases for meals. Plus lentils and other legumes and beans. Curries are really easy to make GF. Gluten free pasta is ok as long as you don’t overcook it. gf lasagne sheets are fine.

Are they deff thinking allergy as opposed to coeliac? Just asking because gp's especially are notorious for telling suspected coeliac to go gluten free when they need to be eating it to get diagnosed.

Gluten free foods are very much trial and error to find those you like. My two will only eat Warburtons soft rolls (don't know if they're dairy free) whereas I can suck up lost breads but only if toasted. Biscuits are shit if you are comparing to the ones with gluten but we make our own a fair bit, same with cakes etc.
Meat and fish are gf and id keep trying veg to find something he likes. Will he eat pasta? Rice? Home made soup or stew maybe to get more bits into him?

It is tough. DD is gluten and dairy free and that’s tricky enough. I’d keep offering veggies, but no pressure to eat them - just keep putting them on his plate and don’t offer snacks after meals to fill up on. Unfortunately clean eating is tough with gluten and dairy out of the diet especially if he won’t eat veg. Calcium will be difficult to get into his diet

DD is now 24 and incredibly healthy, fit and a regular platelet donor. Has regular blood tests and all perfect. Hardly ever ill. Massive keep fit fan. Perfect teeth. She’s been on a restricted diet for over 22 years (late diagnosis) and is in rude health. Try not to stress, it is possible to eat gluten and dairy free and be healthy

And hide veggies in sauces! It’s how I deal with dh 😂😂

What is the GP's diagnosis, OP?

My kids are dairy intolerant but it’s the protein and not lactose, and I’m also wheat intolerant, not gluten. We used one of the online tests to find this out. What it means is that certain dairy is okay (sheep, goat, buffalo, guernsey/jersey milk) because they have a different protein to standard milk and certain types of flour (spelt the old sort of wheat) are okay. Other members of the family were intolerant to potatoes and I think it’s related to a particular gene. It’s easy at home now I know this but harder if we try and eat out.

Yes to dietician referral.
Also, join allergy groups online/follow people on social media with same struggles.

Have faith that your child may grow out of some of them as they get older.

Otherwise, we cope by having no other choice. It's flipping hard, soul-destroying a lot of the time, our own diets suffer as a result of limited options and there is no fun in eating out. And oh yes, travelling to other cities and countries is a stress and I rarely ever get a day off in prepping food, even on holiday.

For Gf, I usually avoid bread as it's not much fun. I use a variety of crackers, rice cake, corn cake type things. They are satisfyingly crunchy compared to gf stuff that is usually very soft.

On the veggies front, maybe just chill on that for the moment. It's not great, but the most important thing is that the child is eating as balanced a diet as possible so stick to things they will eat. Kids often change what they like as they get older and in the meantime, be aware that DC is possibly getting stressed and brain-tired of eating new things 'in case' they have a negative outcome. My own DC is happy to have a boring, simple diet a lot of the time as it means no trips to hospital or a day lost feeling like crap. Sometimes they just need to eat food that will fill them up and isn't unhealthy and then get on with their day

Hugs to you though as it's an extra hard level of parenting that is tough to deal with and hard for others to understand

Is it a non-coeliac gluten intolerance, coeliac or an allergy to wheat?

If suspected coeliac then he'll need to be eating gluten for accurate testing. Coeliac also often goes hand-in-hand with lactose intolerance. DD is coeliac and did have a dairy allergy (eventually grew out of) but thankfully isn't lactose intolerant.

If it's non-coeliac gluten intolerance then you don't need to avoid cross contamination, or 'may contain' which makes life much easier!

If it's a wheat allergy then that is quite different to avoiding gluten.

As well as the dietician referral, the consultant should also be able to advise on introducing nuts.

You can use almond / rice / oat flour in bread/cake/pancakes. There’s plenty of fruit that isn’t banana and have you tried non-wheat carbs?

Rice, chickpea pasta, quinoa, corn… all wheat and dairy free carbs. South American dishes can be made with corn/maize carbs and beans which are nutritious and full of protein.

Chickpea flatbread (socca) is great with tomatoes and natural yoghurt

Hi- my daughter (11) can't have gluten/eggs. We also have to limit dairy/cane sugar. She had to do an elimination diet for a year with no potato/sesame/various other things. And she also hates vegetables! It was rough at first but now we are fine- it helped us to really look at what we were eating. I hope the below helps:

• We use rice flour and besan (chickpea flour) for everything. Buckwheat flour is great- we use buckwheat porridge. Corn flour ok when mixed with rice flour
• When we had to be strict on dairy we used pecorino (sheep's milk), not parmesan
• Rice rice and more rice as the basic carbohydrate!
• We avoid most GF packaged foods as they're ultra processed and what we bake at home is nicer. We bake with rice flour and agave/coconut sugar.
• What's helpful is that my daughter loves meat- so she'll eat steak, lamb, etc. She did get very tired of salmon though!
• There are lots of great gluten free pastas
• When we travel - Italy is great for gluten free options/pasta (though you might not think it!). French "Galettes" are made with buckwheat flour for example. And in France she loves all sorts of meat.
• For vegetables she does like raw carrot sticks dipped in hummus and she likes all sorts of fruit.
• Oh and for milk, she has unsweetened almond milk. We also tried goat/sheep yoghurt (fine when mixed with agave syrup and berries!)

I hope some of that helps!

I've been gluten free over 15 years and the range of food available is gotten so much better over the years. Schar us great range. I eat the Brown Ciabatta Rolls daily but they do need to be lightly toasted. Warburton do a lovely GF bread and Tesco have a huge Freefrom range of food nowadays and if no superstore close by you could get delivery. If making from scratch Doves Farm is a good option as other posters have mentioned and they do wide range of different flour including chickpea/gram flour/almond etc.

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They say ‘may contain’ on them? How safe are they?