Allergy Free Christmas!

IT’S CHRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSTTTMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAS! :D

Okay so I’m a bit late but lots of exciting stuff has all been happening at once and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and write yet!  In the last few weeks of term everyone was rushing round to see each other, there were parties and carol services and now I’m home there are more people to visit, more parties and carol services and essay deadlines are creeping closer! Being at Uni is strange, when you come home in the holidays it feels like you have two different lives, but that’s kind of nice though :D

At Christmas it’s always fun to think back over past years and thinking back I’ve realized how things have changed for me allergy wise. Although my allergy has become more severe I feel like I’ve learnt to cope with it better and that every year yet more amazing dairy free food has been unveiled!

The fun started back in the first week of December when I got to open my advent calendar! When I was younger they didn’t make dairy free chocolate advent calendars but my mum got me a giant felt one with pockets which she filled with sweets (I totally didn’t peek ahead and eat my favorite ones first…). About three years ago though dairy free chocolate ones appeared and I got to have my first ‘proper’ advent calendar!! This year someone from my church gave me one as a present and so me and my flat mate opened them together to count down the days until Christmas, how festive! :D 

We decided to have a Christmas meal together as a flat :D Together we cooked roast chicken, roast potatoes, parsnips, sweet potato mash, brussel sprouts, broccoli, pigs in blankets and stuffing! There are only four of us. We still managed to eat it all :D We used all my equipment and made sure hands and surfaces were well cleaned so that there was no cross contamination. My flat mates are really understanding of my allergy and we cooked together so that I could double check everything.

 Whilst the final bits of food were cooking I decided to use the opportunity to do some epipen training with them. I have a terrible confession to make : I have been friends with these guys for almost a year and a half now and had still not shown any of them how to use an epipen! It sort of defeats the point if you carry around epipens and then don’t show any one you know how to use them. Whenever I have gone into anaphylactic shock I have become too faint and disorientated to use my epipen. Once when I was at a restaurant with my friends from Sixth Form I had an allergic reaction but none of my friends knew how to use my epipen. A waitress said that she had a younger brother with diabetes who she helped to inject his insulin and so she did the epipen for me. Unfortunately she held my epipen the wrong way up so that when she tried to stab it into my leg she actually ended up stabbing herself in the thumb! Apparently this is quite a common thing to happen! It resulted in us both being carted off to hospital in an ambulance, her to have her thumb drained of the adrenaline so that she didn’t have to have it amputated and me having medicine pumped into my vein in the ambulance because I hadn’t had my epipen and was even more ill than usual! It was horrible seeing my poor mum’s face when I arrived in A and E almost half an hour later than her, and I would have been far less ill than if one of my friends had been able to inject me correctly from the beginning.

I have an epipen trainer kit with a practice epipen in it, so that when I show people how to use an epipen they can actually have a go!

Here are the steps for how to use an epipen, in my own words:

1. Keep calm- I know it sounds obvious but panicking really is the worst thing to do! Just stay calm and follow the steps carefully. After you have used the epipen chat with the person whilst you wait for the ambulance

2. Pull out the blue cap and hold the epipen in your firmly in your fist

3. Draw a cross with your finger on the person’s thigh so that you know where to aim for on their thigh (where the points of the cross meet)

4. Stab the epipen firmly into this point on the leg and listen for a click

5. Hold it in for ten seconds and then pull it out. Massage the area for a couple of minutes.

6. Call 999, ask for an ambulance and state anaphylaxis (If there is more than one of you there then one person should call the ambulance whilst the other one injects)

Encourage the person to lie down with their legs elevated or to sit down. The ONLY place you can inject an epipen is in the thigh and you must ALWAYS call an ambulance even if they seem okay. Keep calm and keep chatty :)

I’m going to make it a goal for myself to epipen train as many people as I can this year, not just for me but for anyone else who carries an epipen :D

That was Uni Christmas; home Christmas has also involved a lot of food! When I was a little girl I remember holding hands with my dad on a walk when my family all bought ice cream and I had a Calypso and saying to him, ‘I given up on some food because I know that I’ll never be able to have it. I really want to try them but I won’t ever be able to’. If only I could back in time (Ghost of Christmas past-style) and tell seven year old me, ‘Don’t worry, the future holds Dairy Free Cornettos and Chocolate mousse!’ Here is just some of the beautiful dairy free food I’ve been able to stuff myself with this holiday- take note of the aforementioned chocolate mousse which will be accompanying me to family gatherings and the gorgeously fat Chocolate Father Christmas! (My first ever one!)

Christmas is a time when we remember that Jesus came into the world as the light to defeat the dark things. Having an allergy can feel like a very dark thing. In the past I have lived in a world of fear unable to properly take part in events because I’ve spent the whole time terrified of the feeling of my throat swelling shut. But I know that I don’t need to live this life of fear because God defeated fear when he sent his son into the world to die and rise again, he wants me to live a joyful life!

I’m heading off now to eat my hundredth dairy free mice pie and watch ‘Love Actually’:D

Speak soon,

The Allergy Student xxx

Bake it off!

Heyyy!

Its that time of year again! The leaves are turning golden, people are beginning to debate whether it is acceptable to pull out a knitted cardigan yet and Newcastle is bursting with freshers desperately seeking out Primark’s last duvet. This can only mean one thing… GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF IS BACK ON THE TELLY!!!!! :D

As you can tell I am a massive Bake Off fan, I mean who isn’t?! When the BBC thought up a programme revolving around cake, bunting, Mary Berry’s many facial expressions, Paul Hollywood’s sarcasm, and cast Mel and Sue as presenters they must have known they were on to a winner. Someone in the Beeb definitely got a promotion that day. So far this year we’ve seen some spectacular lion shaped bread, cried over the injustice of Ian winning star baker three times in a row (I mean come on, Nadia made cream soda cheesecake!) and discovered Paul’s secret love of bananas and custard. We’ve all chosen our favourites by now, (I’m Team Tamal but I also want Nadia to win??!), and yet again we’ve realised that we still haven’t got around to trying out a single Bake Off recipe ourselves.

But why am I fangirling over the show on this blog may ask? Is it that I am simply looking for more support for our favourite trainee anaesthetist? Well its because this year Bake Off took itself to a whole new level…they had a free from week!!

No joke, when they announced it on the week before I actually screamed! I was so so excited :D I was thrilled that they had included this as a speciality week not only to show the struggles that can occur when making food without a certain ingredient but also to show that it is possible to make free from food that looks and tastes spectacular. I am crazy about dairy free icecream (on a side note Tesco have made dairy free cornettos!! I amost cried :D ) so I cant wait to try out the dairy free arctic roll recipes.

As I’ve had my allergy since I was a baby my family and I have had many years to experiment with recipes, and it seems you can make pretty much anything without milk as long as you find a suitable alternative. Baking is sometimes the only option when looking for free from treats and so it’s a useful skill that I think everyone with an allergy should test out. Also as a student baking is a great way to make new friends. You’re new flatmates might think in freshers week that all they want to do is drink vodka and steal traffic cones but trust me, by the following week a slab of cake will be very much appreciated!

From a student’s point of view baking is also much cheaper than buying free from products which are often pretty expensive. For my birthday last year I had a pudding party where me and my friends just ate loads of cake, flapjack, marshmallow crispies, crumble and other baked food. As I can’t eat out in restaurants I thought it would be a fun (and cheap ;) ) alternative :D

If you’ve never baked before then you are missing out, it's honestly so much fun! I know that many people are scared to try it out but once you get started you’ll find it pretty addictive. I have seen many a good friend fall prey to procrasti-baking during exam time. Here is a recipe that I could not survive without both at home and at Uni. Its easy and very cheap to make, also its pretty hard to go wrong even if you’re like me and working with an oven which has all the temperatures rubbed off!

My recipe is pretty simple but if you want to try something a bit more Show-Stopperish check out this recipe for Dairy free caramel apple cake: http://ecstaticallyem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/gbbo-week-5-caramel-apple-cake-dairy by my friend Emily. I can’t wait to try this one out because this girl knows her cake :D

I hope you enjoy having a crack at baking and remember: you’re not in the Bake Off tent, Mary and Paul can’t hurt you and your flapjack here.

Love from The Allergy Student xxx

Dairy Free Flapjack Recipe

·      6oz/ 170g dairy free margarine (I use Vita-Lite, but whatever floats your boat)

·      6oz / 170g caster sugar


·      2tbsp golden syrup


·      8oz/ 227g porridge oats




Extras

If you’re feeling fancy you could add dried fruit, seeds, nuts or cinnamon to the mix. I like it just as it is :)

1. Preheat the oven to 160c. Line a deep rectangular tray with baking paper.

2. Place the margarine in a pan, heat gently, stirring with a wooden spoon until it has all melted. Stir in the sugar.

3. Add the syrup, stir and then remove from the heat.

4. Stir in the oats a handful at a time.

5. Pour the mixture into the lined tin and smooth it out (wet a metal spoon and use the back of it to spread the mixture out)

6. Place in the oven on 160c, for 25 mins.

7. Remove from oven, use a knife to mark it out into whatever size pieces you want. Allow to cool and then eat it all!!!!!!!

Every time I make this it turns out a bit different depending how long its left in the oven, whether I’ve put it on a rack to cool or how much I’ve eaten whilst making it! But it always seems to taste good :D

The Allergy and Free From Show

Greetings :D

First of all apologies, I realise I have not written anything for months and months and I am deeply sorry and ashamed. I hope to make up for it in the next couple of months by bombarding this blog with post after post!

Today I thought I’d write about a little (and by little I mean MASSIVE) event called…. The Allergy and Free From Show!

Let me take you back in time three years ago, to when I was seventeen years old and studying my AS Levels, to a conversation between me and my mum…

Mum: *Excited* ‘I have booked tickets to the Allergy and Free From Show!’ :D

Me: ‘Argh why? I’ve survived this long with an allergy, I don’t need a bunch of experts telling me how to cook and being sympathetic.’

Mum: *Looks sad/annoyed* ‘Well we’re going’

So that was that. But why was I so against this event you may ask? It’s because as soon as I heard the name of the event I assumed I knew what it would be like, and I did not like what I imagined. I thought it would be a sort of festival for moaning and attention seeking. In my head I imagined a group of people crying and hugging in a group as they swapped tales of the difficulty of obtaining organic soya hummus when travelling. And I did NOT want to become a hummus hugger :O

The day of the show arrived and as I trudged into the huge showroom I was hit by an overwhelming realisation: I owed my mum an apology.

The room was packed with stands boasting a huge range of Free From  products, from chocolate bars and puddings to curry sauce and smoothies. There was literally every type of food available, you could try them for free and when you actually decided to buy them they were all discounted! Seriously it was like the UCAS fair but instead of prospectuses and free pens you got free food!!!! (Now I think about it I think I got some free pens too, could it get any better?!)

It was so cool being able to actually try samples of stuff, normally if someone offered me a sample of food I would never be able to try it but here most stuff was dairy free! Obviously it varied from stall to stall, some foods were just gluten free, others just dairy free but some were free from practically everything!

We spent a long time browsing and eating and I ended up spending about twenty quid on food- a wise buying decision ;) My cousin and my uncle also went to the show, they are both coeliac (intolerant to gluten) and they stocked up on gluten free beer because they were selling it at such a reduced price!

I discovered a whole range of products I’d never even heard of and got to sample food that I wouldn’t usually try but found that I loved. My favourite find has to be Pudology. They are a company that make gourmet dairy free and gluten free puddings and they taste like nothing else on earth! The thing I love about Pudology is that even though they are free from a number of main allergens even people who have no allergies could buy and enjoy them, they taste absolutely amazing!! Pudology were only starting out as a small company at my first Allergy Show and their products were only available online. This meant that I probably wouldn’t have found them on the Internet unless I knew what I was looking for. By going to the Allergy and Free From Show you not only get to try new food but you support those who are putting the time and effort into making quality free from products. Nowadays Pudology is available in Holland and Barrat and even in some supermarkets. An event like the allergy show helps these companies gain more customers which means free from products will be more easily available- it’s a win win situation!

When and where can I attend this event I hear you cry? Well sadly the Allergy and Free From Show in London has already taken place this year BUT if you’re a Northerner (Or just fancy a trip to Liverpool) the tickets for the Allergy and Free From Show North are available now from the Allergy UK website. The show will take place in Liverpool in November. Tickets are FREE and you get an unlimited amount of them! I do advise you take some spending money with you though; you will NOT be able to resist the amount of food!

So the moral of the story is don’t judge something before you know what it’s about!  I hope you can make it to an allergy show this year, and I hope you get to eat as much food as I did J

Love,

The Allergy Student x

Eating Out

Hey There! :D

So this time I thought I’d write about a topic that has been a major issue for me in the last few years… EATING OUT! :O

It’s amazing how much of our social lives revolve around food! This is a good thing because food is nice, as I may have mentioned before. Not so long ago though I developed a real fear of eating out, which was difficult because I soon realised how often I get invited to events involving food! Birthdays, weddings, just going to a friend’s house, going out for coffee, BBQ’s, church meals and probably the one I dreaded the most, buffets :O My fear wasn’t completely irrational. Most of the reactions I’ve had have come from eating out where it is a lot harder to control what has happened to your food. Despite making it very clear in two different restaurants about the severity of my allergy I still ended up having anaphylactic shock and being carted off to hospital. It was disappointing but a big relief when I went to see the immunologist and he told me I should never risk eating out again. After these two reactions I went through a period of being completely terrified of my allergy. It felt like something that controlled me, I questioned every single bite of food and so didn’t enjoy food as much. As time has gone by however my attitude towards eating out has changed. As a Christian I believe my life shouldn’t be ruled by fear because Jesus has defeated the dark things of the world and he wants me to live a life of hope. I shouldn’t have to waste time panicking and worrying when I could be having fun with my friends! I’ve realised that I can be careful and enjoy eating out. So Without further ado here are some of the ways I’ve found have helped me when I’ve eaten out.

In the past if I was invited to go to a restaurant I would make sure I’d eaten before I went. Since coming to Uni though it occurred to me that when I’m with a group of friends who are paying for food the restaurant shouldn’t mind me bringing my own. I tried this out with a few restaurants in Newcastle. I decided to email them in advance to warn them and explain to them why exactly I needed to bring my own food. I thought this would be polite but would also educate them about the severity of allergies. Sitting in a restaurant with an empty plate in front of you is weirdly isolating, I don’t know why but when I ate before I came as soon as the food arrived I felt like I couldn’t properly join in conversation. The restaurants I sent the email to answered me straight away saying I was welcome to bring food! The staff were really helpful, they even brought the wine out for me to check the ingredients to see if it had milk in it. (This may sound crazy but I have found it’s been made in a factory with milk before!) It was great being able to eat with everyone else and I felt so much more included.

Something else I think is important is to enjoy creating the meal you are going to take. I always try and go with the same type of thing everyone else is eating, so for example if I was going to an Italian place I’d make pizza or pasta or if I was going to a Chinese restaurant I’d probably take noodles. If you’re unsure of the type of food the restaurant serves then just check out there website, they aways put up loads of pictures of their food. On the other hand you could take whatever you want! That’s one good thing about my allergy- I always know I’ll like the food I get ;) I think it’s worth putting the effort in to create something really nice that looks appetising. When you’re making it the night before you might not be too bothered but when you sit down in the restaurant and you see everyone else’s food you’ll want something good!

 I have also become weirdly obsessed with Tupperware! It might sound odd but I think if you bring your food in a box or bag that looks interesting it feels less weird than turning up with it in a carrier bag. It involves being more organised- I am not a very organised person but having to always plan food ahead is actually teaching me to be! It’s not just eating out at restaurants, at Uni I often stay behind for societies and events and so I have to remember to take my food with me.

As for taking food to people’s houses I’ve found that all my friends are very understanding. If I’m sleeping over I need to remember to take food for each meal as well as snacks to share, I always have so many bags! People often offer to cook with me but it’s just too risky. I need to use separate cooking equipment and check that absolutely every ingredient hasn’t been anywhere near milk. I love the fact that my friends are so desperate to include me but it’s always better to stay safe.

 On a final note, even though I know the chances are very slim of me having a reaction when eating out as I always take my own food, I never leave my epipen behind. Wherever I go I always take two with me just in case J The size of your handbag isn’t something you’d think having an allergy would effect but trust me it does! I always have to make sure when I buy a handbag that’s it’s big enough to fit two epipens, an inhaler, my tablets as well as purse, keys and phone!

 This has made me wonder though what guys with allergies do with all their medication? I just wondered if there’s anyone out there on the Internet who has the answer to share with others? Do you take a bag, or do you buy trousers with huge pockets??? Comment below and let me know :D

Well that’s it for this post, it was a bit of a long one!

Speak soon, love from,

The Allergy Student

xxx