Breakfast Cereal Ideas

Just received this email from a reader looking for breakfast cereal ideas:

I have a daughter who is allergic to oats and a son who has a food intolerance to oats.  We are currently running out of breakfast ideas for our family and in particular are looking for a hot ceral for the morning that does not include any of my daughters other multiple life threating food allergies.  We are looking for a ceral or hot breakfast idea that does not include the following eggs,oats,peanuts,treenuts,shrimp,fish,kiwi,banana,red dye or avacodo.  We are lucky we do not have a diary allergy so it can contain milk.

Any help would be great.

Anybody have any ideas? It seems to me that most rice and wheat-based cereals would be okay. I really wish there was a searchable database of food ingredients out there. The information is public. We just need somebody to put it all together!

Substitute for Quick-Cooking Oats?

Hi, all. A reader wrote in with this question:

I ran across your site when googling for a substitute for oats in baking. If you have a moment, could you help me plan for an oat-allergic guest?

Do you know what I might use as a substitute for quick-cooking oats in a scone recipe? I suspect that the oats are there partly to absorb liquid and to provide texture, but I’m no Einstein when it comes to baking.

Any suggestions?

Our daughter outgrew her oat allergy before we had to worry about baking alternatives, so I don’t have an answer. Does anyone else?

Oats in Frozen Whitecastle Burgers—Any Other Odd Places You Know Of?

I’ve resorted to really only posting to this blog when content comes in from readers, and today is a good example. Reader Shauna wanted to share one of many foods that contains oats that you really wouldn’t expect to:

Sometimes there are oats found in foods you’d never expect. Frozen Whitecastle burgers contain oat fiber. Thankfully I never eat them because of the fat content, so no near fatal reactions, but I thought I would let your readers know.

Do you have any other foods that contain oats that you wouldn’t expect to?

Barenaked Ladies: Allergies

Having little ones, I’m often on the lookout for some kid-friendly music that isn’t… horrible. So, while I’m not a huge Barenaked Ladies fan, I was interested to see they recently released Snacktime, an album chock full of kid-friendly tunes.

I was very interested to see there was a track called “Allergies” (listen to a clip on Amazon). It is wonderful. It might be a bit rockin’ for some kids’ tastes, but I’m raising mine on the crazy rock music, so they love it.

Of course, however, no references to oat allergies in this one…

Anyone with a Malt Allergy, Too?

Since I know nothing about a malt allergy, I wanted to toss this question out to the readers:

I just recently was diagnosed by a food allergist with allergies to Oat and Malt.
I was not allergic to Wheat- and was also tested for gluten sensitive and celiac- all came back clear.

So my question is: Is there anyone oat the allergic to Malt? Was does that mean? I know you are a website for Oat and that is easy to see in ingredients and plenty of things I can find to eat without Oats, but not Malt. I am new to this whole food allergy thing and can find nothing on Malt allergy. Please help my stomach is ugh! and I am hungry for something other then just fruit, veggies and meat:)

Thanks
NM

Can anyone help?

Seeking Pointers for Someone Just Diagnosed

I received this email from Jennifer a little while ago. Her daughter was recently diagnosed with an oat allergy. Here’s what she’s asking:

My name is Jennifer. I have a 2 1/2yr old daughter, who has been diagnosed with an allergy to Oat.  I don’t know where to begin, or what to do, when it comes to feeding her. She loves helthy foods, but I’ve realized, a large portion of food…contains Oat…also, she has an allergy to Mold….and there are also many foods that contain “mold” something or others….yeast, vinegar, and a whole list of other things…I don’t know what to do, and I would like to have some questions to ask her allergy doctor. If anyone cold help, I would appreciate it.

Thank you again
Jennifer and Kyra-Mae

Last year (when she was around 2 1/2), we found out that our daughter had outgrown her oat allergy. So, the first thing I’ll offer is that there is hope she’ll grow out of it. I’d say the two toughest products to buy when there’s an oat allergy involved are breads (so many have oats) and bath products (again, it’s in a LOT of them). Cereals, of course, have a lot of oats but there are many corn or rice cereals out there, too.

I’m curious if your daughter was just diagnosed because she only recently started showing symptoms or if this is finally an answer you got to something that has been bothering her a long time.

Anyone else have any input?

An Oat-Free Alternative to Granola

Reader Shauna writes in:

As a person who cannot tolerate the standard granola, gorp or most trail mixes; I have found that Sahale brand snacks are a great alternative and can be found easily at amazon.com and in many grocery stores.

I had never heard of Sahale Snacks, so I took a look. Amazon provides information about the brand:

Josh Schroeter and Edmond Sanctis, co-founders of Seattle-based Sahale Snacks, developed their initial product line of premium nut blends beginning in the summer of 2003, after they returned from climbing Mt. Rainier in Washington State. “Overloaded on uninspired trail mix and stale bin nuts, we were motivated to create a natural and healthy snack that tasted like great food,” they said. “We used tree nuts as the basis of the blends and tested hundreds of recipes, combining natural and organic ingredients. In January 2004, we hit the market with four all-natural snacks with unique regional ingredients and spices, including Moroccan harissa, naturally dried papaya, and organic balsamic vinegar.”"We stick to a simple idea: use only whole foods in their natural form, avoid processed and artificial ingredients, add ‘culinary magic,’ and produce great-tasting, nutritious snacks.”

Check out all the options on Amazon or check out their web site. And thanks for writing in, Shauna!

What’s Your Story?

I haven’t been very good about posting new content here. Hopefully a reader can help kickstart things. Laurens wrote in with his story about his oat allergy:

Good Morning,

I just started researching this issue and came upon your site while searching “oat allergy”. It did not surface when I searched “oat sensitivity”.

Here’s my story. I’m a healthy 46 year old male. As far as I know I’ve never been allergic or sensitive to any food or anything to that matter. I’ve always eaten a widely varied diet – usually very healthy, whole-grains non-fat this and that, the occasional double cheeseburger as well.

I used to eat processed breakfast cereal until about 7 years ago, when I started eating cooked crushed 9 grain cereal from the health food store bin. A couple years ago I ran out of this a few times and had my wife’s Quaker Oatmeal Squares. Of course at first I didn’t notice the correlation, but it soon became clear that when I ate this for breakfast, at about noon I would start having diarrhea, which would last for several hours. Finally I realized the connection and just stopped eating this cereal.

A few months later I was visiting some friends who ate Cheerios, and had the same effect. After this I stopped eating any whole oat cereal and have not suffered again, even though my cooked cereal contains some oats.

Yesterday my wife bough Life cereal on sale. I suspected trouble, but tried them anyway as an experiment – one that cost me a good nights sleep. The diarrhea returned.

So, I know what to do to stay feeling good – don’t eat a whole oat only product. But, I’ve never even heard of this type of sensitivity and most of the web links are for babies and children. Nothing so far about such a problem being acquired at middle age.

Note: Until I started my crushed grain cereal regimen I ate the processed all-oat cereal products with no deleterious effects.

That’ my story. Thanks for being here.

So, please share your story in the comments. How did you diagnose the allergy? How long ago was it? What are you finding helps you deal with it?

Laurens, thanks for sharing!

Taco Bell Uses Oats as a Preservative

I just received this email from a reader named Shauna today. She had a terrible reaction after eating at Taco Bell.

I am 31 years old and highly allergic to oats. I ate at Taco Bell and wound up with a reaction so bad that I wound up in the emergency room after giving myself an epi-pen injection and had to have several breathing treatments. Turns out that Taco Bell uses oats in their meat to make it go further. I just wanted to warn you and others with oat allergies.

Thanks for the note, Shauna. One actual advantage of eating fast food (probably the only one, besides convenience) is that the chains tend to list their ingredients online. I skipped over to tacobell.com and looked up their ingredients list (direct link to PDF here). Quite a bit of oats in there.

Seasoned Beef Beef, Water, Seasoning [Isolated Oat Product, Salt, Chili Pepper, Onion Powder, Tomato Powder, Oats, Soy Lecithin, Toasted Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Maltodextrin, Sugar, Soybean Oil (Anti-Dusting Agent), Black Pepper, Oregano, Cumin, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Caramel Color, Cocoa Powder (Processed With Alkali), Lactic Acid, Natural Flavors, Natural Smoke Flavor, Modified Corn Starch], Salt, Sodium Phosphate. CONTAINS SOYBEAN, GLUTEN 

Furthermore, I saw oats and oat product in the chili and oat fiber in the taco shell.We rarely eat out for this very issue, but we certainly gravitate towards establishments that publish their ingredients online.

Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Our daughter just had her third birthday party this past weekend. She has grown out of her oat allergy but still has dairy and peanut allergies. For her first birthday, we tried to please everyone. We had dairy-free foods for our daughter and a wide variety of foods for everyone else. The problem with that is you need to make sure she isn’t touched by hands with ice cream, isn’t handed a piece of the wrong cake, etc. For her second birthday, we went all dairy-free. Unfortunately, serving the average kid Tofutti ice cream results in more than a few scrunched faces.

This year we just went simple. We didn’t bother with ice cream. We made dairy-free cupcakes and cookies. We had a veggie spread (with Italian dressing because we have not found a dairy-free Ranch dip), chips and salsa, and fruit. And nobody noticed that it was completely dairy free.

The chocolate chip cookies, in particular, were quite tasty. We figured we’d share the recipe below.

Dairy-free Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) softened Willow Run soybean margarine
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 10 oz package of Sunspire Tropical Source Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
  • (Dairy free and gluten free, though this recipe is NOT gluten-free)

Preheat oven to 375°. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 9 to 11 minutes until edges are golden brown. Makes five dozen cookies.

The chocolate chips taste so much like regular chocolate chips that nobody noticed they were dairy free. In fact, we received many positive comments on the cookies.

Have recipes of your own to share? Please send them to oatallergy@gmail.com.