If you have issues with sensitive skin, and especially if you have recently been diagnosed with allergies or intolerances, you may want to take a long look at your soaps, deodorants, perfumes, and cosmetics bag and perhaps do a little purging this weekend. Many favorite name brand cosmetics and personal products are full of common allergens and known cancer causing toxins. After having had a few strange reactions after using popular drugstore brands over the years I finally switched to high end cosmetics only to find that even those irritated my skin. I soon became an occasional makeup wearer, but now there are better options available for women with sensitive skin and known allergies. Not only will your complexion improve, and your confidence, but you may actually feel healthier too. (more…)

If you have a full time job and are attempting your major allergy-friendly cooking on the weekends, then this recipe is just the thing you need for a fast semi-homemade meal in no time at all. From start to finish you can have this one on the table in 30 minutes, thanks to Eden Organics two awesome gluten and corn-free prepared canned items: Caribbean Rice and Beans, and Diced Tomatoes. This dish is also naturally dairy, egg, and soy free. Traditionally a spicy dish, my three boys ate this tasty lunch in stride with a touch of added honey.

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We like to make oatmeal once a week, now that we’ve been gluten-free for a year. There is a lot of controversy on the use of oats in a gluten-free diet, but several new studies have proved that as long as the oats are Elisa batch tested and are certifiably free from cross-contamination they are perfectly fine for celiacs.

Today there are several companies offering gluten-free oats in both Canada and the States, so do check out whether or not your local grocer would be willing to carry one or more brands for you. This dish is great for a weeknight. Yes, you heard me right. I said weeknight. Just simply dump all the ingredients into a 2 quart slow cooker just before you go to bed; set it on low and in the morning your breakfast is ready. This is the favorite breakfast dish in our house.

Our version is naturally corn-free, soy-free, and dairy-free. (more…)

So what do you do when Lay’s decides to add corn oil to your only safe corn-free vending machine junk food snack? Well, you start to think outside the box a little. We know there are other chips on the market that offer the consumer a corn-free experience, such as Cape Cod or Miss Vickie’s Vintage chips. But let’s face it, these are high end chips, and worse yet they don’t come in convenient individual sized bags for on the go allergy sufferers. We needed an alternative for our rainy day munchies and a fun and fattening episode of Paula Dean’s Home Cooking put some ideas into my little chef’s head. He decided we should deep fry something too. I wanted to chalk it full of veggies if I could, so I settled on three lovely and large sweet potatoes. (more…)

If you have drooled over the Starbucks bakery display or have dreamed of having just one more scone again, I am here to tell you that it is time to wake up and get cooking! Little chef and I bought a scone pan from Nordicware while at our local Dominick’s store, a Safeway affiliate. It wasn’t cheap, and I hesitated to buy it, but at the last minute I gave in to my little chef’s cajoling.

This morning we decided it was time to try it out. The pan is made out of heavy cast aluminum and it makes eight large triangular shaped scones. We altered the recipe supplied by Nordicware and had tremendous success! All three boys thought it was delicious, and I even caught little chef picking the crumbs off of his plate. I think our version was a bit on the sweet side (well at least for our tastes, as we have been low sugar for about a year now). But it may be perfectly suitable for the average sweet-tooth. To put it into perspective, my diagnosed son wanted to know why we were allowed to eat dessert for breakfast….. (more…)

The University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center will hold its next Annual Benefit on April 16, 2008. Tickets are on sale now for $150 a piece. The evening includes gourmet gluten-free dishes from more than a dozen of the nation’s best chefs and restaurants! Sponsored by Enjoy Life Foods, Whole Foods, William Blair and Company, Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Rice Works, and Bard’s Tale Beer. (more…)

Folks that are not allergic or intolerant to corn haven’t got a clue as to why or how this grain is such a time-consuming nuisance for its avoiders. The growing minority of people afflicted and those that care for them are painfully aware every time they go to the store in search of a liquid soap, bottle of shampoo, piece of fresh fruit, bag of potato chips, or powder for their baby’s bum. We have our own mantra. We hum it while we shop, a Bruce Springsteen tune with our own lyrics:

Corn. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing….. I’ll say it again…..

But in the eyes of the rest of the world the answer is EVERYTHING, according to Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis’s new documentary (more…)

If you are living in the Midwest or California, chances are you don’t know that disposing of your energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in the waste basket is against the law. Illegal, you ask, how can that be possible? Consumers are well aware that these new bulbs are much more energy efficient than the traditional incandescent bulbs, especially since we are bombarded regularly with advertising and news clips on how great this new technology is for our environment.

If you’ve recently installed some you no doubt have noticed that they take a while to heat up and tend to make a low buzzing noise. And if you are like me, you have even gotten a few duds that you’ve had to discard. No problem, right? Wrong. Fluorescent bulbs are made with mercury, a known neurotoxin, and if you live in the Midwest like I do it is actually illegal to just throw them in the trash. Worst yet, if you break one there is an 11 step protocol that you must follow to limit over contamination and risk the safety of your family. (more…)

This year for Dad’s birthday he had only one request: carrot cake. He’s not exactly gluten-free, but the rest of us are, so I decided to roll up my sleeves and get to work. I was pleasantly surprised with this one. It is a “from scratch” recipe, as sure sign that my gluten-free confidence is building. A year ago I would have never attempted such a feat. I researched ‘best’ carrot cake recipes of the traditional gluten variety and I finally settled on a game plan when I found a tried and true recipe from All Recipes.com that seemed to get the highest ratings from viewers. (more…)

I often joke that a year ago we could have been considered the “Mc Talty” family for all the times we would frequent McDonald’s. My then two year old was so familiar with the place that he felt compelled to point it out whenever we passed one in our travels. We’ve made a complete turn around since then, thanks in large part to our oldest son’s diagnosis of a chronic tic disorder and our subsequent discovery that he is allergic to wheat and corn and highly sensitive to gluten– three foods we since eliminated and made all the difference for him in his recovery.

This recipe is unique. What makes it special? It is not so much about the ingredients as it is about the preparation. You see, this Little Chef Salad is literally a salad made by my little chef, age 3, a former chicken nugget man turned foodie, a fella not diagnosed, but gluten free through association, and loving it. (more…)