101 Recipes for GLUTEN-FREE Microwave Mug Cakes, by Stacey J. Miller

Do you or someone you know have a food allergen problem? I do and it is not always easy to handle. At times it can be hard to find really good food for them to eat and enjoy. Due to the fact that food allergies are becoming more and more prevalent, allergy free recipe books are starting to pop up all over the place. One book in particular, 101 Recipes for GLUTEN-FREE Microwave Mug Cakes, by Stacey J. Miller has become a household favorite of ours. If you are gluten intolerant and love cakes, this book is for you. Of course, you can use the book even if you are not gluten intolerant. There are cakes in here that everyone can enjoy.




*Click here to order the book* 

First of all, there are 101 different gluten-free microwave mug cake recipes. That alone should be exciting enough for someone who is gluten intolerant to want to own the book. That is over a cake a day for the next three months!!! Another great thing is that they take only 10 minutes or less to make from start to finish. All you do is mix the ingredients together, pour it into a mug, put it in the microwave and wait for it to finish. It is as simple as that.

Just to give you and idea of what is in the book, I have listed a couple of mug cakes below:

Very Cherry Microwave Mug Cake

Banana Chocolate Chip Microwave Mug Cake

Strawberry Cheesecake Microwave Mug Cake

Coffee Cheesecake Microwave Mug Cake

Lemon and Lime Microwave Mug Cake

Pina Colada Microwave Mug Cake

Beside every recipe, there is a small note with a whimsical statement or question for you to answer. Also at the top of some recipes, you will find icons that let you know if it calls for 'no eggs, dairy, sugar, or oil'. Another interesting tidbit is that at the back of the book, the recipes that require no eggs, dairy, sugar, or oil are all organized by their ingredient category. So if you are making one of these cakes for someone and they cannot have eggs, you can look down the list of all the cakes that do not require eggs and find one that they like. 

All in all, it is a great book filled with tons of single-serving cakes to make. And they are so simple that a child can even make them. So, grab the book, a mug, the ingredients, and pop it in and out of the microwave and enjoy a gluten-free mug cake.

I want to thank Stacey J. Miller for providing me a copy of the book for an honest review.



Parsley ~ An Actual Food Allergy

There are so many different types of foods that children or adults can be allergic to. Sometimes I am not sure if my daughter is just not feeling well or if she is really having an allergic reaction. Most of the times her reactions to certain foods is pretty much clear cut, but then there are those times when she just vomits (pardon my words) hours later and has no other reaction with it. Those are times when I am left wondering if it is truly something to be avoided or not.

A while ago we had a big dinner at my parent's house. Everything was "food safe", so my daughter could eat until her heart was content. At least that is what I thought. A new item that was presented was red potatoes with parsely and olive oil. Now looking at that, you wouldn't think that it would affect someone in any way whatsoever. But later that night, she got up out of her bed and told me she felt sick. She then went into the bathroom and plopped herself in front of the toilet. I have been blessed to have a young child who can tell me she is going to be sick and still make it to the bathroom before throwing up. As gross as this may sound, I have been in the habit of checking her vomit to see what has made her sick. This time it was red potatoes and parsely. Wow, who would have thought that would be the thing to make her sick!

Today I decided to look on the internet and see if someone could really be allergic to parsely. Can you believe it, you can. I have always kept her from it after that one incident, but that is just because I tend to get paranoid when she has any type of reaction to food. On Wikipedia I found out that parsley is part of the Birch family. Some of the other foods in the Birch family are: almonds, apples, apricots, avocados, bananas, carrots, celery, cherries, chicory, coriander, fennel, fig, hazelnuts, kiwifruit, nectarines, parsley, parsnips, peaches, pears, peppers, plums, potatoes, prunes, soy, strawberries, wheat, and potentially walnuts. After seeing this I thought that I should have done research on it sooner. She happens to be allergic to almonds, hazelnuts, wheat, and walnuts. It is hard to say what to avoid and what not to avoid. She can eat apples, bananas, carrots, celery, cherries, soy, strawberries and wheat (her number for this is so low she is not affected by it) without a problem. Unfortunately, it is going to have to be a guessing game for me for the rest of her life.

Copyright © 2010 Allergykidmom. All rights reserved

Food Allergy Appointment #2

How many people have had to sit and watch their child get their blood drawn over and over again? Well, because of my daughter's food allergies, from time to time I have to go through this process. To think that for the rest of her life she may have to succumb to this just to see if her RAST numbers have changed is daunting for me.

I first had her tested when she was around 3 or 4 years old. The results came out showing she had several nut, pet, and outdoor allergies. What her allergist didn't explain to me was that we had to come back every so many years to keep getting tested. I found this out through the many people I follow on Twitter (thank you fellow twitterers). They were discussing how they were taking their children back in to get tested. So I decided to set up an appointment and talk to my daughter's allergist.

After viewing her old test results, her allergiest came to the conclusion that her numbers weren't as high as I assumed they were. Her allergist then said that she may actually outgrow them. I previously read, once you have a peanut allergy, you have it for life. I thought this was how her life was going to be forever. Knowing that she could actually outgrow them makes me believe that she has a chance to have a "normal" life after all.

Now began our RAST number conversation. First and foremost, a RAST (radioallergosorbent test) test is a blood test that measures the level of allergen-specific IgE (immunoglobulin E) in your blood. She explained to me if your RAST numbers are very high (level 5 and above) then chances are you will not outgrow them. Or more importantly if you are an adult and get diagnosed with a peanut allergy, you will not outgrow it either. Seeing how her peanut RAST number is a 12.80 (level 3), her allergist wants to test her again and see if they have gone down. If her RAST number for peanut is 5.00 or below, her allergist would like to conduct a food challenge.

Right now I am just waiting for the blood test results to come back. And once they do, it will determine where we will go from here.

 

Copyright © 2010 Allergykidmom. All rights reserved

Can Nut Allergies Equal Poor Health?

I was reading an article regarding how beneficial the consumption of nuts are to ones health. They play more of an important roll in our dietary plan than I had assumed.

According to Consumer Reports on Health, just a handful of pistachio nuts a day are very beneficial to the health of our hearts. Pistachios contain phytosterols. This is a substance that helps absorb cholesterol in our system. Pine nuts, sunflower seeds, and flax seeds are also high in phytosterols.

Nuts are also high in fiber and contain antioxidents. They also contain amino acid arginine, which helps boost your immune system and lower blood pressure levels. Most of them help produce serotonin in your brain, which can help keep you mellow. Another good thing about consuming nuts is that they help ward off heart disease. Nuts have also been noted as helping reduce strokes, type 2 diabetes, and dementia.

I realize that you can eat other foods to achieve most of the benefits you can receive from nuts, but wouldn't it be nice to just be able to pop a handful in your mouth and gain a little nutrients?

It worries me daily to think that my child could be missing out on simple health benefits because she is allergic to nuts. Of course it doesn't help that there are other healthy foods that she is also allergic to, preventing her from acquiring all the health benefits that she could use. It is a hope of mine that one day they can find a way to help all of the kids and adults who are allergic to nuts, so that they can also enjoy the great taste and health benefits from them as they rest of us do.