Allergy-Friendly Packable Lunches

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As the mother of a child with multiple dietary restrictions (dairy and gluten), who attends a nut-free, fish-free and egg-free day care centre, I have been forced into a world of allergy-friendly cooking and baking. Not that I minded very much. As a culinary nutrition expert, this was an excellent chance for me to flex my culinary muscles and learn how so many Americans (15 million to be exact, including 1 in 13 children) live each day. Unfortunately, it appears that number is just going to continue to grow.

The Centre for Disease and Prevention released a study in 2013, which showed that food allergies among children had increased by 50% between 1997 and 2011.

What’s interesting is the new research that is coming out, that shows that a lack of healthy bacteria in the gut might be behind this growth in food allergies and that increasing the good bacteria in the gut could help reverse this sensitization to allergens. But until we have more definitive treatment options, what can we do? Well, obviously, for now, we can avoid the allergens in question. The main allergens, called the Big 8, are milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat and soy.

These 8 foods account for 90% of all food allergies in the US, which is why they are required to be identified on all food labels.

Besides avoiding the foods you are reacting to, you can also start to work on healing the gut and re-populating the gut with good bacteria. There are two important components to gut health. First, avoiding the inflammatory foods and toxins that may have contributed to poor gut health in the first place, and second, consuming foods and supplements that can actually help to heal the gut. A few gut health basics include feeding our children unprocessed, whole foods that are as close to their natural state as possible; avoiding pesticides by buying more organic foods; avoiding sugars by reaching for fruits instead of sweets and candy; eliminating inflammatory fats by reaching for healthier fats like olive oil, avocado, ghee, and coconut oil; consuming lots and lots of bone broth; and eating fermented foods which are high in natural probiotics. For more information on healing the gut, I highly recommend these articles by Chris Kresser and Dr Axe.

For now, let’s focus back on allergy-friendly, packable school lunches, which are another beast altogether, because now we need to be aware of everyone else’s allergies, as well as our own. So, to make it easier for you, I have summarized a list of links to our favourite, go-to, allergy-friendly recipes. Almost all of the recipes below are free of the top 8 allergens and for those that aren’t, I have listed substitution tips right next to each recipe, to make it easy peasy. Here are some of our favourites:

• Healthy Refried Beans n Turkey Sausages – we use organic, gluten-free, dairy-free, msg-free sausages
• Turkey Meatloaf Muffins – add shredded zucchini, sauteed mushrooms, celery or chopped swiss chard
• Sweet Potato n Refried Bean Burritos
• Waldorf Chicken Salad on Romaine Leaves – skip the walnuts, add some sunflower seeds and serve inside a romaine leaf
• Homemade Chicken Tortilla Soup
• Bean n Veggie Burgers
• Shrimp n Quinoa Salad – substitute chicken or pork for the shrimp

For snacks we usually keep it simple, sticking to chopped up veggies, cut up pieces of fruit or baked veggie chips with some kind of dip to make it more interesting. Here are some of our favourite dips:

• Diary-free ranch dressing
• Homemade Hummus
• Creamy Lentil Dip
• Roasted Carrot Hummus
• Black Bean Dip – use hemp milk instead of almond milk
• Vegetable Dip
• Dairy-free Poppyseed Dip – my all time favourite!
• Dairy-free Baba Ghanoush
• Dairy-free Berry Coconut Yogurt Dip -I used coconut yogurt instead of Kefir
• Dairy-free Caramel Sauce or 3 Ingredient Caramel Sauce

I hope this has provided you with enough ideas to at least get you through the first few weeks of allergy-free living. Stay tuned for my post next week, where we will cover vegan and vegetarian meal ideas.

Author information

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Michelle Vodrazka

Michelle Vodrazka is a holistic nutrition and lifestyle coach, author, and culinary nutrition expert, specializing in body transformations, sports nutrition, fat loss and health makeovers. Michelle has written two cookbooks, Smart Snacking for Sports and is currently working on her second cookbook, Help Yourself to Seconds. You can find Michelle's blog posts, recipes and services on her website www.inspiredbodies.com.

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