Eat Out ... Soy Free

Eating out has been a big topic of discussion lately. My sister came to visit for the wedding a few months ago, and she really wanted to go out to eat. Actually, a large portion of my family did -- so we could all get together, and chat, hangout and of course - stuff our faces :)

This is a huge stresser for me because I am always leery of trusting anyone other than myself to prepare my food. I mean, a tiny bit of soy and I am done for.

So we took some precautions, and it was super successful.

I played it safe with a salad, dressing on the side, and a scratch made soup that I drilled the waitress over. The salad was delicious, and it was so nice to actually have someone else cook for me. I have always loved eating out, and it is one of the things that I miss caused by my allergies. (It was also my first time eating out in a year, so I am sure you can understand my enthusiasm over what I ordered.)

Here are some tips for eating out with an allergy:

1.) Choose your restaurant very carefully. We selected a small, family owned location, that offered scratch made food. This is huge for me, because it meant that I was able to find out exactly how my food was made, and all of the ingredients. There was no guessing done by the waitress -- if she didn't know, she would go back and ask the chef. If you are unsure if you will be able to eat where everyone else wants to go, look online to see if their menu is posted, or call ahead and speak with someone.

2.) Ask lots of questions and thoroughly read the menu. Many menus will list what is in an item, and more and more are listing if they have allergens in them or if they are gluten free. If you are unsure, ASK! If your server doesn't know, ask to speak with a manager about safe options for yourself. Don't worry that you are being a pain - your the customer, and your health is the top priority.

3.) Make sure you dining partners know where your medicine is just in case. Even though I was very careful in selecting my meal, I still made sure my sister and my mom knew where my Epi Pen was, and how to administer it, just in case. You can't really explain this to someone when your throat is closing, so take a few seconds to let them know what's up before you start eating.

In my experience, more and more places are being allergy friendly... or at least more aware. No, most chain restaurants are not, but its the little mom and pop eateries that are. Plus, scratch made food just tastes better, so they are really worth searching out.

Do you have any tips for dining out with an allergy?

So What CAN I Eat?

What can I eat? Not much it feels like.

I have gone to a mostly clean diet - eating whole, local foods ... including exclusively grass fed meat and dairy.

But I do think that I will have to cut out dairy for now. I cannot seem to find a milk that I like (and I am not really digging raw milk) and cheese contains enzymes that *may* be made from soy.

Clean eating is a bit of a switch for me. While I have always tried to eat healthy - lots of fruits and veggies - I also like some junk food now and again. And the convenience of grab and go is hard to let go of.

So adjusting to making everything from scratch is a bit hard.

I do have a semi-local farm store (its about 45 minutes from me) that has its own grass fed beef, and makes a plethora of products with minimal ingredients and no additives. So that is positive.

The negative ... the last two times I went there I spent a fortune on not that much food.

The hardest thing for me right now is how limited I feel. I still have not found eggs that are not fed soy, and beef is the only grass fed meat I have been able to lay my hands on. While I like beef, I was trying to eat a mostly plant based diet prior to this and that isn't really working out!

I can have beans... I am just afraid to eat them at this point. Beans are in the same family as soy and I am worried that they will cause a similar reaction. I know, it sounds a little silly, but the throat closing feeling is really something that I don't ever want to experience again.

Some foods I am LOVING right now:

• Carrots
• Apples
• Cucumbers
• Lettuce
• Grass Fed Beef
• Fresh Homemade Bread
• Homemade Granola
• Raw Pumpkin Seeds
• Fresh and Frozen Berries
• Brocolli
• Asparagus
• Potatoes
• Brown Rice
• Homemade Empinadas
• Bananas
• Banana Bread/Muffins (Homemade)
• Applesauce (Homemade)
• Homemade Baked Potato Chips
• Yeast Bagels
• Homemade Pizza with grass fed fresh mozzarella
• Roasted Veggies

I know, I know.... A pretty limited list. But this is up from what I was eating last week - so this has been a much better week then last week! As I get more confident with what I can have, I keep adding more things in. I have a doctors appointment in about 2 weeks, and I am hoping that they can really give me some good guidelines for what to avoid and what (fingers crossed for beans!) will be okay to eat again.

Wait? Is There Soy In This?

Because soy is a top 8 food allergy, you would *think* it would be fairly easy to spot on ingredient labels.

It isn't always.

While companies are required to disclose if a product contains soy, it doesn't have to disclose if one of the ingredients are made with with they deem to be a "negligible" amount of soy.

Here are some common forms of soy found in foods (some may or may not be made of soy - you would have to contact the manufacture to be sure):

• Hydrolyzed soy protein (HSP)
• Mono- and di-glycerides
• MSG (monosodium glutamate)
• Soy
• Soy lecithin
• Soy protein (concentrate, hydrolyzed, isolate)
• Soybean oil
• Teriyaki sauce
• Textured vegetable protein (TVP)
• Natural Flavoring
• Bulking agent
• Hydrolyzed plant protein (HPP) or hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP)
• Gum arabic
• Guar gum
• Lecithin
• Mixed tocopherols
• Stabilizer
• Thickener
• Vegetable gum, starch, shortening, or oil
• Vitamin E
• Enzymes
• Vegetable Rennet

Soy can also be found in the wax coating on vegetables, and in meats, milk and eggs where the animals were fed soy.

Did I miss any forms of soy?? Please comment with them if I did!

No More Soy

At 27 years old, it is a bit of a shock to suddenly have a food allergy.

It sucks to be totally honest.

I never had any real food sensitivities until about a month and a half ago. I was on a diet program that was heavy in soy, and I made a shake with Almond milk and it all went down hill from there.

My throat started tingling and it felt like it was closing up on me. I, of course, was in pure panic mode. It was terrible.

At first I just thought that it was the almonds. I didn't eat almonds often, so I figured that they would be to blame. But, when I had a shake a few days later with regular milk, my throat reacted the same way and I knew I had a much bigger problem on my hands.

Truth be told, I wasn't too worried at first. Mainly because I had no idea how much stuff contained soy hidden within it. Once I started looking, I was shocked.

Soy is in everything.

It is in meat because almost all animals are fed some form of soy.
It is in most packaged foods.
It is in chocolate, butter, milk, cream, cheese, waffles, dips, dressings ... well you get the point.

And not only is it in food, but it is in tons of other products as well. Face wash, shampoo, hair dye, makeup...

It's literally everywhere.

It is no understatement to say that this new knowledge that I was bombarded with threw me into a bit of a funk. I was feeling depressed, overwhelmed, hungry and scared to eat anything.

It really came to a head when I ate two crackers while making lunch for the kids and my throat started closing. I piled the kids in the car and headed out for benadryl ... and I had a sever anxiety attack half way there.

Jay had to bring me to the doctors because I honestly thought I was dying. I thought that I was going to stop breathing, black out and crash my car. It was terrible.

The anxiety over what to eat got worse after that, and I am just starting to relax a bit as I have found some foods that I can actually eat.

I am getting back into the swing of cooking everything from scratch, and even then I am having a hard time finding the ingredients that I need.

I am hopeful that it will get easier .... I just hope it happens fast!