Fast Food

I have learned a lot from checking fast food websites! And, I have even called them and had them help me find something Jack can eat. Some are extremely helpful and some are not but we have definitely found us a variety so we are happy! This makes it so much more comforting to know that if I have to swing through a drive through I can now! It might not be extremely healthy but atleast I have options! ha

McDonald's- Jack get the hamburger happy meal with ketchup only. He can have the french fries! They say they have milk ingredients??? but we have NEVER had the slightest itch from this kids meal. The Sothern Style chicken sandwich is safe also. I just take the chicken out and cut it into pieces and he dips it in ketchup. He can have the whole sandwich but its kind of large for a kid.

Wendy's- Again Hamburger kids meal or even the Chicken Sandwich kids meal.

Back Yard Burger- All three kids meals are suppose to be Milk free (says on their site) but Jack has always eaten the Hamburger meal with seasoned fries (he loves those!) Please check the bread they use! I sometimes have to ask to read the label myself. B/c they don't usually look for whey and etc.. They only look for the word "Milk". Jack has been able to eat bread with Milk in it and have no reaction. This we found out by accident.

Sonic- Jack gets the number 7. Popcorn Chicken and Tater Tots. :) The chicken strips contain milk. Sonics 1800 number was extremely helpful. They called me back immediately and told me what Jack could have and not have.

NO CHICK FIL A!!!!! Sorry! It makes us sad also. But, we do take our Kids Meal from other places in there and let Jack meet up with his friends. They have never had a problem with us doing that. They have offered to make his chicken without dipping it in the milk but even the breading has milk ingredients. :((

Newks- Jack gets a pepperoni pizza with no cheese. Loves it!

McAllisters- Jack eats Hot Dog kids meal with barbeque regular lays, teddy grahams.

Papa Johns (and Dominio's)- we get hamburger or pepperoni pizza with NO cheese.

Nicer Restaurants- we usually always get hamburger patty and french fries. If they have that on the menu we can eat there as a family usually. :) Jack does like broiled shrimp and steak but just make sure to tell them to use NO butter!

Some waiters will look at you like you are crazy but I try to explain that his allergy is SEVERE like the peanut allergy and then they understand better.

When you have time, just pull up the places you like to eat and look through their menus. Or, even email them and ask. Our food list gets longer and longer everytime I do some research on the computer. Jack loves to try new things! And, now that he is getting older he will try more!

Chilli's- they have a food allergy menu they will give you!

PF Changs- they emailed me several items Jack could eat.

Sushi- Jack loves edamame, soup, and a plain shrimp roll (no cream cheese). Also, our local restaurant makes the chicken fried rice with no butter. He loves any kind of rice!!!

Lotions and Soaps

My sister reminded me today of a lotion that made Jack scream his head off as a baby. One day when she was visiting, we gave him a bath and he kicked and played loving it. That is, until I took him out dried him off and applied Johnson and Johnson's MILK bath lotion! We could not figure out what in the world was wrong?! This is, of course, before we found out he was allergic to milk. Milk Bath definitely has MILK in it! My poor angel! I had NO idea what I was doing to him. I still feel so guilty and wish if I had only know then that he had an allergy.

So, make sure you read the labels of your bath lotions, soaps and even shampoos. Just to be safe. If your baby gets a rash or says it is hot or cries after you use a product... Throw it away or give it away! You don't want anyone else to be able to find it in your house and use it again. The next reaction could be worse! Get rid of it.

(there is also a lotion made by Arbonne for children that has Milk in it)

Things Jack CAN eat :)

Here is a list of things Jack loves to eat:

Peanut Butter and Jelly (we use Sunbeam white bread, Whitewheat bread, or Bunny white bread)

Popsicles, Snow Cones, Icee's, Slushes
Pringles (Plain and B'que)
Sun Chips (Plain)
Peanuts
Popcorn (Natural flavor only)
Spaghetti (I use Prego Traditional-one of his favorite meals)
Oreo's (vanilla ones or chocolate-it is made with cocoa not milk choc. cocoa has no milk)Oh! and the cookie straws they make in the same brand! YuM!
Nutter Butters
Teddy Grahams
Jacks Butter Cookies (loves those! that is the actual brand name of them and they are circle cookies with the center out.)
Ritz Crackers
Campbells Tomato soup
Chicken Noodle Soup
Tyson Brand Chicken Nuggets
Hot dogs
Hamburgers
Ham Sandwiches
Graham Crackers (Honey Maid)
Blue Bird Honey Buns (Icing or No Icing--closest thing to a doughnut)
Pecan Wheels
Poptarts(Strawberry, Cherry, and Blueberry)
Lots of cereals: Fruit Loops, Regular Cheerios, Golden Grahams, Honey Smacks, Chex, Frosted Flakes and I'm sure there is more! Lots of safe cereals so that is good!
Fruit roll ups
Chewy Life savers
Skittles (Jacks favorite treat)
Kashi Tasty little cereal bars (straw and blueberry) this is the only cereal bar that is good that I have ever found
Ruffles (PLAIN)
Lays (plain and b'que)
Jack uses a thousand island for a dip sometimes (must read bottle) or salsa and sometimes just simple ketchup as a dip. At Mexican restaurant we order him his own bowl of quacamole-that way no one contaminates his dip with cheese dip!
Keebler Graham crackers "BUG BITES"
Mini Strawberry fig newtons (not regular fig ones)
Barnum's Animal Crackers
Wheat Thins

I have never found a Goldfish w/out milk! Even the pretzel ones contain milk. :( But, you can definitely do cherrios (NOT the yogurt one though!!!)
There is also not one single frozen pancake except for Vans brand and Jack still gags when you mention those. lol So, i use BISQUICK and SOY milk in it for our pancakes. No family member has EVER noticed any difference!
Martha White Blueberry and or Strawberry Muffins (mix with soy milk- I make them in a mini muffin tin pan and they are more kid friendly)

Jack drink the red carton of SOY MILK like it is the best thing ever! Sometimes for a special treat I put in some stawberry sugar free syrup and he loves that! Hersheys strawberry and Chocolate are also safe! Beware though once you start this they never won't plain milk again!

Biscuits:
The only canned biscuits I have found are usually the no name brand ones. Kroger carries a red can one that is milk free. So, look toward the bottom and you might find one. Jack loves jelly biscuits for breakfast and cinnamon toast too!

Butter:
We have always used Parkay squeeze butter! Not the spray and not the stick! The squeeze bottle is the only one that is only made with Soy! If you need a stick butter for a recipe, I use Blue Bonnet Light sticks. It is Milk free.

Chicken Nuggets (Because your not a kid unless you have eaten a chicken nugget!)
Tyson Brand makes several that are milk free but READ the label because of few of them contain milk! In my fridge now are the Tyson Breast Tenders, and the fully cooked "Chicken Nuggets". Jack loves tater tots with his! I have sworn several times that he was going to turn into a tater tot! ;)

Fish Sticks: We eat Mrs. Pauls crunchy fish sticks (green box, frozen food aisle)

Jack can't have macaroni and cheese but I do boil him some macaroni noodles and squeeze butter on them and he is happy!

Rice: OMG! Jack loves RICE! there is an Uncle Bens 90 seconds rice in garden vegetable rice he likes. He loves chicken fried rice, shrimp fried rice! You just have to make sure at restaurants that they don't make it with butter. We have recently gone to an hibachi place for the first time and finally figured out that if they make Jacks food first it won't be contaiminated with butter. They just make it with oil for him! This is his new favorite restaurant though we try to go early so there is not a huge crowd. That way they are not put out to make his first.

Ice Cream: Soy delicious in the organic section is milk free. It is okay. He will eat a little of it and then moves on. Haagen-Dazs makes a milk free sorbet in lemon, raspberry, mango and strawberry that are delicious!! You can get them in the pint size and they have there very own tube. Be prepared to get your own, because it is SO good! We like the strawberry the best.
Our local ice cream/candy store has a milk free Mango sorbet that is divine! I took it right out of Jacks hands and could have eaten the whole thing! For candy, he loves to fill up a bag with skittles. Bad for the teeth but atleast he can have something in the candy store! :) Also, TCBY makes a milk free sorbet but they don't always have it in. SHERBERT is different...it DOES have milk. So, don't get those confused!

As a toddler Jack loved the bite size Popsicle brand Mighty Mini popsicles (Walmart). They are just the perfect size not to make a huge mess all over the child or your house! They are great and a good small treat!

Lots of info...huh? Shew! I am tired. Next blog will be about fast food! :)

Severly Allergic to Milk does not mean Lactose Intollerant

I can't tell you how many times people have thought that Jack is just Lactose Intollerant. It is NOT the same thing! If Jack has one bite of Milk or any milk product his throat could close up and he could possibly stop breathing. I only wish he got a bad case of Diarrhea! Obviously, there is a BIG difference in a tummy ache and not being able to breath and swelling/itching all over.
It is definitely hard to be patient with family, friends, and people who just don't get it. I have to constantly remind myself to just help them understand and let it go. Part of me always wants to say...Do you think I am so protective of my child and what he eats because he might have diarrhea?!!!!!!
It is amazing how insensitive some people can be also. Our own relatives have gone on and on in front of Jack about how great a birthday cake looks, or how great the cookie they are eating is, or hands out ice cream to everyone and then jack himself has to say "I can't eat that. I am allergic to milk." I mean seriously you have known this child for four yrs of his life and you couldn't have left the chocolate candy bars in your purse until we left?!! grrrrrrrrrrrr!

Piece of Cake

One of Jacks favorite things in the whole world is a CUPCAKE! We make cupcakes ALL the time. I think the kids in our neighborhood think all we ever eat is cupcakes because we are always handing them out to our friends on the street. Jack literally begs to make them!

We make them for class parties, every birthday party we go to, holidays, and just for no reason at all. We are very lucky that Duncan Heinz yellow cake mix contains no milk (wheat only) and Pillsbury Funfetti vanilla icing (soy only) are two products that we always have around.

A few yrs into the allergy, we also found out that a local bakery has no milk in their icing and if we take them a box of Duncan Heinz they will make us a REAL birthday cake! You should have seen the smile when Jack had his first Lighting McQueen birthday cake of his very own.

By the way, we have several friends who have had there birthday cakes made so that Jack can have a slice of cake at his best friends birthday parties. Now, these are some incredible friends and we LOVE them for thinking of Jack!!! What a luxury for me to finally walk into a birthday party with only a wrapped gift.

I also have a neighbor who bought us our very own single cupcake holder. We put our cupcake in it and take it to the party. After Happy Birthday is sung, Jack will immediately say "Where's my cupcake?"

Playdates and Snacks

When Jack was about one and we would go play at a friends house, I would always bring a little bag full of snacks that Jack could eat. I would always bring enough for his friends bc everytime they would want to eat what Jack was eating. Every time! Plus, it took the pressure off of digging through whomevers cabinets looking for a milk free snack. It was so much easier just to take something with us. I also brought his own drink in a cup that he recognized so that he didn't pick up someone else's sippy cup full of milk.

Now, that he is older it is easier b/c I can explain that he can eat when we get home and he understands. Although, I have been at a bday party or two and there was not one single thing he could eat and guess what...he is standing there looking at me with his big brown eyes saying he is starving.

After Jacks diagnosis, I stopped eating things that he couldn't have in front of him for the most part. Unless, there was a milk free version he could have. Even my sister, and her boys only ate things Jack could have too around him. Jacks cousins Kyle and Austin are very aware of his allergy. They talk about it, and worry about him, and hope that it goes away so that he can eat ice cream with them. My sister, has been a huge source of support for me. She calls with new products she has found all the time. Her house is a safe place for Jack to be and I love them for that. It is a huge relief to drop him off somewhere and know that he will be ok. When the ice cream truck drives down her street, she read every ingredient until she found him something! A rainbow snow cone. O happy Day!!

Never leave home without it

I never leave home without jacks emergency medicine! There is nothing worse than the feeling of not being prepared for an emergency. Thankfully, every time we have had an accidental taste of Milk it has been with me.

I keep in a bag ready to take with my everywhere and/or husband (and his teacher has it also):

Epi Pen ( I have two just in case something goes wrong with the first)
Zyrtec
Orapred Steroid chewable pills (from a doctor)
a dosage cup or spoon
bendryl gel (for hives)

It took one time for me to read, that NOT having a epi pen on hand was the reason of MANY deaths in food allergic kids.

I have remembered it at the last minute and have been VERY thankful!

I have also been with a friend who did not have hers and we were both thankful that day! :) Zyrtec works very well if you get it quickly after they have eaten something. It is going to happen!! To all of us! It has happened to us many times. One tiny bite and you are in an emergency situation unfortunately.

Jack is so allergic that you can't even kiss him if you have eaten a bowl of cereal!! You can't use the same towel or napkin to wipe his face that you have used on another who has eaten ice cream. He will even break out all over if we eat in a restaurant that uses a lot of milk products....Mexican...fried fish places...ice cream stores.
Places everyone loves to go! (This has gotten better though over the yrs..he does not break out anymore unless he eats it)

Even if you are just running somewhere real quick, STILL take it! People LOVE to offer kids candy, cookies, and treats!!! It happens EVERYWHERE we go. Nerve Racking!! Even a quick errand and your kid could be eating a tootsie roll before you can even turn around! (AND, yes!! Chocolate is MILK!!!!!! "MILK CHOCOLATE"!!)