Okay folks, here are some of the sites that our family has found to be invaluable for learning about food allergies. I’ll be continually updating and adding to this page as I continue to explore more material, so check back often! If you have any others to add, comment here or contact me!
Sites with great basic information about how allergies work:
Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) – This is your go-to starting point for any food allergy questions! You can find detailed information on food allergies and how they work in general, explanations of specific food allergies, easy-to-use one page handouts for reading food labels, resources for schools & camps, tips on managing food allergies in different situations, a support group directory, information on the latest allergy research, and more. A FANTASTIC and well researched & medically reviewed resource!
Kids With Food Allergies – One of my favorite online resources! This site is designed especially with parents in mind and specific challenges that come with raising kids with food allergies. It’s chock full of information on food allergies themselves, support groups and discussion forums, nutrition, and has packets of handy information for the newly diagnosed. Plus, there is a great index of recipes (searchable by specific food allergies) with a blog that has links to new products, too. Actually, there is so much information here, the site can actually be overwhelming. Thankfully, it is well-designed and easy to navigate.
American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) – A great medical resource for all things allergy related, including environmental allergies and other conditions that tend to go along with allergies (like asthma and eczema, etc.).
My favorite allergy-free sites for cooking and baking:
Cybele Pascal: The Allergy-Friendly Cook – Cybele’s website is a great starting point for tested-recipes and cooking/baking information. Her recipes are free from the top eight allergens, so little adapting is necessary if you are working around a lot of food allergies. She has written some useful cookbooks and even has a line of commercially produced products now.
Learning to Eat Allergy-free – This is Colette Martin’s blog. If you haven’t checked out Colette’s blog or books, you should! She has written two super cookbooks: one for baking and one for stocking your pantry, allergy-free style. Like Cybele Pascal, Colette’s recipes are free of multiple allergens. In addition, Colette’s blog and books are awesome because she teaches you about the ingredients and the science about how allergy-free cooking works in really simple, easy-to-read language. And her recipes are easy to make and delicious. And…like me, she is very practical in her approach to allergy-free cooking. We don’t all have time to make everything from scratch and search out crazy weird ingredients, and Colette gets this. I can’t recommend her resources enough!
Chocolate-Covered Katie: – This is not specifically an allergy-free blog, but it might as well be! Katie’s blog is full of awesome dessert recipes (and other non-dessert items, too), and because she is developing recipes that are healthier and vegan friendly, etc. the recipes fit the bill for an allergy-free diet perfectly. If the recipe has non-allergy friendly ingredients, they are often easily substituted, and many times Katie will actually test out and recommend substitute ingredients, so you don’t have to. Katie has recently published a traditional cookbook, too. Yummy stuff!