Gobble Gobble...

…'til you wobble!  This is a very busy and exciting time of year for obvious reasons!  It is also a very stressful time of year for those of us managing food allergies.  Coordinating menus and pleasing everyone can be a tall task, but it does not need to forecast a holiday season of stress.  We all can safely enjoy the holidays with a little prep and planning.  Part of enjoying the event, holiday, etc is enjoying the journey!  This is a great week to start planning your menu and doing the research needed to determine how foods are prepared to avoid cross contamination, decoding the ingredient list to determine any hidden dangers, and educating family members about your family's food allergies.  For us, the last piece regarding education consists of reminding extended family that we do have kids who are severely allergic to nuts, peanuts and eggs.  The nuts pose the greatest challenge for our family since we ALL love nuts and love to use them to adorn our delicious desserts and side dishes (ie. pralines, pecan pie, sweet potato casserole with crushed pecan topping, etc..)  We are very thankful to be blessed with family that is accommodating.  Rather than have a 'forbidden list' for our family, we ask that those foods all be grouped together and placed out of the way (ie. middle of serving area, not easily accessible by the kiddos).  Then we review our food allergy rule with the kids (ages 3 and 5 years):  RULE #1. Do NOT eat anything until it is approved by either of us--YOUR PARENTS--not grandma or grandpa.  We also stress that just because you have eaten it before does not mean that you can eat it again.  This is what works for us right now.  There is no perfect way to navigate the food allergy world of the holidays other than to be practical and reasonable.  Sanity is appropriate this time of year to keep you jolly, right?

I wanted to mention that one of the policies that Dairy Allergy Mom and I worked to have included in our school's food allergy policy was recently implemented at our childrens' Halloween party.  Learning from a prior incident involving class parties and, separately, from my child's preschool class food policy, Dairy Allergy mom and I thought it would be helpful to other room parents and helpers, to identify the food allergy students with a bright yellow sticker indicating that they have food allergies. The teachers and parents liked the idea.  The stickers are for the elementary students.

Special blessings for all of our Veterans and many thanks from HFAN.  Please thank a Veteran for his/her service.  We all do what we do because of them.  THANK YOU for your service!

HFAN is listed!

Dairy Allergy Mom and I are pleased to share that HFAN is now listed as a support group on FARE's website!  Needless to say, we are very excited!  Please share this good news with anyone you know who may benefit from this group!

Houston Food Allergy Network (HFAN)

Contact Name: Danielle Williams & Cynthia Garza
Contact Email: houstonfoodallergynetwork@gmail.com
City: Houston 

Country: USA
Mission: To provide support to families dealing with the daily challenges of managing food allergies, to raise community awareness, and to advocate for change

Dairy Allergy Family Travels…South of the Border!? Travel preparation checklist and timeline.

This is the last installment in this topic and is in a format I hope you can easily adapt to your plans.

4 months in advance	Booking Airfare: Take the first flight of the day. The planes get the best cleaning overnight and you will be dealing with airline staff that is fresh and more likely to be customer friendly. Of course the farther in advance you book the better. Strategically, if you sit at the back of the plane more people will pass by you with contaminants on their hands.   Likewise sitting in the aisle increases your chance of 2nd hand exposure.  Weigh this against your need for emergency potty breaks.
4 months in advance	Booking ground transportation: Nothing to remark here!
3/4 months in advance	Booking lodging: Location.  Beach resorts tend to be grouped on a single strip in a tourist zone.  In Mexico this means that you are farther from local facilities; you’ll want to know how far you are from the city center, emergency care and grocery stores. Key management staff.  Before we arrived, we started weekly communication with the reservation staff, front desk management, and the medical advisor (doctor on staff). Short emails reminded them of our allergy.  It started with requests for Restaurant menus to see what was off limits etc.  We went so far as to share resources (Welcoming Guests) from the FARE website. Kitchen Staff: Our initial request to prepare our own food in the restaurant kitchens was declined.  So we started a dialog of how to train the servers and cooking staff about allergy awareness sharing more FARE resources!  Fortunately we were accommodated with a kitchenette, so it became a moot point. Cleaning staff: For people with environmental allergies a visit to the desert in the middle of summer is, well, a great idea!!  Cleaning a sandy room in a low humidity environment is easy.  This is compared to our experience in Cancun, where humidity is high, vegetation, pollen and mildew is more of a concern.  HVAC in Houston (the most air conditioned city in the nation) is great, anywhere else…eh.  We take it for granted that the air inside will be cool and dry.
2 months in advance	Introduce medical staff: This was a little miracle.  By chance the hotel doctor on staff had been in residency in Houston.  By chance our allergist is from Latin America.  As a professional courtesy to both I arranged introductions by phone before our arrival.  Now these coincidences were more than I could have planned for, but the Drs. common experience and compassion for healing was one more way we bridged the awareness gap.
2 weeks before travel	Meet with allergist: This is where we received the signed documents identifying all medications that we are travelling with, what their purpose is, and also the statement that foods are necessary to ensure safe food is available throughout the trip and not only the flight.
Day of travel	Arrival at the terminal: Do not take advantage of curbside check in!  You don’t want risk your checked luggage not making it to the ticketing counter and have someone hold it up because of the food and  / dry ice.
Day of travel	Ticketing and check in: Here is where you have to explain that you are carrying the cooler full of perishable foods.  This is where United charged for the hazardous material (dry ice) and the cooler gets labelled as such with additional stickers.
Day of travel	TSA: We were able to get through check without incident.  Be prepared with print outs from the TSA website describing their policy; in case you get a new hire.
Day of travel	Boarding the plane: United did not allow preboarding for small children by policy.  But if you can show that you are doing them a favor by entering the back of the plane 1st and not holding up everyone else they may see it your way!  This will allow you a little more time to wipe down the seats and armrests around you.
Day of travel	In flight : While we did not benefit from this, airlines in Canada have implemented a buffer zone.  The flight can be arranged so that flight attendants make a proactive effort at restricting nuts during flight.  You have to make the arrangements a few days in advance of the flight.

That's it!  best of luck & Buen Viaje!!

Dairy Allergy Family Travels…South of the Border!? Online resources we found helpful

I've taken longer than I intended to post the second part of this blog.  Vacation will do that to your inbox; you return to a mountain where there was once a molehill.

It is now July and I hope that this blog will find you in time for your own summer travels.  There are plenty of online resources for traveling with food, so I am providing you with a “what really happened” report.

One of the first things we found in planning our trip to Mexico is not all packaged foods are distributed outside the USA.  No problem, we all know about ‘care’ packages being shipped overseas, so it seemed reasonable that we could pack food we know to be safe.

The most important resource is the Transportation Security Administration website - If you can’t get it past security, you can’t eat it.  Then the airline’s website - If you can’t get it on the plane, you can’t eat it.  Then Mexico’s customs website - If you can’t get it in the country you can’t eat it.

One by one:

1.       TSA allows the transport of more than the typical 3.5 oz. of fluids in carry on luggage.  It also allows for much larger quantities in checked luggage: http://www.tsa.gov/traveling-formula-breast-milk-and-juice

You will need to get a statement from your doctor describing the medical need for food / medicine in your carry on luggage.  Checked foods simply need to be packed safely against leaks.  All items contained within the cooler and the total weight of the cooler + foods need to be labeled on the outside, visible to a TSA inspector.  United has a 50 pound limit before they charge for extra weight, but we were well within this limit.

2.       Related to transporting food is the need to keep it from spoiling; United Airlines has a policy for packing perishables in dry ice (the FAA does not allow liquid gel coolants).  They also have a policy for charging you.  This was ridiculously expensive and it is considered a hazardous substance.

http://blog.tsa.gov/2013/07/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html

United Airlines fees for traveling with dry ice:

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/baggage/fragile.aspx

We found that United’s limit of 5.5 pounds of dry ice was more than enough to chill a 35 gallon cooler for a 4 hour flight.

3.       Guidelines on what foods can be brought to Mexico:

http://www.mexadventure.com/baja_travel/Food_Bring_to_Baja.cfm

http://www.mexadventure.com/baja_travel/meat_produce.cfm

I'm not sure what happened here.  I understood from official websites that so long as meat was prepackaged, vacuum sealed, with U.S.D.A stamps that bringing meat from USA to Mexico was ok.  I was angry when we arrived in Mexico to find my TSA approved lock and most of our food missing. Instead I found a crumpled up TSA inspection form and no explanation.   Perhaps the lock failed and the cooler busted open on the conveyor belt; but there was a little of everything left; meat included.

  Maybe someone was hanging out in the airport and was really hungry, like that Snowden guy.  I hoped it was simply a fugitive of international espionage and not someone who didn't know the policy.

Be warned, this was an expensive investment, but we managed to buy all we needed in Mexico.

As a side lesson, we found during our trip to Walmart that labeling in Mexico captures the Big 8 Allergens!

milk eggs fish crustacean shellfish tree nuts peanuts wheat soybean

leche huevos pescado crustáceos nueces de árbol cacahuates trigo haba de soja

Next week I will detail our checklist; putting the plan on paper.

Blog entries to come:

·         Travel Preparation Checklist

·         Travel Plan Timeline

Dairy Allergy Family Travels…South of the Border!? Coordinating Medical Action Plan with Local MX Medical Care

Early in my son’s life we were in Florence, Italy when an ambulance arrived at the restaurant where we were dining.  My wife and I joked that perhaps we shouldn't eat there anymore.  I realize now it was in bad taste to the restaurateur, and horribly insensitive to a soul who might be scared for his very life.  Fast forward four years, the biggest concern I had in traveling to Mexico was ensuring my son would have access to high quality medical care…should such an emergency occur.

How do I get those questions answered?

In Houston, with the Texas Medical Center, superhighways, and EMS transport around every corner; we have an extended support network of sorts.

But, outside the USA?   What hospital do we go to?  How do we get there?

It turns out, hospital names and locations were the simplest to answer, but nothing more we could really do about it.  If we found ourselves in need of emergency care we knew that we would have cross language barriers & maybe preconceptions about food allergies versus intolerance at the absolutely worst time.  This is where we sought help.  Instead of planning for emergencies, we planned for safety.

Cabo is marketed to American tourists. Tourists who think it’s fun to sit in the middle of a desert under the summer sun.  With five star management, large scale Food & Beverage operations, pools and lifeguards, they even have a U.S. trained Medical Doctor on staff.  After booking the flight and room, my next order of business was to contact the good doctor and gain his support as our champion.

El doctor was instrumental in communicating our needs to upper management.  This voice of authority cannot be overemphasized.  Armed with the invaluable FARE web resources in English and Spanish we overcame both language barriers and skepticism.  Emergency care plan(Sp)  Emergency care plan(En).

From top to bottom, the entire staff was aware of our arrival and requirements by the time we arrived!

We also included our Allergist in our travel plans, who provided additional documents describing in Spanish the various medicines we were carrying (BRAND and GENERIC NAMES) and the purpose of each.  I read stories of emergency providers misinterpreting prescriptions and dosage requirements and wanted to avoid both.

So, we were prepared with letters of introduction signed, sealed, and delivered.

Blog entries to come:

·         Online Resources that we found helpful

·         Travel Preparation Checklist

·         Travel Plan Timeline

Dairy Allergy Family Travels…South of the Border!?

For any parent of a child with a severe Dairy Allergy I know what you are thinking.  Well I know what I was thinking, “How in the world will I manage to feed my child in a country where every course has dairy as a main ingredient”? We knew it wouldn’t be easy. And, we knew that it would take some planning and coordination.   

My husband and I have always loved to travel internationally. Traveling with our son as an infant with food allergies was a piece of cake (dairy free), even traveling with him as a toddler was manageable. But now that he is five it seemed that it would be near impossible. Just the thought of taking on a trip and managing his dairy allergy in a foreign country increased our anxiety level. It took us two years to finally work up the courage and take on the trip. Thank goodness for our support group! After a few conversations with our favorite food allergy mom blogger Nuteggactly, and after reaching out to our support system, we worked up the courage.   

Once we decided we were up for the task, we felt it made sense to travel to a destination we had visited in the past. Our criteria was simply that we stay at a resort where we felt they could accommodate our needs and provide us with a comfortable stay. The goal was to get our hands around handling food allergies outside the USA and the sooner the better.  

First stop: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  Here we come! Allà vamos 

Stay Tuned…………………………….

Dairy Allergy Family Travels…South of the Border!? Blog entries to come: Coordinating Medical Action Plan with Local MX Medical Care; Online Resources that we found helpful; Travel Preparation Checklist; Travel Plan Timeline

HFAN highlights

On May 1, 2014, the Houston Food Allergy Network held its first meeting.  What a great way to celebrate Food Allergy Awareness month. The founding members created the group's name and mission statement.  We discussed SafeFARE and presented the restaurant (Candelari's) with a flyer on how to get involved.  We identified upcoming events in our community: Food Allergy Awareness Week (May 11-17th, 2014) and the Houston FARE walk (September 6, 2014).  We are excited to begin this group and will plan to meet monthly. The next meetings are scheduled for July 14, 2014 and August 4, 2014.  All meetings will begin at 6:30p and will be held in the Fellowship Hall located at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Memorial Park.