Update: Best Way to Coat and Fry Foods without Milk or Egg

This summer I inherited some okra and knew there was just one way I wanted to eat it. Fried. Okra is delicious. I love it in soups. I love it in gumbo. But fried okra? That’s the best.

Earlier this year, I set out to try to recreate some classic meat recipes that use milk and egg, but without the milk or egg. One thing I had a lot of trouble with was getting a good coating of flour when frying chicken or pork chops. After my unsuccessful store-bought vegan "buttermilk" and various "egg" concoctions from earlier this year, I went searching online for a better way to coat the okra. The answer? Making my own “buttermilk” with soy milk and a little apple cider vinegar. 

You know, in another life (before dairy was poison), I've made a similar buttermilk replacement many times. All you have to do is mix cow’s milk with a little bit of vinegar, let it curdle for a minute, and throw it into whatever you was baking (without tasting the lumpy product). My grandmother may be horrified, but I’m not going to buy a pint of buttermilk to use ½ a cup! I'm definitely going to use whatever milk I have at my house! More importantly, those biscuits tasted great! I just had no idea that it would work the same way for plant based milk. Some quick research online and it turns out the acid in vinegar reacts with the milk proteins and that’s what curdles. So, it makes sense that soy milk would be the best substitute. I haven’t tried pea protein, but I think that could work, too. Look at how awesome this okra turned out!

Golden brown! The coating is actually still attached! It's a vegan miracle!

Check out the recipe here. But I'm not going to be limited to fried okra. I'm going to start using soy milk + splash of apple cider vinegar in everything. Fried chicken. Fried pork chops. Fried green tomatoes. Somebody get me a vat of oil and let's get to dredging.

Early Introduction to Potential Food Allergens

For a long time, pediatricians recommended delaying introduction to allergenic foods, especially if you were at high risk for food allergies (had a relative with food allergies or had moderate to severe eczema). But there has been growing evidence that an early introduction might actually decrease the risk for food allergies. One theory is that if your body first encounters the food through your skin, it can lead to allergic sensitization- your immune system thinks the food is an invader and reacts accordingly. But if your body first encounters the food through the GI system, where it should be, the immune system is less likely to overreact.

The American Academy of Pediatricians actually changed their recommendations (that there was no need to delay introduction to allergenic foods) in 2008. And even though it’s been 15 years of recommending early introduction (and then frequently feeding your kid these potential allergens so they don’t develop an allergy later!), the PSAs are still coming through. A lot of the food allergy people I follow on twitter love to reinforce the idea that early introduction is important.

While I fully support getting the message out, I don’t know if food allergy twitter is the most effective way to go. Because, if you are following Kids with Food Allergies or FARE or FAACT, odds are you already have somebody in your life that has food allergies. You know when it isn’t a great time to give advice on prevention? After you’ve already gotten it. Parents, already guilt filled, really don’t need to hear, “Wow, if you would have introduced this food to your kid a little earlier MAYBE they wouldn’t have this life threatening illness that will completely change what they can eat for the rest of their life. Great job, parent. Wish you had fully read your handbook."

The overlap of people who actively follow news stories about food allergies and the people that have already passed the need for food allergy prevention is approximately 100%.

And, if you are a parent, and you did introduce the food to your kid early, and then they still get food allergies? It still makes you feel like crap. I get the need to spread the word- introduce peanuts early! Dairy! Eggs! Sesame! Wheat! Ok! Jeez! We tried it! But maybe pick a megaphone projected at parents with babies who are 6 months old, when it’s actually useful.

Restaurant Firsts

Guys. It’s been a big week. Not only did we GO TO A RESTAURANT for the first time with our kid, but then later WE LET THE KID EAT FOOD FROM A RESTAURANT. It seems like perhaps the two of those things would coincide, but alas, they did not. 

We ended up going to a restaurant because we were out running errands and needed some lunch. We packed a sandwich for our kid and the rest of us ate sandwiches from a sandwich shop. It was a good thing we packed food for her because there was not a thing that she could eat there. The kids’ menu included grilled cheese (nope), PB&J (definite nope), turkey and swiss (again nope). There’s a possibility that she could have had the turkey and swiss sans swiss, but some of the turkey had milk and some of the turkey didn’t and you just never know about garlic and I’m just not in a place to risk it so we just didn’t trust anything behind the counter. The prepackaged chips are usually in the clear, but this place had special (really, quite delicious looking) chips that were fried in maybe peanut (but also maybe canola or sunflower, can’t know for sure) oil. Other than the drink station, I wasn’t feeling great. All this to say, good thing we planned ahead and brought her lunch. She didn’t seem to feel too left out, especially since we were all eating sandwiches. Without COVID, this probably would have happened much sooner. I guess, technically, this was not her first time inside a restaurant- when she was a baby, before eating solid food, and before COVID, she had been inside, and even technically eaten (nursed) while there. But this was definitely a big, post food allergy diagnosis, step for us.

AND THEN… we actually let her eat food from a restaurant.

We were planning on getting take out and decided to go to the vegan restaurant by our house. We had been contemplating letting her try some food from here because out of her 4 allergies (milk, egg, peanut, and garlic)- 2 were definitely going to be safe at the vegan restaurant. My wife called ahead and they said there were no peanuts in anything the made there. An entire restaurant safe from 3 out of her 4 allergens! Best of all, the person my wife talked to was super helpful. They told her which sauces had tree nuts in them since a lot of dairy replacement things have tree nuts and just seemed to be very understanding about severe food allergies.

Realistically garlic was still an issue, though. The restaurant describes itself as “American and Latin Vegan Comfort Food.” This is how I read the menu:

• Pico de gallo (Probably garlic.)
• Guacamole (Yeah, garlic.)
• Ranch (Garlic)
• Bang Bang sauce (Delicious. Also, garlic)
• Garlic sauce (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess contains garlic.)
• Pretty much everything savory I am going to assume has garlic.

But. Guess what. There’s one nonsavory thing on the menu:

• Blueberry pancakes

Those… can’t have garlic, right? And they don’t have milk or eggs. And the nice lady said there was no peanuts. So, we were going to do it. We were going to give our kid food from a restaurant.

And…

*drumroll*

She ate three bites and didn’t die!

*dramatic fanfare*

Ohhh la la. Baby's first take out! Age: 2 years, 9 months, 0 days

She might have eaten more had she not also had chicken nuggets on her plate. But that kid loves her chicken nuggets. So we just won’t tell the nice vegan restaurant that she ate some chicken on the side of her delicious, safe pancakes.

Back to School

Turns out the most important school supply is: epinephrine.

It’s September and we going back to school! With food allergies! To a new teacher! Just what the new school year nerves need- the addition of food allergies. Our kid is still in preschool/day care, so we are not ready for Individual Health care plans or a section 504 accommodation plan (but if your kid is- here’s where to learn more), so how to we make sure she is safe? Well, the Elijah-Alavi Foundation is out to make daycares safer. After their 3 year old son died after having anaphylaxis at daycare, Elijah’s parents started a foundation to raise awareness of food allergies and ensure kids in childcare are safe. They are working to pass policies in all fifty states that include:

• State requires up-to-date health records to include known allergies
• State requires food allergy care plan for children with food allergies
• State requires child care personnel to receive training for the prevention and treatment of allergic reactions to food
• State requires child care personnel to receive training on the administration of epinephrine auto-injectors
• State allows stocking of undesignated epinephrine auto-injectors at daycares
• State requires emergency services to be contacted immediately when epinephrine is administered
• State requires parent/guardian be notified of possible allergic reaction
• State requires child care facilities to have food service policies that address allergies
• State requires a child’s food allergies to be posted prominently in the child care facility and/or in the food preparation area

All of these seem like perfectly reasonable expectations. And if you live in the US, you can go to their website to see which are required for your state specifically. Even though Elijah’s law isn’t law where I live, I like knowing these requirements because it reinforces what I need to make sure her teachers know. They have to know how to use her autoinjector (I made sure to pack an extra trainer so that all of her teachers could practice with it). They need to not be afraid to administer the epinephrine (I made sure to tell them that nothing bad would happen if she’s given epinephrine even if she doesn’t need it so if they are in doubt, GO AHEAD AND GIVE IT). They need to call 911 and me afterwards. They also have a list of her current allergies. I hope she is never exposed at daycare, but if she is, I need to know they will act according to her plan, as quickly as possible.

Ideally, I would have had time to meet with the teachers in person to go over all of this information. Instead, I traded emails back and forth, hoping that everything was understood.

Snack is big issue. We always provide lunches for her, but snack is generally bought by one family per week and shared with the whole class. In her two year old class, the teachers went out of their way to plan snacks that were safe for all of their kids. This year, her new teacher wanted us to pack her separate snacks each day. It’s definitely more work for us, but it’s also more control over everything she eats. She did scare me the first day of school when she came home and said “I didn’t like the cheese they had at snack.” I’m still not sure what she was talking about- surely, she didn’t try it? Right? She was probably just saying she didn’t like it because she couldn’t have it… right? Right?! We had a long discussion about how she was only supposed to eat food packed from home and NOT the self serve snack that is out for her friends to eat. You know what I definitely shouldn’t be doing? Relying on my two year old to know which food is safe and which food is not.

Another beginning of the year snafu? The epinephrine that we keep in her lunch box (with an extra copy of her allergy action plan and quick reminders to call 911 and us) was removed on her first day of school. Apparently, the older class keeps all of their epinephrine together. Nothing like getting home and unpacking a lunch box and not having any idea where your kid’s epinephrine is. The reason we started keeping it there was because when we first were prescribed epinephrine, we were only able to get 2 (you know how hard and expensive it can be to get epinephrine!), so we had to have a way to keep it with her at all times. Luckily, after many phone calls to multiple specialty pharmacies, we were able to get an extra set that we keep at home. But, I would definitely suggest teachers not haphazardly remove life saving, expensive medication from a kid’s bags. No matter their age.

Happy September! It’s good to be back!