From Spain, with Allergy-Free Love!

By Kelley Lindberg

He’s home! My globe-traversing son is back from his class trip to Spain. He spent 11 days in Madrid, Toledo, and Salamanca, with a few other stops in between. He ate everything from calamari to chocolate con churros, and brought home souvenirs ranging from swords (yes, plural), to a scarf from the Real Madrid soccer team, to a certificate showing he earned his very first college credit from the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca. Not bad for a 15-year-old junior high kid.

I’m also happy to report that he didn’t have any trouble with food while he was in Spain. He had a brief incident on the plane on the way home from Spain when his mouth began to tingle, so he took some antihistamine and the tingling went away. He’s never had a reaction on a plane before (and he didn’t eat anything but the snacks he brought from home), but he was prepared with his Wet-Wipes, his meds, and friends who knew about his allergies and watched over him during the incident, and everything turned out okay.

In Spain itself, he had no problems. He said the waiters were very accommodating if you tried to speak Spanish, and he had no trouble ordering safe foods. He memorized the info on his SelectWisely.com translation cards and was able to talk confidently with waiters and chefs. Interestingly, lupin flour wasn’t a problem – he said most waiters looked confused, like they’d never heard of lupin flour, and assured him they only used wheat or white flour. Perhaps lupin flour isn’t as widely used in Spain as it is in France and Italy. Either way, it was a relief.

So thank you to everyone who kept your fingers crossed for him. His first—but definitely not last—travel adventure without me was a huge success and an invaluable character-building experience (for both of us).

But I must admit, I’m glad to have him home, safe and sound. I missed those hugs!

Class Trip to Spain with Food Allergies

By Kelley Lindberg

It’s finally here. My son’s class trip to Spain begins tomorrow.

I know, right? Ninth graders didn’t get class trips to Spain when I was in school! But here we are in the 21st century, with 41 ninth grade students (about half of his grade at his school) leaving for an amazing 11-day adventure. How I envy those kids. And how I DON’T envy those teachers who are going as chaperones! (Ha. Just kidding, honey.)

As you can imagine, I’m a little nervous. Not only do I get all the worries of a typical mom of a typical teen, but I also get to worry about his food allergies. With his allergies to peanuts, tree nuts, and lupin flour, he will be at risk from more than sunburn, blisters, or pickpockets. But I’ve prepared him, the teachers, and myself as much as I can, and I have to trust them all to play their roles well. I’m actually pretty confident in them.

While planning for this trip, we discovered that two additional students on the trip also have food allergies, and both will also be carrying EpiPens. That makes 3 kids out of 41 with severe food allergies. So our teacher/chaperones will have to stay on their toes to keep everyone safe.

Here’s how we’ve prepared:

1. At our last Spain Trip Planning Meeting, I gave all the teacher/chaperones and many of the kids a lesson on how to recognize food allergies and how to use an EpiPen. For many, it was just a refresher course, because I do this almost every year at school. For others, it was a new experience and several thanked me and said they had no idea how serious food allergies were. Even some parents stuck around to learn about it, even though they’re not going on the trip!
2. I got 3 pairs of EpiPens for him to take – 2 pair for him to keep with him, and 1 pair for his chaperone to keep with her. I put the pens in a case with antihistamine and his inhaler, along with copies of his insurance card, instructions on how to administer the medicine, and his photo and contact info.
3. I got a letter from his doctor saying he needs the EpiPens for peanut allergy, just in case any airlines question them as he carries them through the security line. They never have yet, because medicines are allowed and are exempt from the 3-oz rule, but I like to be prepared anyway.
4. For part of the trip, the kids will be staying with host families. The trip planners found a host family with food allergies of their own, so the Spanish family my son will be staying with is already familiar with allergies.
5. I ordered Spanish translation cards from SelectWisely.com that say things like “I have a severe allergy to peanuts, tree nuts, and lupin flour. Has this food been prepared with any of these ingredients? If I eat these foods, I will have to be taken to the hospital immediately.” I have used SelectWisely cards on many trips in the past, and they are gems! The waiter can take the card back to the cook, they can discuss options, and there is no misunderstanding! I highly recommend SelectWisely.com.
6. The administration has also preordered food for all the kids at some restaurants, and they’ve let the restaurants know about my son’s food allergies. So hopefully they will be prepared and safe when they get there.
7. Lately, whenever we’ve gone to restaurants here at home, I’ve made my son do the interrogation of the waiters about the food ingredients, so that he has become comfortable asking about the food. I think he’ll be comfortable asking the waiters in Spain the same questions now. Practice makes perfect!
8. I’ve packed a ridiculous amount of safe granola bars, jerky, fruit leather, crackers, and other snacks for him to take on the plane, and more for him to carry in his backpack throughout his trip, so that if there are no safe food options for lunch someday, he’ll at least have something to snack on until he can find something safe.
9. I know from my travels in other parts of Europe and from research that the labeling laws in Europe are very similar to labeling laws here, and the common allergens are required to be listed. My son is armed with those SelectWisely cards that show the Spanish word for many different tree nuts, so he should be able to read labels effectively.
10. Finally, and most importantly, I purchased an international texting plan for his phone (and insurance on his phone), so that he can text me every day and tell me he’s okay!

By the way, in case you’re wondering what lupin flour is, it’s a flour made from a lupin bean (sometimes called lupini) commonly used in Europe in breads and pastas. It is not yet approved for use in America, so it’s rare to find it here at all and then only in things like imported pastas at specialty stores (at least so far). If you are allergic to peanuts, you have a 50% chance of also being allergic to lupin flour. So if you are planning to travel to Europe with a peanut allergy, it’s worth testing to see if you’ll also react to lupin flour. (You can read about our last trip to Italy and our experiences with food here: "Who Eats Pasta or Bread in Italy, Anyway?")

Anyway, I think we’re about as ready for this trip as we can be. My son is a little nervous, but mostly excited. After all, he’s been traveling since he was a baby, and he’s on his 4th passport now. He’s got enough of a cautious streak to keep me happy, but enough of a sense of adventure to ensure this trip will be awesome. The next twelve days might be a little hard on me, but they’re going to make a world of a difference to him, and that’s worth all the extra planning (and worry).

So, to my son and all his good friends who are traveling with him:

¡Buen viaje!

Who Eats Pasta or Bread in Italy, Anyway?

by Kelley Lindberg


As you know if you read my earlier post about discovering my son is allergic to lupin flour ("Lupin Allergy in Europe"), I was a little worried about how extensive the use of lupin flour is in Europe, since we were headed to Paris and Italy for a two-week vacation.

Well, we’ve now made it there and back safely, but here’s the thing: I’m still not sure how wide-spread the use of lupin flour is in Europe.

We asked about lupin flour in every restaurant we visited in Paris in along Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Unfortunately, most of the restaurateurs didn’t know what ingredients were in their bread because they got their bread from a bakery, and there was no way to check ingredients. Some people didn’t understand what lupin flour was. Others had heard of lupin flour, but just didn’t know if it was in their bread. Because some had heard of it, I can assume that it’s used at least somewhat frequently in Italy, but I really didn’t get a sense of how wide-spread its use is. We didn’t encounter any lupin in the pastas we tried.

The grocery stores near our villa were tiny, with extremely limited selections of pasta and pre-packaged breads. Neither the pasta nor the sandwich bread I found listed lupin flour as an ingredient, but I was able only able to find one or two brands of each. (Sandwich breads mostly had nut warnings – I only found one brand that had no nut warnings.)

Allergy information was generally listed on everything that had labels, so that was reassuring. But anything that came from a bakery was problematic, just as it is here in the United States. That meant we avoided things like pizza (the few places we asked didn’t know what was in their pizza dough, because it came from elsewhere and wasn’t labeled), and I got in the habit of packing my son a sandwich that I made in the villa before we left on all-day outings (after that day in Pompeii when his lunch ended up being a can of Pringles and a soda).

Although lunch stops were challeng-ing, we had much better luck in nice restau-rants for dinner. Maybe it’s because most of the places we ate were family-owned and there was an obvious sense of ownership pride in them, but we found several restaurants where the owners, chefs, and waiters would bend over backwards to make my son’s dinner safe.

My best investment before we left was to buy allergy translation cards from SelectWisely.com. These wallet-sized laminated cards say “I have a life-threatening allergy to…” in whatever language you order. I handed the card to a waiter, then he would take it to the owner/chef, who would invariably come over to my son and carefully talk him through the items they could make safe for him. Sometimes they’d stick with what was already on the menu, but others would suggest combinations of things that weren’t on the menu. They really made him feel special and safe.

When we found a place like that, we tended to go back two or three times, and they would recognize him and welcome him back. He soaked up the royal treatment! The owner-chef at Cucina Casereccia da Vincenzo, on our third visit, offered him a completely new treat for free: octopus and calamari. He was so enamored with this woman who’d been pampering him for days that he tried it and LIKED it. If I had tried to get him to eat octopus anywhere else, I don’t think he’d have tried it. But for this chef who was taking such good care of him, he scarfed it down!

We made it through the two weeks without any allergic reactions. We did limit his exposure by preparing breakfast and most lunches in the villa, and we cooked several dinners in the villa, too. (We didn’t do that just for him. We did it to save money and our waist-lines, too, and because cooking with the fresh produce from the neighborhood market was so much fun -- look at those giant lemons and those baby artichokes!) But when we went out, we relied on those SelectWisely cards to help eliminate accidental contamination.

So despite the fact that he couldn’t eat pizza in Italy (is that legal?), he can’t wait to go back and experience the history, the scenery, and those friendly Italian restaurateurs. His next destination, he tells me, is Sardinia. Guess I’d better start saving my Euros!

Lupin Allergy in Europe

by Kelley Lindberg


It’s that time of year when families everywhere start looking ahead to vacations. Daffodils are blooming, travel brochures are arriving in the mail, and wanderlust is itching at our toes. I’ve started planning a dream vacation – a European adventure! We’re going to spend a day and a half in Paris, then head to Italy for nearly two weeks.

While I’m looking at airline fares, train schedules, and websites full of scenic photos (I’m going to look just like that fabulously fashionable model sipping wine at that sidewalk café in her size 0 sundress, honest!), I also have been thinking about my son’s food allergies.

Traveling with food allergies always involves a little more planning and preparation than the average traveler might realize. But we’ve been traveling since he was tiny, and we’ve gotten some good routines and tools that help get us through safely. But this will be my son’s first trip to Europe, and I’ve discovered something new that we’ll have to deal with: lupin.

Ever heard of lupin? Most of us in the USA haven’t, fortunately. It’s the bean of a few species of lupine flower (like those hundreds of species of beautiful flowered stalks that grow wild here in the States, including Texas blue bonnets), and it’s ground up to make flour. Although we don’t use it here in the USA (yet), it’s been approved for use in bread flour in Europe since 1997. It’s apparently used a lot in pasta, bread, and pastries, especially in countries near the Mediterranean, like Italy.

What’s the big deal with lupin?

Well, if you’re allergic to peanuts, you’ve got about a 50% chance of being allergic to lupin flour, too. In Europe, they’ve discovered that lupin is the cause of many of the anaphylactic reactions they’re seeing.

So as I’m researching all things Italian, I decided I’d better look into lupin. I’d rather know before our trip if my son is going to react to this stuff, rather than finding out the hard way, at a restaurant in some little village in Italy, far from an English-speaking doctor.

I called my son’s allergist, Dr. Jones, who couldn’t find any prepared lupin serum from any manufacturer in the United States to do allergy testing with. So he suggested a skin-prick test using actual food made with lupin flour. I spent days searching for lupin flour or something made with it. I called European delis and bakeries in Salt Lake City – they’d never heard of it. I tried gluten-free stores. Same response. I went online and Googled the heck out of “lupin flour” and couldn’t find anything. Finally, Jamie Stern from the online grocery store Allergies and Me located some imported Italian pasta made with lupin flour for me.

I cooked the pasta until most of the water was cooked away, blended it up into a fine paste, and took it to the doctor’s office. There, he did what’s called a “prick to prick” test, where they prick the needle directly into the pasta, then prick my son’s skin with it.

The results? Drum roll, please…. Positive.

Sigh. Yep, we’re headed to Italy, the land of pasta and bread, and my son’s allergic to the flour they may use in it.

Well, forewarned is forearmed, as they say, so I’m going to be prepared. I’ve looked up how to say “lupin flour” in both French (farine de lupin) and Italian (farina del lupino). I’ve ordered a new medical ID bracelet for my son that lists peanuts, tree nuts, and lupin. I’ve ordered nifty laminated translation cards from SelectWisely that will help me communicate the severity of his allergy in both languages. And I’ve explained to my son that we will have to be very careful about every baked good he wants to try while we’re there, and he understands and is okay with that.

I’m hoping the use of lupin flour won’t be as widespread as I fear. Perhaps it’s still fairly exotic, and we won’t encounter very much of it. But I have no way of knowing until we’re there.

Despite this new worry, we’re still excited about our trip. I only wish we were leaving NOW – I keep counting the weeks, and it’s still too far away! But when we do finally go, I’ll write about our experiences with lupin flour, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I plan to enjoy all these travel brochures that keep piling up. (Even if all the happy vacationing models in the photos are a size 0.)