My Vacation in Sicily, or “Almonds Gone Wild”

By Kelley Lindberg

Ah, Sicily. Land of mythology, history, Godfather t-shirts, pasta, lemons, pistachios, and almonds.

Lots and lots of almonds.

Almond and pistachio cookies greeted us
in our hotel room in Sicily.

If you’re not allergic to almonds, pistachios, or lemons, you’ll love Sicily. If you’re allergic to almonds, pistachios, or lemons, you might want to plan on doing a lot of your own cooking if you go there.

Almonds, lemons, and pistachios are some of Sicily’s biggest crops, but stranglehold trade restrictions from Sicily’s parent country, Italy, make it difficult (if not impossible) for Sicilian farmers to sell them off-island. When you have a lot of something and you can’t sell it, you use it in everything.

My mother and I enjoy a day visiting
Greek Temples in Italy.

In May, my mother and I traveled to Sicily for a badly needed vacation. Truly, it’s a breathtaking place. We were on the eastern coast of the island, in the town of Taormina. From our beach-side hotel, we took day-trips to see the ancient and storied town of Syracuse, the Straits of Messina (where Odysseus and his crew met with scary monsters), the active volcano Mt Etna (which graciously did not erupt until hours after we’d left its hillsides), an ancient Roman villa with magnificently preserved mosaic floors, ancient Greek temples, and other Sicilian marvels. Throughout history, the island, which is strategically located off the “toe” of Italy, has been over-run by a steady parade of better-armed empires, like Greece, the Byzantines, the Romans, the Spanish, the Arabs, the French, and of course both sides of WWII. All that history and all those conquering cultures have combined in Sicily to produce a land and a people who seem to accept that “stuff happens” and you just have to roll with it.

That extends to their cooking. With a plethora of almonds on the island, they’ve learned how to incorporate them into almost every meal. I had almond cookies, almond gelato, almonds sprinkled on my pasta, and fish breaded with crushed almonds. When almonds were missing, pistachios took up the slack.

Because of the constant presence of those tree nuts, I was often glad my son wasn’t with me on this trip. Sure, it would have been possible to talk to chefs and waiters and request special handling to make sure he was being served almond-free foods, but the constant vigilance would have made this vacation more stressful than most we’ve taken. Since my mother and I are not allergic to tree nuts, we were able to enjoy the food without worrying. (Although I must admit, I felt a pang of guilt every time another dish arrived in front of me with almonds sprinkled liberally over it.) (And I guess I should also admit that those almond cookies were DIVINE. Don’t hate me.)

I'm telling ya, lemon granita is a highly civilized way
to end a breakfast. I could get used to this!

On the other hand, if my son HAD been with me, he would have loved the lemons. There were jars of lemon marmalade, lemon syrup, limoncello (a lemon-flavored liqueur—okay, that would not have been for him, but definitely for me!), a lemon-cream pasta sauce that was out of this world, and scoop after scoop after heavenly scoop of lemon granita (Italian ice). Lemon granita was even served in the breakfast buffet every morning at our hotel, which my mother and I agreed was a very civilized way to face the day.

All of which just goes to show… when life hands you almonds, make lemon ice!

An iconic Sicilian view: the active volcano Mt. Etna
(notice the plume of smoke coming out of its vents),
seen from a path through a lemon orchard.

Guest Writing for FARE This Week

By Kelley Lindberg

The editors at FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) graciously asked me and my son to write about his recent class trip to Spain for FARE’s Spring newsletter. The article hit the digital world this week, so I invite you to hop over to FARE’s website to read about our trip. I wrote about the planning we did before the trip, and my son wrote about his experiences during the trip. We had fun working together, and we hope our story helps others contemplating travel with food allergies this summer.

Our story is on page 9. Here is the link to the Spring newsletter: FARE Food Allergy News, Spring 2014. 

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!

Flying Safely with Food Allergies

By Kelley Lindberg


This week, I’m a guest blogger for Living Without magazine, a magazine about gluten-free and allergy-free living that’s been a great resource for several years. So click on over to their blog to read my new article called “10 Tips for Flying Safely with Food Allergies,” where I share survival tips for airline travel.

While you’re clicking, you might want to read an excellent opinion piece that was published on the New York Time’s website this week, called “EpiPens for All.” Curtis Sittenfeld writes about the need for the national School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act, which will allow schools to stock ephiphrine autoinjectors that can be used for anyone in an emergency, whether or not they have a prescription. Not sure why that's so important? Sittenfeld explains it well.

See you back here next Monday!

Food Allergy Emergencies on Planes are Rare

By Kelley Lindberg


Flying somewhere this summer? Great! A new study, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, says the odds of having an in-flight medical emergency are rare. (“Outcomes of Medical Emergencies on Commercial Airline Flights,” New England Journal of Medicine, May 30, 3013.)

According to the study, 2.75 billion passengers fly worldwide every year. The authors of the study analyzed records from all calls to a medical communications center from five large domestic and international airlines, which together represent about 10% of global flight passengers. After analyzing the data from more than 7 million flights, they categorized the number and the type of medical emergencies as well as their outcomes (whether or not the passenger had to go to the hospital after landing, whether they were admitted, etc.).

The study shows good news. Medical emergencies are rare, occurring on only 1 out of every 604 flights, affecting only 16 out of every 1 million passengers. According to the authors, “the most common medical problems were syncope [fainting] or presyncope (37.4%), respiratory symptoms (12.1%), and nausea or vomiting (9.5%).”

Allergic reactions were about half-way down the list, lower than cardiac symptoms and seizures. Allergic reactions accounted for only 2.2% of the medical emergencies – that’s just 2.2% of the 16 out of a million passengers. So out of the estimated 744 million airline passengers analyzed during the study period, there were a total of 11,920 medical emergencies reported, and only 265 of them were an allergic reaction. (It doesn’t break down “allergic reactions” into causes, so we don’t know how many were caused by food allergies, environmental allergies, or other.)

And of those 265 allergic reactions, only 12 required the aircraft to be diverted, 40 required transport to a hospital, and only 8 were actually admitted to the hospital. Here’s the best part: there were zero (0) deaths caused by an allergic reaction on the plane.

Remember, that’s out of 744 MILLION total passengers studied during that time frame.

So… airplanes are scary. Peanuts on airplanes are even scarier. But if you consider how many people with food allergies fly every year (and we’re one of those families), these numbers were actually really surprising to me – I thought they would be a lot higher. I actually have an adult friend who had a food allergy reaction on a plane once, so I know it happens. But I’m surprised at how seldom it happens, according to this study. (And my friend knew nuts didn’t agree with her, but had never had a serious reaction before the airplane incident, so she wasn’t as prepared as she might have been had she known.)

What I would love to see now is a study that is more specific to food allergic passengers. I'd like to see how many food-allergic people have flown on airplanes during a particular time period, and then see the percentage of THOSE people who had reactions on airplanes. That would really show us some concrete information. So if there are any researchers out there looking for a good topic... have I got an idea for you!

Please understand, I’m not trivializing the risks of food allergies on airplanes. The risk is DEFINITELY still there. Here is a story of a woman who is severely allergic to peanut allergy who reacts to airborne particles (which may be more severe than some allergic individuals), and her bad reaction on a recent United flight: "Peanut Allergy Causes Emergency Landing, Airline Sued," USAToday.com. As we plan our vacations, we need to remember to be vigilant – take HandiWipes to wipe down the seat tray, seat belt, and arm rests; notify the flight attendant of your allergies (especially if you are traveling alone); keep your antihistamine and epinephrine auto-injectors handy; and pack your own food or snacks for the flight if at all possible.

By staying vigilant and being careful, we can reduce those numbers of medical emergencies even more.

And, if the unthinkable happens and you DO suffer an allergic reaction on the plane, there’s more good news. The FAA mandates that every commercial airline keep an emergency medical kit onboard, and epinephrine is a required medication in that kit. In addition, the study also showed that when the flight attendants asked for medical help over the PA system, physicians were on board 48% of the time, and professional nurses or emergency medical technicians (EMTs) were on board another 25% of the time. So chances are very good that there will be professional medical help on your flight should you need it.

So if travel is in your future, plan ahead and stay vigilant, but rest a little easier knowing that the odds appear to be good that you’ll have a great time.

 

Food Allergies? There’s an App for That!

by Kelley Lindberg


Got a smart phone or iPad? Then you probably have a screen full of favorite apps. They make our lives a little easier, our errands a little faster, and our time-wasters a little more fun. They can also make living with food allergies a little more manageable.

Here are a few food-allergy-related apps I’ve found that seem to be helpful. I haven’t tried them all yet, but I’m working my way through them. There are plenty more food allergy apps where these came from, so go to your favorite app store and search for whatever you need – from cooking, to shopping, to eating out, to traveling, there’s an app for that! And if you have a favorite food allergy app that I haven’t listed, let us know about it by posting a Comment.

• Myfoodfacts (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, $1.99) – With this shopping tool, you personalize your food allergen alerts, then use your iPhone camera to scan product label barcodes to search ingredients for your allergens. If a food allergen is found, the app alerts you. It covers food products in the U.S. now, but future releases will include Canada, Europe and other countries, as well as other smartphones.
• Restaurant Nutrition (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Free, but a paid version has more features)  – This app provides nutritional info for food at chain restaurants. It notes if the restaurants provide allergy info. You can customize the allergy info so that foods that contain any or all of the Top 8 allergens won’t be displayed for that restaurant, so you can see if there is anything you can eat at that restaurant.
• AllergyEatsMobile (Android, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Free) – This is the app version of the AllergyEats.com website, where users write reviews of restaurants and their food-allergy friendliness. You can click a “Find Restaurants Near Me” button, or type in a location to find restaurants elsewhere. Because their information is created by users, some cities in the U.S. have more reviews than others. You can also log in and rate restaurants yourself.
• Cook It Allergy Free (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, $4.99) – Includes lots of recipes that you can customize to avoid your allergens, and it even suggests safe substitutions for recipe ingredients. You can add your own notes to the recipes, save your customized recipes, and create a grocery list of ingredients for a recipe.
• Allergy Translator (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, $1.99) – Translates your food allergies and requirements into other languages, so you can show the translated screen to your restaurant server when traveling in other countries. Lets you choose from 45 allergens and 33 languages.
• SelectWisely Allergy Cards (iPhone and iPod Touch) – I’ve used Select Wisely translation cards for years – they are wallet-sized cards that list your allergies and a warning message in the language you choose. Now you can order the same card and have it on your iPhone. Contact Select Wisely directly for cost and more information.
• EMNet findER (Android, Blackberry, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Free) – Finds the nearest emergency room with one click, and lets you display directions.

Caribbean Memories

by Kelley Lindberg

I’m looking at a photo of my son pretending to drink a “sandy colada” on the beach in St. Martin. It’s one of a couple thousand photos we and our Baltimore friends took while we spent a week together on a 46-foot catamaran sailboat exploring the Dutch and French West Indies islands in the Caribbean. We just got back a few days ago, and I think I’ve nearly gotten all the sand out of our duffle bags – but not out of our memories, like this photo.

It was an incredible trip. Combine two couples who’ve been friends forever, their four boys ranging in age from 12 to 21, a week of perfect weather (despite the fact that it’s the start of hurricane season… whew!), a sailboat, a million tropical fish, assorted sea turtles, sting rays, barracuda, a nurse shark (“No, really, Mom, they’re practically harmless!”), and a giant pile of snorkel and scuba gear, and you’ve got a recipe for paradise.

At least in my cookbook, that is.

We chartered the sailboat from The Moorings, a company that charters boats all over the world. One of the nice things about this company is that they provide you with a list of meals for the week, you select the food you want, and they’ll stock the boat for you when you arrive. On the menu list, I make copious notes about the food allergies we have in our group (my son’s peanut and tree nut allergies, and the other mom’s kiwi allergy), and they are pretty good about making sure the provisions they bring on board are safe. I always go through every item carefully to make sure nothing sneaks by, and if it does, the company is good about swapping it for something else.

We cook most meals on board, so that makes it easy to control any allergens. And when we eat at a bar or restaurant on shore, we can usually check ingredients labels or talk directly to the chef to make sure the food is safe. If not, I carry a load of safe granola bars as a backup plan.

We’ve found that as the years go by, more and more people are aware of food allergies, even in the more remote places where we travel. It’s slowly becoming easier to talk to chefs – they understand immediately the seriousness of allergies, and they are usually willing to suggest safe alternatives. And labeling is becoming universally more allergy-friendly, so even local brands are making an effort to indicate allergens or allergy-friendly manufacturing processes.

Things have changed a lot in the last ten years, for the better, making travel a little bit easier every year. Of course, I still have to read everything, check everything, talk to everyone, and pack a ton of my own food supplies…you can’t stop being vigilante, ever. But at least there are growing options and increased awareness.

And that makes me happy, because experiencing all the world has to offer is an irresistible goal for our family – and my son would rather live on two weeks’ worth of safe granola bars alone rather than risk missing out on swimming through tropical coral reefs and play peek-a-boo with a nurse shark. Me? I could live without the shark. But those iridescent blue parrot fish?… Never!

Summer Travel Tips for Food Allergies

by Kelley Lindberg


Summer is a great time for family vacations. Whether it’s a road trip to see natural wonders in our scenic national and state parks, a weekend fishing at the lake, camping, or a flight to see grandparents, vacations are luring many of us away from home for summer fun.

Travel can mean extra complications for those of us with food allergies, but that doesn’t mean we have to stay home! All it takes is a little extra planning and smart packing to make your trip as safe as it is fun.

Here are a few tips that might help if you’re hitting the road this summer.

1. Embrace picnics. If it’s a road trip, pack a cooler with safe food for lunches and breakfasts, and stop at parks or rest areas for picnics. Bread, sandwich fixings, snacks, fruit, veggies (carrots, celery, etc.) all travel well in a cooler and make for a great picnic. It’s safer, healthier, and cheaper than all those fast-food places, too. And picnics are fun – even if the weather isn’t great and you have to hunker under a pavilion in the rain, it still can be an adventure and a fun story to tell later. Those are the memories your kids will still have years later.

2. A UFAN member on the UFAN email forum suggesting taking a crockpot and plugging it into an adapter that runs off the car’s power. Put dinner in the crockpot in the morning, and by the time you reach your destination, dinner’s ready! Sounds good – but it could be dangerous in a crash (boiling grease flying through the car = bad). But taking a crockpot and letting dinner cook in the hotel room while you’re sightseeing sounds like a VERY good idea. Who needs room service?

3. If you’re flying somewhere and can’t carry a big cooler, invest in a collapsible cooler that fits in your suitcase, or buy a super-cheap Styrofoam cooler at a discount store at your destination. I have a small lunch-sized insulated bag that fits in a day-pack, so I can carry my son’s sandwich whenever we go on day-trips. I also have one of those larger collapsible coolers that fits in my suitcase, for carrying picnics and drinks to the beach. Then I pack (or buy) a bunch of Ziploc bags to hold ice as well as food. Here’s a tip: fill a Ziploc bag with water, lay it flat in the freezer, and let it freeze. Presto—an icepack for slipping into that lunch sack.

4. Plan your route and scout out hotels or condos that have microwaves or kitchenettes in them. You can fix easy meals in the room that way. Not only is it safer allergy-wise, it saves money, too.

5. When you arrive at your destination, plan to grocery shop on the first day. The internet is great for finding health-food or gluten-free stores, so do a little research before you leave to find a likely grocery store. If there is a product you love that you don’t know if you’ll find where you’re going, pack it. I always take a jar or two of Sunbutter in my checked luggage, just in case.

6. On an airplane, carry plenty of safe food in your carry-on luggage. I pack granola bars (even if you don’t much like them, they can be a life-saver if you’re stranded in an airport because of a missed connection or mechanical trouble). Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain bars are nut-free and egg-free. Cascadian Farm Harvest Berry granola bars are nut-, milk-, and egg-free, and Enjoy Life Foods bars are free from the Top 8 allergens. I also pack fruit snacks (don’t carry fresh fruit if you’re going internationally, however), safe cookies, or other treats, too. We have been stuck in airports for up to 13 hours before – it may not be the most nutritious day of eating, but at least we don’t starve if I’ve got a box of granola bars in my bag.

7. If you’re traveling with other people, let them know before-hand about your family’s allergies and the best way to handle them on the road. Ask them for help in keeping your child safe.

8. Pack your own soap, shampoo, and lotion. Those cute little bottles and soaps in the hotel are appealing, but if they don’t have an ingredients label on them (and most don’t), don’t use them. Too often, they contain nut oils, soy products, milk, or other botanical products that you may be allergic to. It wouldn’t be much fun to slather on that nice-smelling lotion, only to discover that you’re breaking out in hives and have to be rushed to the hospital.

9. Carry a pack of hand-wipes at all times. Great for cleaning all the surfaces in an airplane (armrest, tray-table, seatbelt buckle, and window shade), as well as for cleaning any other surfaces in fast-food places, restaurants, etc.

10. Order a medical ID bracelet or tag for the allergic person. My son wears a cool nylon sports-band ID bracelet from American Medical ID that lists his allergies and my cell phone number. For my own diabetes, I have medical alert tags from Sticky J on my key ring and on my purse (I’m allergic to metal, so I can’t wear them on my body).

11. Traveling internationally? Visit SelectWisely.com to order translation cards – they say things like “I have a life-threatening allergy to…” and you can list all the foods you’re allergic to, and choose from a staggering array of languages. They also offer cards for other illnesses and conditions, in addition to allergies.

These are just a few tips to get you going. If you have more tips to share, be sure to post them in the comments section.

Happy travels!

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!

Lemon Gelato – A Scoop of Italian Heaven

by Kelley Lindberg

Buon giorno! (Good day!)

I’m back from my trip to Italy (with a brief stop in Paris), and I have eight million photos to prove it! Lucky for you, I won’t post them all. Maybe just a couple…

Our trip was, of course, fantastic in every way. We spent a day and a half in Paris seeing the usual sites (Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe).

 

Then we spent ten days in a 100-year-old villa in the tiny historic town of Positano, Italy, on the Amalfi Coast (just south of Naples).

We spent our days wandering up and down the Amalfi Coast, visiting places like Pompeii and Herculaneum – both cities were buried under so much ash from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. that the houses, buildings, streets, and other structures were incredibly well preserved. Today you can stroll through Roman-era houses with painted frescoes still on the wall, mosaic floors still brilliantly colored and intricate, public bars with their terra cotta wine vats still intact, and even gardens still boasting their reflecting pools, columns, and statues.

It was an incredible experience for my son, too. It’s one thing to read about history in a book. It’s quite another to wander through an ancient, excavated Pompeiian shop and see the containers that held Roman “fast food” and signs still painted on the walls advertising everything from politics to wine prices. 

My son loved every minute of it – even if it seemed at first that he was destined not to indulge in any Italian gelato. He was really looking forward to Italian gelato. (My fault: I’ve been telling him for years that Italian ice cream is the best in the world!) But most of the gelaterias we encountered were cross-contamination nightmares. All the flavors were in small bins very close to each other, and the fanciest places piled their bins high with the frozen treat, topping them with real pistachios, hazelnuts, and other hazards.

Eventually, though, we did manage to find two or three gelaterias where my son could indulge. Fortunately, his favorite flavor is lemon, and lemon doesn’t get double-dipped with nutty flavors very often. So when we found a gelateria close to our villa where the proprietor made an effort to serve him an uncontaminated scoop of lemon gelato, we quickly found ourselves making repeat visits there (sometimes twice a day!). We also found a place in Amalfi that served nothing but lemon flavors of gelato. The owner claimed he used lemons from his own trees (the Amalfi Coast is famous for its lemons) and promised there were no nuts in the whole place. My son was in heaven!

Here’s a photo of him enjoying his very first gelato limone.

Next week, I’ll tell you about our experience finding safe breads and pastas. (Sneak preview: I’m still not certain how wide-spread the use of lupin flour is!)

Ciao!

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.)

Sonoma Valley Musings

I’m back! OK, so you probably didn’t even miss me. But I tried really hard to post a blog column last week from Sonoma Valley, California, but I couldn’t get my wi-fi connection to work, so I could never get online. So I apologize for the long break between postings.

Last week was my husband’s and my twentieth anniversary, so we went to Sonoma to celebrate. It was our first trip alone since our son was born ten years ago, and we enjoyed spending time together and being extremely lazy. We’d picked a destination where we wouldn’t feel guilty about not having our son with us – he’s such an avid traveler that most of the places we considered we worried we’d spend the whole time saying, “Oh, I wish he were here to see that!” Then we hit upon Wine Country and decided that would be perfect. It was about the only place in the world where he would be bored out of his mind and we grown-ups would be happy as little clams.

We were right.

While my husband and I were sitting on patios overlooking acres and acres of vineyards, tasting decadent Bordeaux-style reds, smooth-as-silk Zinfandels, and crisp Sauvignon Blancs, our son was having the time of his life staying with his best friend’s family, going to swimming pools, movies, parks, batting cages, and birthday parties. And since his best friend is food-allergic, too, we didn’t have to worry for even a second about whether or not he’d be safe. The mom he stayed with, Kim, has been my partner in the food-allergy battle for nearly ten years now, and she’s the ultimate mom anyway – I wanna be just like her when I grow up!

Knowing my son was safe under Kim’s wing made it easier to relax and enjoy my husband last week. We spent a lot of time talking about wine, the funny people we encountered at the wineries, the lack of tourists for this time of year (the bad economy was great for our vacation, bad for the winery and restaurant owners), and why I don’t cook like the California gourmet chefs at all the restaurants in Sonoma and Napa. (I have a lot of good excuses, believe me.)

We also noticed things about allergies here and there, and were surprised at how often they came up. For example, the bed and breakfast where we stayed was absolutely delightful – it’s called the Thistle Dew Inn, and it’s one block off the main plaza (town square) in Sonoma. My husband had been a little leery of staying in a B&B because he knows many of them use a lot of potpourri and perfumes, and he’s allergic to those types of scents. When we arrived, the welcome paper we received explained that this B&B was fragrance-free, and asked guests to please refrain from using perfumes and colognes. That was great for us! We told the owner she should put that on her website, so that fragrance-sensitive travelers will know to choose her establishment over others. Her welcome sheet also asked guests to please let her know about any food allergies so she could accommodate them in her fabulous breakfasts. Enlightened!

Other things we noticed about allergies on our trip:

• Many wineries set out little trays of almonds during the wine tastings.
• Californians love avocados, so I had to remember to ask about avocados in menu items frequently (I’m allergic to them).
• Trader Joe’s carries a sunflower-seed butter that looks a lot like Sunbutter. I bought a jar but haven’t opened it yet, so I’ll let you know when I do if it’s similar.
• Trader Joe’s also carries an aluminum-free deodorant that uses cotton, similar to the Adidas deodorant I’ve been using that is difficult to find in stores. (I’m allergic to aluminum.) I bought a couple of canisters but haven’t tried it yet.
• I hear a rumor Trader Joe’s might be opening in Utah soon – I can’t wait!
• A romesco sauce is made of ground nuts (often almonds or hazelnuts) mixed with ground roasted peppers and olive oil, but the peppers can hide the taste of the nuts, so don’t ever order anything without asking what all the ingredients are first. (Fortunately, since our son wasn’t with us, nuts weren’t a problem for us, but I’m glad I’ve learned what romesco sauce is anyway!)

Now we’re home, reunited with our son, and life is slowly returning to normal, whatever that is. Gone are the five-star meals, the housekeeping service, and the lively little walking-distance town square with its luscious restaurants and party-atmosphere farmer’s market.

Oh well. Guess I’ll have to start brushing up on my gourmet cooking skills now. Do tacos count as gourmet cooking?

Sightseeing in Washington D.C.

Last Monday, when I should have been posting a new blog column here, I was walking around the Mall in Washington D.C. with my son and his friend. We’d gone to Baltimore to visit that friend and his family for a few days, and we’d decided to sneak in a super-quick jaunt to D.C., too.

In six hours, we managed to meet up with my high-school friend Shari, wander around Capitol Hill, visit the Supreme Court Building, marvel at the ornate beauty of the Library of Congress’s Jefferson Building atrium and reading room, stroll through the National Art Gallery’s Sculpture Garden, and dash through two of the 19 Smithsonian museums – the Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Natural History.

It was a fast and furious spin through some of the most remarkable buildings in our country that represent so much of what makes up the U.S.A. – our laws, our government, our history, our literature, our science and technology, our creativity, and our land’s natural wonders. I didn’t plan it that way – but when I sat down and thought about what we’d seen, I realized we’d somehow encapsulated a stunning sampling of America’s greatness in a single day’s adventure.

My son’s only frustration was that I kept hurrying him through the museums – he would have happily read every plaque and studied every exhibit… and we’d still be in the first room of the first museum if I’d let him. So I’ve promised him that in a few years we’ll go back and spend an entire week in Washington D.C., hitting more monuments and museums. At the top of his “next time” list? The National Spy Museum.

I’m so grateful my son has inherited my love of travel. And the older he gets, the easier it is. I have to pack fewer toys to keep him occupied, for example. And, of course, he’s unlikely now to grab random food and taste it while we’re at someone else’s house. He knows to read labels. He knows what foods to shy away from. He even reminded me to use Wet Wipes to wipe down his arm rest, tray table, and seat belt on the airplane before he touched anything (and on Southwest.flights, where they give everyone peanuts whether they ask for them or not, that’s important!). At 10, my son’s becoming an equal participant in his own safety, and that’s a wonderful thing.

It makes me feel like all the years of teaching, protecting, and warning him are beginning to pay off, preparing him for the years ahead when I’ll have to let go and rely on his own sense of self-preservation to keep him safe. As comforting as that is, however, I’m in no hurry for those years to get here. I have to admit, after our fast-paced day in D.C., the mother in me still loved it when he curled up on my lap – all 90 pounds of him – and fell asleep on the Metro ride back to Baltimore.

It’s nice to know that he still needs me.

Avoiding “Cacahuates” in Mexico

“Remember,” my dad explained to my son last week while we were all together on vacation in Mexico, “don’t eat anything that starts with ‘caca’.”

Good words to live by.

“Cacahuates” is the Spanish word for peanuts. “Nueces” means nuts. We practiced them a lot on our vacation, making sure we didn’t accidentally order or buy anything that contained them. We were having too much fun playing in the waves, lounging on the beach, and splashing in the pool – we sure didn’t want to cut any of that short by having to practice the Spanish word for hospital (which is, fortunately, “hospital”).

We did have one close call, however. At our resort, we ate dinner one night at the buffet. When we walked in, I told the hostess that my son was allergic to peanuts and nuts, using both the English and Spanish translations. She completely understood, and turned to tell another waiter beside her the same thing. I could pick out enough of her words to know what she was saying. They both nodded emphatically and explained to me, in English, that they understood, and that he would find many foods to choose from.

So far, so good.

When our real waiter arrived, I again explained to him that my son was allergic to “cacahuates y nueces,” tackling it in both Spanish and English, and he assured me, in very nice English, that he understood and he would talk to the chef.

Again, so far, so good.

At this buffet, you order a main entrée, then go to the buffet for salads, fruit, various Mexican specialties like fajitas and empanadas, and desserts. My son ordered the steak entrée, then we strolled the buffet looking for safe things for him to eat. The breads were out – no way to verify the baking ingredients. But the chicken fajitas were okay, the cheese empanada was tasty, and the watermelon was right up his alley. We avoided the dessert table completely – pecans and almonds were evident.

When his entrée arrived, there was the steak, a mini quesadilla, and a tiny rolled thing under sauce. “What is that?” I asked the waiter who delivered the food, who was not the same waiter we’d ordered from.

“Enchilada,” he said.

“What is the sauce on it?” I asked, eyeing it. It looked suspiciously like a mole sauce, which is often made with peanuts, almonds, or other nuts.

“No, no,” he assured me. “Nothing like that.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, “because he’s ‘alérgico’.”

He assured me again that it was nut-free. A little part of me still worried, but I’d told four different people now, all of whom assured me that they understood.

My son started in on the steak. Fortunately, he doesn’t care for sauces on much of anything, so he started on the side of the plate away from the mysterious sauce.

He was on his third or fourth bite when our original, main waiter suddenly appeared at my son’s side, and began whisking away the plate. “I need to take this away,” he said, breathless from having run across the whole restaurant.

“Stop eating!” I commanded my son, and he dropped his silverware and sat back, while the waiter scooped up the plate.

“I am so sorry,” the waiter was saying. “It was a mistake. It should not have happened. I will bring him a new plate with new food.” Within a minute or two, he was back with a new plate, new steak, and no sign of mole sauce.

The waiter was clearly embarrassed and upset, because he wouldn’t look me in the eye when he came back to refill our glasses with water. Finally, I called him over to me.

“Thank you for catching that. His allergies are scary, so I appreciate that you discovered the mistake and told us right away.” He still was embarrassed and contrite, but I could see the relief in his shoulders.

I’m a big fan of the “encourage good behavior with rewards” school of thought. I could have made a scene, chewed him out, or been angry. But that wouldn’t have helped anything. The close call and his embarrassment alone left a huge impression on him, and I know the next time an allergic person sits at his table, he’ll be extra vigilant about their food. I hope that by telling him how much I appreciated him being honest and fast in fixing the mistake, I left him with a good feeling about allergic people, and not a dread. Fear causes mistakes. I want him to care, not fear.

Also, I had made a mistake, too. I had a bad feeling about that sauce, and I didn’t act on my motherly instincts.

Next time, I’ll know better, too.

Fortunately, the whole story had a happy ending. My son loved the steak, I loved my mahi-mahi steamed in a banana leaf, and when we left the restaurant, the waiter purposefully caught my eye and said “thank you.”

And for the rest of the week, my son successfully avoided eating anything that started with “caca.”

Caribbean Dreams

Re-entry is hard.

I love vacations, and I hate coming home. Coming home means piles of laundry, stacks of mail, a to-do list a mile long, looming work deadlines, and cold weather.

Sure, it’s nice to sleep in my own bed. I guess. Oh, who am I kidding? I much preferred sleeping on the 43-foot catamaran we just spent a week on while sailing through St. Lucia and the Grenadines in the Caribbean. Endless miles of turquoise water. Coral reefs teeming with fish in every color of the rainbow. Millions of stars in an unspoiled sky. Steel drum music wafting over the water from the nearby beach bar. Flippers and masks piled in the corner, ready for the next snorkeling foray. Rum punches. Conch fritters. Fish on the grill, freshly pulled from the water off the back of our boat.

I traded all this for gloomy skies, a messy house, and Christmas sale commercials?

Blech.

I’m a traveler at heart, and there’s no way around it. Right now, I’m sitting here with a handful of exotic coins in my pocket – they have scalloped edges and an old-fashion sailing ship on them. A giant conch shell, its inside pink and pearly, sits drying on my kitchen counter. My passport is lying open in front of me, its latest stamp a testament to my wanderlust.

I’m addicted to travel, and my addiction is apparently hereditary. My son has it, too. He got his first passport when he was 4 months old, when we went to Holland. At 2, he went to Hawaii and Sint Maarten in the Caribbean. He’s been to Mexico a couple of times, the British Virgin Islands, Belize, and now St. Lucia and the Grenadines. His wish list includes places like Pompeii, Japan, London, and Paris. Not bad for a kid who just turned 10. He’s gone through two passports now, and we’re about to order his third.

With his food allergies, we have to be a little more cautious and a lot more prepared than some when we travel. I carry a ton of food with me whenever we travel – lots of Enjoy Life! Foods granola bars, fruit snacks, and boxes and cans of things he can eat if we get stuck.

But the real life-saver is that since we chartered our own sailboat, we cooked most of our meals ourselves. Chartering a sailboat for a week is like renting a condo for a week – you have your own kitchen, so you can cook all of your own meals. The big difference is that you can’t usually sail your condo to another island when the mood strikes you!

Another good part about this trip was that our airline experience was positive – we discovered a benefit to the airlines’ recent cost-cutting measures! We flew American Airlines this time, and apparently they’ve done away with free snacks. No little packets of peanuts or trail mix! Instead, they have “food for purchase” on some of the flights. You can purchase snacks like chips, a cheese plate, or even a sandwich, but because they’re pretty expensive ($6), few people did. Personally, I felt a lot more relaxed on the flight because there simply weren’t as many wrappers floating around the plane.

Being able to control the food my son comes into contact with means my luggage is heavier, my planning is a little more complicated, and our meals might not be as spontaneous, but it does mean that we can still succumb to that wanderlust in our hearts.

Now if only I could feel as good about my return to reality. Where did all these bills come from, anyway?

Snack Bars in Paradise

A friend’s daughter is headed to Africa and Europe in a few weeks, for a summer’s worth of adventure. She’ll be visiting friends and relatives, as well as doing volunteer work while she’s there. She’s about twenty, full of energy and life and enthusiasm and joy.

And she’s allergic to a whole bunch of things. Her mom’s a tad worried.

But the best way to travel safely is to be prepared, so that’s exactly what the girl and her mom are doing. The mom asked me if I’d found any protein or snack bars that were free of nuts, milk, and eggs. I got on the UFAN forum and asked for recommendations, and everyone agreed that the Enjoy Life snack bars are tasty, and they’re free of all 8 of the “Top Ten” allergens. The mom went online that very night and ordered several boxes. (Click here for the Enjoy Life Foods website.)

When you’re traveling – especially in other countries – finding food without your allergens can be tricky. Sometimes you get lucky and find waiters who speak English, foods you trust, and markets that look reputable. Sometimes you don’t. So carrying your own food with you is essential. Even if you end up not needing it, it’s better to have it than wish you did. And it doesn’t really matter if it’s all that yummy or terribly balanced. You just need to survive for a few days or weeks, and you can do that on bottled water and snack bars if you have to. You can always get back onto a healthier diet when you return.

The other thing this mom and daughter are doing is finding translations for “I’m allergic to…” in all the languages where she’ll be traveling (which is a lot!). A great place for preprinted cards that can help you tell waiters what you’re allergic to, or ask someone to get you medical help fast, is www.SelectWisely.com. Their website has all kinds of helpful tips and resources, and preprinted cards in more languages than you can shake an EpiPen at.

Watching this friend of mine plan for her daughter’s vacation, I realize that it doesn’t matter how old and self-sufficient our children get. We will always worry about them and we will always do anything we can to keep them safe – even when they’re all grown up and heading to the other side of the planet.

I ordered some of the Enjoy Life snack bars myself, to let my son try them. He liked them, and took one in his lunchbox to school today. Someday, my son wants to travel to Japan. We travel a lot and have always had good luck wherever we’ve gone, but Japan makes me more nervous because we don’t speak even a jot of Japanese and I know they use a lot of peanut oils and nuts in their cooking. But even so, someday he may get there, and I know I’ll be just like this friend of mine – stocking up on safe snack bars and other suitcase-friendly foods that will turn his vacation from a trip through a land mine into the trip of his dreams.

I’ll have to do it. It’s in the mom handbook. I’ll be standing there in the airport with all the other moms, saying, “Have a nice trip! I love you! Here’s a snack bar!”

Travel Tips #2: Food During the Trip

Our trip to Cancun has already receded to the domain of dreams. It’s amazing how quickly reality takes back over, isn’t it?

As promised, this week I’ll describe some more tips on how I handle my son’s food allergies when we travel.

When I start packing, I plan ahead and pack at least some food for the time we’ll be at our destination. I try to stay at hotels or condos that have a kitchenette, so that we can make at least some of our own food. If we’re doing a car trip, we take a cooler and keep it stocked with sandwich fixings, salad fixings, etc. If we’re flying, I often tuck in a collapsible cooler that we can use in the hotel if we need to (also comes in handy for taking picnics and beer to the beach!). I’ve also been known to hit the local Walmart to pick up a cheap Styrofoam cooler for the hotel, too, that is easily thrown away when we leave.

I carry a ton of snacks and food in my carry-on. In fact, my carry-on is usually almost completely filled with food, with just a little corner reserved for spare underwear and swimsuits in case we get stranded without our suitcases (it’s happened). That way, even if we’ve gotten stranded at a strange airport overnight, with our suitcases in Timbuktu, we’ve got a change of undies, the ability to play in the hotel pool, and enough food to make a highly unimaginative meal (or two) that may not win points from Good Housekeeping magazine, but it will keep us from starving. And even if we get to our destination in good time, by having breakfast food in the carry-on, that gives me until the next day to find a grocery store. (I hate landing somewhere after an all-day odyssey, then discovering that the grocery stores are all closed.)

There’s usually more food in my checked suitcase, too, because I’m not just packing food in case our flight gets delayed – I’m also packing food so that I’ve got safe options in case our destination proves allergy-unfriendly.

What food do I pack? He’s only allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, so what I carry is probably different from what someone else would carry. But I carry crackers, a box or two of breakfast cereal, NutriGrain bars or Rice Krispie treats that I made, fruit leather, ramen noodles or Easy Mac ‘n’ Cheese, coffee and filters, cookies, a package of dry salami that doesn’t need refrigerating until after it’s opened, a jar of Sunbutter – things that don’t need refrigeration and that can easily be prepared in a hotel room with hot water from the coffee maker, microwaved, or eaten dry. I figure that can get us through breakfasts for a week, and at least a few “I’m hungry!” moments.

Once there, I look for a grocery store and buy bread, lunch meat, drinks, fresh fruit, etc. And if options are limited, I get creative. Sandwiches don’t always have to be made with bread. They can be rolled in a tortilla, or stacked on crackers. Those are easy to pack, too, if I’m worried about buying bread in a foreign place.

At that point, I’ve got breakfast and lunch taken care of for the whole week. I can pack lunches and picnics in the cooler, using Ziplocs and ice from the hotel ice machines to keep things cool when we’re out sightseeing. That just leaves dinners to worry about. If I think the restaurant might not have safe food for him, I’ll pack him another sandwich and take it into the restaurant just in case. Sure, he may get tired of sandwiches after a week, but he’d be a lot more upset if he didn’t get to go on the vacation at all.

In Cancun, we stayed at a time-share condo with friends who’d generously invited us along to share their week. So we had the luxury of a full kitchenette with necessities like pans, plates, bowls, and silverwear. To save time, hassle, and costs (between us, we had 3 kids in tow, none of whom had the patience to sit for long times in restaurants), we made several dinners at the condo, and we ate at the resort restaurants just a few times.

Grocery shopping was interesting, of course. Reading ingredient labels in foreign languages is a bold new adventure, but we figured them out and successfully stocked our cupboards. I did find a clerk at the grocery store who spoke English, and I had her check the labels on a couple of items for me, just to make sure. She was happy to do it.

So between last week’s blog entry and today, now you know all my secrets to traveling: 1) I keep HandiWipes in my purse. 2) I pack my own in-flight food. 3) I pack breakfast food and snacks. 4) I pack a collapsible cooler. 5) I grocery shop for lunch food and keep it in the fridge or cooler in the room, so we can take picnics with us when we go sightseeing.

I have one more bit of advice – I carry a card with me that says “I am allergic to nuts” in the language of the country we’re visiting. I ordered a nifty one from www.selectwisely.com. Check out that site if you are planning any foreign-language travel. By knowing the words for allergenic foods, I can feel a little more confident about reading labels and ordering for him in restaurants when we do go out.

And here’s a bonus from all that pre-planning: The space the food took up on the way to my destination becomes empty space I can fill up with souvenirs on the way back!