Help! - My son has a soy allergy.

He has had severe tummy troubles since he was a baby, always throwing up and such. We finally figured out he has a pretty bad allergy to soy. Not enough for hives, but enough to make his mouth itch and his stomach to either throw it up, or push it out through the other side in pure liquid.

My problem. EVERYTHING has soy. Bread, pancake mix, pizza, anything processed has soy. Cupcakes, brownie mixes, you name it, it has soy. Even peanut butter has soy, we've had to switch to the all natural kind. Cereals have it, all the crackers and cookies have it. I'm hard pressed to find things that don't have it. I'm starting to expect it in my milk, that's how much I've seen it. I never realized how many things now have soy in them. We can't eat out with him because all the fast food has soy in it.

I need some good recipes for snacks that he likes. Graham crackers, crackers, the sweet and salty granola bars. Things like that. Some oven baked doughnuts would be good too.

Also, lunch box suggestions. He's headed to kindergarten next year and everything at the school has soy in it too. It's very frustrating.

Thanks,

Before we discovered Soy was the culprit it actually got to the point he was throwing up blood, so it is pretty severe. We have to really watch what he eats.

I have no problem cooking from scratch, I do it all the time, I try to bake bread once a week, it looks like I'm going to be amping it up. We've moved to all natural peanut butter and such.

It's just the crackers and such that I don't know how to cook and don't have the recipes for that are the hardest on us right now.

He's only four. He needs some sort of snack and every processed bit of food has soy. I'll check out the links, thanks.

Oh and on the fruits and veggies, we keep apples, oranges, bananas, pears, pinapple, watermelon, carrot sticks, celery and peanut butter, and so on stocked. We are huge veggie and fruit eaters, people are absolutely shocked when my kids run past the candy bars and straight to the fruit.

Hi Ashon,

I have several bread recipes that I rotate through to keep the taste from getting old if you know what I mean. I, however, have never been able to stand the taste of sourdough, so I stick with yeast or baking powder bisquits. I just need to step up and make it more often. Most of the process of making bread is it either rising or baking.

Luckily I grew up on non-processed food and my mom made most everything from scratch so I'm used to it and learned how to cook at an early age. If I hadn't I'd be in trouble.

Hi Ghost,

Unfortunately I live in the middle of nowhere Utah, and I mean middle of nowhere. We are the county seat with a whopping population of 1,500. The nearest "city" is 45 miles away and they have 20,000 people. That's where Wal-mart is. We don't actually get organic food out here and it's pretty hard to find soy free products at a decent price. We're another 3 hour drive from any real city where I could possibly get them.

What I'm looking for is DIY recipes for things in the store like crackers and such, as there is not a single cracker in any of the nearby stores that don't have soy.

Kikazaru,

I don't get puffed wheat, but I do get puffed rice which is just rice puffed up. I have a wonderful recipe for snacks with it that my kids devour. You make them pretty much like rice cripsies, but they are much healthier, fewer calories, and packed with fruits and nuts.

Rice Crispy replacement treat.

3 Ounces Puffed Brown Rice
7 Ounces Mini Marshmallows
3 Ounces Toasted Slivered
Almonds
1.5 Ounces Each Dried
Cranberries & Dried
Cherries
1 Ounce Dried Blueberries
1 Tbs. Orange Blossom Honey (or regular honey this is just sweeter)
3 Tbs. Flax Seed Oil

I would also like to learn how to make power bars, like the original power bars from scratch, I have the ingredients, but not the quantities. I guess that's going to take some experimentation. I don't know why I like the chocolate one so much, but I can't afford to buy the store ones. Oh well. I'll figure it out.

kikazaru said:

I was looking for an oatmeal square that I make (oatmeal, sugar, butter pressed in a pan) but came across this one and it looks very good and you could subs. choc chips for the dried fruit if he prefers.

http://www.canadianfamily.ca/articles/recipe/awesome-oatmeal-bars/

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From your link, these look fantastic! And you could change out the fruit. I have an easy recipe for crepes that are easy to do as well.

Fruit Burritos

• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 4 store-bought 9-inch crêpes (10 to a package)
• 4 tsp smooth peanut butter or cream cheese
• 2 bananas diced
• 1 pear halved, cored and cut lengthwise into 12 pieces
• 1/4 cup fresh blueberries
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

1. Mix sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl; set aside.
2. Lay crêpes out on a flat, dry surface. Spread 1 teaspoon peanut butter on one side of each crêpe. In centre of each crêpe, mound equal portions of banana, pear, blueberries and raisins. Place 2 tablespoons yogurt on top. Dust with a pinch of reserved cinnamon sugar.
3. Wrap crêpes one at a time: Fold each side in towards middle. Fold bottom of crêpe over filling and roll it up tightly; repeat with remaining crêpes.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Wow. This is news to me. I didn't think ANYTHING had soy in it except soy sauce. Seriously. Why would they put soy in all that stuff? Just a cheap protein filler or something?

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They put soy in everything because they then can falsely claim it as healthy. Soy actually has so many toxins and poisons in its natural form that it has to be processed to death just to make it safe to eat. The less processed it is, the more dangerous it is. It's actually an anti-nutrient. But some weird skewed studies that had a group of kids put on a pure soy diet for a month despite the fact that they threw up most of the food and had various ailments, came out about the same weight it was considered safe and healthy.

Go figure.

You need quite a bit of protien to counteract soy's affects.

Anyway, it's been labled a health food and so now everyone is putting it in to get the cheap protien suppliment and so they can slap on a health benefit label on their over processed nutrient minimal food.

Yes, I'm quite irritated about all this and have done massive amounts of research.

GhostAuthor said:

Okay, well, here's a link to Amy's. They have an online store! Don't know how much shipping costs, but heck it might be worth it. They have frozen pizza that is soy free.
http://www.amyskitchen.com/index.php

Here's another great company with a lot of soy free products. They ship as well.
http://www.annies.com/
They have soy free mac and cheese and crackers called cheddar bunnies.

Hope this helps!

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Unfortunately I can't afford their products and most the stuff I can make.

With the pizza, I just make french bread dough, shape it out to a crust, roll the bottom in corn meal and parmesean, then let the kids add on their sauce and toppings, whatever they want. They really enjoy the process, I just never realized that when we went the quick way, i.e. buying it pre-made, that they all contained soy.

Heck, even hotdogs contain soy.

Here we go, some cracker recipes!

http://www.garvick.com/recipesmm/cracker_recipes.htm

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/olive-oil-crackers-recipe.html

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/cat/1748/0.shtml

ETA: *sigh* even my vegetable oils and sprays are now soy. Guess it's back to shopping. Add margarine, salad dressing, miracle whip, ranch, and such to the list. They also contain soy...

Tirjasdyn said:

I feel your pain. I have to limit my sugars to near diabetic proportions...and they add sugar to everything...even sugar substitutes.

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My mom is diabetic so I understand what you're going through, but she always cooked her food so it wasn't too hard to cut it out, it was just a matter of resisting the sugary temptations. She imagines the pain of a shot any time she wants a cookie or whatever and suddenly they don't look or sound very good.

She's been able to stay on minimal medication for over 18 years so far.

Add bullion, canned soups, and chocolate to the list. Only chocolate going through this house has to start out as 100% cocoa powder. This is getting complicated.

On the bright side, we should all be pretty darn healthy by the time he grows up. He's past the age most kids grow out of it and it's only getting worse.

Yeah I have some recipes that I found. The biggest thing is just the entire lifestyle change we are going through. It's going to take some adjustment. I can't buy him chocolate any more, I can't make chocolate chip cookies pretty much ever again if he's going to be around them, we can't accept things other people make because they might have used soy products. He won't ever be able to eat the school's lunch, he won't be able to eat out with his friends when he gets older, I'll have to send instructions with him whenever he has a sleep over or eats over at a friends house. I'm sure it's not as big of a deal as it seems right now, it's just different than I expected it to be.

I bought all new oils today, I can't ever buy margarine again, I used to buy the 50% reduced fat, no more of that. No more bagels, unless I can find a recipe, no more tortillas except for homemade. No more pizza except homemade.

I'm sure we'll be the better for it and I need to cook more anyway, it's just a big adjustment for me and the family. At least they are all taking it very well. Even my husband resisted getting chips and crackers because they contain soy.

Well today was our first soy free day.

We had french toast with homemade bread for breakfast, homemade bread with all natural peanut butter and homemade strawberry jam along with carrot sticks and apple slices, then for supper I'm cooking tacos, with a home mixed spice mix and homemade tortillas. We avoided Hawaiian Punch and the cookies at my daughter's end of the year presentation because both had soy.

Oh and for dessert, cheesecake swirled brownies.

All I can say is it's certainly going to be interesting. We're going to be consuming a lot less preservatives.

chevbrock said:

Yum! When's dinner?

Oh, and I forgot wheat, above. Of course, it's in pretty much everything, too - and look how many poor souls are allergic to it!

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Yes, I'm extremely grateful he doesn't have a wheat, oat, milk, or fruit and veggie allergy, which all run in the family on his father's side. His father is deathly allergic to shell fish. His aunt is allergic to the fruits and veggies (she lives on benedril), his one uncle is allergic to milk as well as his aunt on my side, and his other uncle on that side is allergic to most grains.

So considering the family history, he got pretty lucky because at least I can make him food without too much trouble, just natural pure ingredients. It's just a lot of cooking.