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  • #1

    OK food allergy question!

    I thought about sticking this in sickbay, but since it's work-related I'll stick it here.

    One of the kids at one of the sites I work at is fructose-intolerant. We give the kids fruit, veggies and a savoury snack for afternoon tea. We HAVE been known to put aside special foods for the kids who are allergic, so we're not completely heartless bastards.

    While the kid is good at self-managing, my question is: What WOULD be OK for the kid to eat? I want to start putting aside some food for him at afternoon tea time so he doesn't feel excluded.

    A quick list of what we do give the kids:

    -Apples (red and green, typically the red is whatever's in season, the green is Granny Smith)
    -Pears (the yellow? ones)
    -Bananas
    -Mandarin
    -Nectarines (occasionally)
    -Watermelon (occasionally)
    -Rockmelon (occasionally)
    -Grapes (occasionally)
    -Tinned peaches (this one made me go for reasons I'll explain below)
    -Carrots
    -Cucumber
    -Red Capsicum
    -Green capsicum
    -Cherry tomatoes.

    -Doritos (with salsa)
    -Rice cakes/sandwiches/saladas with a choice of plain, vegemite, strawberry/apricot jam (sometimes both) and cheese spread. (We use white bread for the sandwiches, the saladas alternate between lite, multigrain and regular)
    -Popcorn (this one has proven to be VERY messy so is not being repeated at one of the services I work at)
    -2 minute noodles. (the maggi brand)
    -Whatever the coordinator feels like cooking if numbers are small enough.
    -Sweet biscuits. (the Arnotts assorted range)
    -Savoury biscuits. (Sakatas)
    -Toasted sandwiches with cheese or baked beans.
    -Spaghetti.

    I know I"m missing a couple of things on that list, but that's most of it. Seriously, the kitchen at this particular site looks more like we're cooking for 100 VIPs, not 80 children

    So of that list, what should I put aside for him in the afternoons so he doesn't feel left out? The kids don't complain mostly and the older children are actually very good with it.

    And the irony of the tinned peaches is that we try and market ourselves as a "healthy eating" site as well as being anaphylaxis aware. Yet the syrup in the tinned peaches probaly has as much sugar as fairy bread!
    The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

    Now queen of USSR-Land...
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  • #2
    Take all this with a grain of salt (there must be a pun in there somewhere), but I found some PDF's with dietary suggestions.

    http://www.hamiltonhealthsciences.ca...on/DFI-trh.pdf

    http://www.stlukescr.org/filesimages...ted%20Diet.pdf

    Hope this helps!

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    • #3
      Dumb suggestion - ask the mom what the kid can have for snacks? I am pretty certain she knows what the kid likes and can have. Problem solved.
      EVE Online: 99% of the time you sit around waiting for something to happen, but that 1% of action is what hooks people like crack, you don't get interviewed by the BBC for a WoW raid.

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      • #4
        Quoth AccountingDrone View Post
        Dumb suggestion - ask the mom what the kid can have for snacks? I am pretty certain she knows what the kid likes and can have. Problem solved.
        Actually, I don't think this is a dumb suggestion at all. I think the mother is an idiot since she didn't initiate that conversation herself!

        Fructose is present in so many things, since it's a "fruit sugar" (naturally occurring in most plants, particularly in the fruit) and is half the chemical composition of table sugar (table sugar is a disaccharide composed of a fructose molecule and a glucose molecule bonded together). Technically it's an isomer of glucose (same chemical formula, with the atoms arranged in a slightly different geometry, which can and does change the behavior of the molecule, sometimes rather dramatically.) It's possible that the slight changes in the fructose molecule caused by bonding to glucose change it just enough that the child doesn't react to table sugar, but it's also possible that it doesn't, or the reaction isn't bad enough yet to be noticed, or that she might develop symptoms in the future.

        Anyway, given just how common it is, I'd sit down with the mother as soon as possible and make a "safe list" for the child, and only feed her items off that list.
        At the conclusion of an Irish wedding, the priest said "Everybody please hug the person who has made your life worth living. The bartender was nearly crushed to death.

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        • #5
          Assume that every fruit (botanical, not culinary) has fructose. So of your list of fruits and vegetables, only carrot is safe. Cucumbers, capsicums and tomatoes are all botanical fruits.
          Sauces, dips, etc with botanical fruits can be assumed to have fructose, unless someone with more knowlege than me says otherwise.

          This means that of that list, the only ones I'd try as possibly safe are:
          - carrots
          - the corn chips but no salsa
          - the rice cakes/sandwiches/crackers but not the ones with jams
          - popcorn
          - noodles
          - biscuits (cookies, for our American friends), both sweet and savoury
          - cheese toasted sandwiches
          - spaghetti if it's a cream sauce, but not a tomato sauce

          Even then, I'd check to see if sucrose and/or glucose are okay.

          Even THEN, I'd check the packets. And the word 'sugar' can refer to fructose OR glucose OR sucrose and possibly some other sugars; so if it doesn't specify, assume fructose might be present.

          ... and I'd doublecheck with a nutritionist, if it was my kid.


          So yeah, ask the caregiving parent/relative. And preferably, get the info in writing.
          Seshat's self-help guide:
          1. Would you rather be right, or get the result you want?
          2. If you're consistently getting results you don't want, change what you do.
          3. Deal with the situation you have now, however it occurred.
          4. Accept the consequences of your decisions.

          "All I want is a pretty girl, a decent meal, and the right to shoot lightning at fools." - Anders, Dragon Age.

          Comment

          • #6
            Quoth fireheart View Post
            -Rice cakes/sandwiches/saladas with a choice of plain, vegemite, strawberry/apricot jam (sometimes both) and cheese spread. (We use white bread for the sandwiches, the saladas alternate between lite, multigrain and regular)
            ??? What do you mean by "saladas"? Around here, Salada is a brand of tea.

            Quoth mathnerd View Post
            It's possible that the slight changes in the fructose molecule caused by bonding to glucose change it just enough that the child doesn't react to table sugar, but it's also possible that it doesn't, or the reaction isn't bad enough yet to be noticed, or that she might develop symptoms in the future.
            More than possible - highly probable. From what I've read, HFCS (mixture of glucose and fructose) is a "bad actor", worse than table sugar (chemically combined glucose and fructose).
            Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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            • #7
              Wolfie - looks like Salada is a brand of crackers in Australia. She did mention whole grain so that gave me a clue. Must be pretty prominent if the brand name is interchangeable with the noun (kind of like people here call any facial tissue a Kleenex).

              I had to look up rockmelon - it's a canteloupe.

              I looked up capsicum, too. I knew it had to be peppers of some kind. Looks like bell peppers, I think?
              When you start at zero, everything's progress.

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              • #8
                Quoth MoonCat View Post
                Wolfie - looks like Salada is a brand of crackers in Australia. She did mention whole grain so that gave me a clue. Must be pretty prominent if the brand name is interchangeable with the noun (kind of like people here call any facial tissue a Kleenex).

                I had to look up rockmelon - it's a canteloupe.

                I looked up capsicum, too. I knew it had to be peppers of some kind. Looks like bell peppers, I think?
                Yup to all three. A fun treat we used to do as kids (I don't know if it's still done now) is to put a LOT of Vegemite or cheese or butter or whatever on one salada, sandwich it and press it together. End result? Salada worms!

                I might bring it up with the mother when I see her next and I might also sit down and talk to the kid myself. His sister adores me
                Last edited by fireheart; 01-05-2014, 10:57 AM.
                The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

                Now queen of USSR-Land...

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                • #9
                  My niece and nephew did it. (So did we as kids.)


                  Scary thing, fireheart? I just realised you're almost (not quite) a generation behind me. My niece left school at the end of this year!
                  Seshat's self-help guide:
                  1. Would you rather be right, or get the result you want?
                  2. If you're consistently getting results you don't want, change what you do.
                  3. Deal with the situation you have now, however it occurred.
                  4. Accept the consequences of your decisions.

                  "All I want is a pretty girl, a decent meal, and the right to shoot lightning at fools." - Anders, Dragon Age.

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Quoth Seshat View Post
                    My niece and nephew did it. (So did we as kids.)


                    Scary thing, fireheart? I just realised you're almost (not quite) a generation behind me. My niece left school at the end of this year!
                    I was class of 2007.
                    The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

                    Now queen of USSR-Land...

                    Comment

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