Sloppy? 
Yes, it could be.
Maybe make 1/4 of the recipe in a few greased ramekins, and freeze some (before baking, ideally)?
2 Likes
Could use carrot puree instead of pumpkin. Oats have protein. Looks as though the two types of oats add textural interest.
2 Likes
I like âbliss ballsâ, which are generally whole grain rice cakes, nut butter (or could use pumpkin seed butter for school), dried fruit, rolled oats or coconut, cocoa powder if you like, and protein powder. Pulse in a food processor, and then form into walnut sized balls. They freeze well, and donât need refrigeration, so easy to pop into a snack bag and carry in a pocket.
5 Likes
This sounds intriguing. And I didnât know that pumpkin seed butter is a thing! I canât stand the ban on peanut butter in schools. I survived by eating Fluffernutters when I was a kid.
2 Likes
Sunflower seed butter is tolerable.
2 Likes
Not to my 6-year old. Looking for alternatives.
Side note bc I have a kid who is anaphylactic to peanuts. Elementary school kids are terrible about cleaning themselves, or their table/chair surroundings. Are messy eaters. Have no understanding of the potential consequences of being messy and leaving traces of their food all over the place. When the result of that is that someone elseâs child could die, it seems a small price to pay to ban peanuts and pb from schools with the youngest kids. I wouldnât ban anything post 4th or 5th grade. Then all the kids are starting to be a little more cognizant of themselves and others, and the allergic kids have an easier time protecting themselves and the maturity to understand the importance of it.
7 Likes
My opinion was similar to @digga. Thanks for sharing your perspective. The responses I usually receive are one step removed from âyou horrible savage, why do you want my kid to dieâ.
3 Likes
At the end of the day, we all want our kids to be healthy and happy. And I know how worrisome it can be when your kiddo doesnât eat. Mine seemed to exist on fumes at times. Quite honestly, there are plenty of things that make a kid in a million very sick. There are only a very few of them that make millions of kids sick. Those things should be known, and should be managed.
6 Likes
Totally get that. But surely there were kids who were deathly allergic to nuts when I was a kid. The restrictions canât be due to increased sensitivity to the issue, is it? Or is it? (I am asking completely naively.) what changed? And when did it change?
4 Likes
I recall reading that it has to do with pediatrician recommendations at some point changing to completely remove allergy causing substances for the first 2 years - or something like that. The bodyâs natural ability to build up immunity doesnât kick in when major allergens are completely avoided, so when that allergen is finally encountered the reaction is extreme.
This is just me paraphrasing various things Iâve read over time.
In other cultures where allergens are introduced gradually from a couple of months on, the thought is that the body develops natural immunity. For eg, in India, nut paste and honey are introduced very early. I had never heard of a peanut allergy in India (or China - where peanut oil is used as a cooking medium, as in India, or the Middle East, where nuts are in prolific use).
Maybe thereâs some genetic component, but the developed immunity explanation makes more sense - and seems to on the way to being ratified by science, as the ways in which severe allergies are being combated now is by mimicking these gradual reaction.
For example, thereâs a program where severe peanut allergies are being treated by capsules that have microscopic amounts of peanut allergen, closely monitored and gradually increased over time. My friendâs kid has a special toothpaste that does the same thing - introduces trace allergens, and the subsequent refills have gradually more, and itâs worked wonders for him. Seasonal allergy sufferers take local honey to develop resistance to local pollen. And so on.
But who knows what additives and pesticides and industrial farming and all the rest of that has to do with it. For example, itâs thought that a lot of gluten allergies are to a specific protein in cultivated American wheat, and old-strain European (and Indian) wheat have different proteins that didnât/donât cause the same reaction.
3 Likes
Makes sense to me. OTOH I seem to recall the child of my next door neighbor dying from grass allergies in the 60âs or early 70âs. Maybe âasthmaâ, but he had grass allergies. I had an aunt who died from âasthmaâ as well, maybe 1998. I spoke to her on the phone maybe hours before, and knew it was bad.
I put asthma in quotes because I think I sometimes prefer âreactive airwaysâ.
Yes, we have a couple of cases of severe âasthmaâ in the family.
I recall people having severe breathing-constrained âasthma attacksâ back then that today I might recognize as EpiPen / ER events.
One person had to have the allergy prick tests and then remove severe allergens for a while - like shellfish and certain other things. Those allergies eventually went away / the body recovered immune response (under the allergistâs care).
I do know people who have died of an âasthma attackâ in India more recently, but sadly in some cases it seemed to have been severe airway constriction from allergic reaction that may have been preventable by EpiPen or ER intervention in the US - but medical practice /conventions there are different.
2 Likes
It actually did change. There are more kids with food sensitivities or allergies than 30+ yrs ago. I am not entirely sure what changed, but I have certainly read that fact. I believe some of the hypotheses are that excessive processing of food contributed to it. Like for instance, soy, which is a common allergen, is in something like 70% of processed foods, in some form or other. And an allergy is really just a hyper intense immune system response to a substance in the body. Allergies are also known to be frequently a âitâs too much alreadyâ reaction. So often a little doesnât trigger a reaction but a lot does. And not even necessarily in a meal, but in a lifetime. Such that people might have no reaction to a particular food the first 100 times they eat it, or the first 20 yrs of their life, only to have a complete allergic attack the very next time. None of this was the case when foods were less processed. If you were susceptible to corn, for instance, the only corn you were eating was corn. Now, you are eating corn at every meal. Apparently turning ag into business with a very high proportion of our foods being sprayed or otherwise âspoiledâ also affects our immune responses.
In any case, whatever is the cause, the problem is real. Thatâs my point. I would love to have had a non-allergic kid, and if I had, I would probably be in your camp of feeling like it was an imposition. But again, young kids cannot eat cleanly. And this is dangerous to other young kids.
2 Likes
Yes, actually no exposure can be as harmful as too much exposure. I agree with you.
1 Like
When my kiddo was small, we read about the likelihood of childhood allergies going away. The reference books at the time (about 15 yrs ago?) I believe indicated that 9/10 kids with somewhat less serious allergic reactions lose those as they grow. However, peanuts and shellfish are the most serious and the least likely to go away. I can tell you that my child at 1 who had the scratch and then blood tests clocked in at about 20 or so for the blood protein that is reaction to peanuts. And at 4-5 yrs old, just before school, and having had no peanut products, he now clocked in at 130 or thereabouts. So we knew then he would not outgrow it.
1 Like
Back to the topic at hand, since this thread has taken on its own life! So weâve done the burritos and weâve done the egg bake in a pyrex, then cut it up and stuff 1/2 pitas with it. Thatâs all weâve done so far because Iâve been trying to make each recipe large enough to last awhile.
At least here in our household, the burritos were very popular and the pitas were a fail. Mostly because when frozen, then thawed, the bit of snow the pitas collect from the freezer and the moisture oozing out of the thawing egg tends to sog the pita severely. And we are just not fans of the sog. It didnât affect the tortilla in the same way. But tortilla might be a little like a pizza crust and have some built in barrier where it can take a little moisture and not turn into mush. Anyway, next on the list might be mini frittatas. Just remove the whole starch component in this roundâŚ
2 Likes
My son had a lot of positive skin tests, although no life threatening allergies, thank goodness.
He would roll in grass and get hives. At some point, maybe age 7, he would complain that his mouth peeled when he ate certain things. I didnât worry about it much at first, and then for some reason, one day I examined his mouth, which to me looked indicative of some horrific immune deficiency! He was positive for a lot of allergy skin tests, but the mouth thing turned out to be what was/is called oral allergy syndrome.
At 28, he seems to have outgrown some of it, but still hates cilantro. Poor thing.
Hopefully that makes it on topic.
1 Like
