Food Allergy Nutrition

This food allergy nutrition guide is designed to help families manage and thrive when living with food allergies. This essential guide addresses the complexities of dietary restrictions, offering practical solutions and valuable insights to ensure families enjoy nutritious and delicious meals safely.

Intended Audience: This guide is perfect for dietitians, parents, caregivers, and anyone responsible for meal planning and preparation in families affected by food allergies.  It alleviates the stress and confusion associated with managing food allergies and provides clear, actionable advice to help you avoid the top 9 food allergens, ensure balanced nutrition, and enjoy a variety of safe and nutritious foods.

Key Features:

• Top 9 Food Allergens & Prevalence: This 2 page handout aims to provide comprehensive and accessible information about the top 9 food allergens and their prevalence in the United States, helping individuals and caregivers to better manage and understand food allergies.

• Signs/Symptoms of Allergic Reaction: This 2 page handout aims to provide essential information on recognizing and responding to allergic reactions, ensuring that individuals and their caregivers are well-prepared to handle potential emergencies.

• Allergy-Friendly Protein Foods: The top 9 food allergens are good sources of protein.  If someone has multiple food allergies, it may be hard for them to get the recommended amount of protein.  This 1 page handout consists of 18 high protein alternatives that are free of the top 9 allergens, but are comparable to the top 9 allergens in regard to their protein content.  Serving size and protein grams are listed for each food.

• Allergy-Friendly Recipes: This 10 page handout goes hand in hand with the “Allergy-Friendly Protein Foods” handout, as it takes all of the allergy-friendly protein alternatives and lists 10 healthy and diverse recipes that contain each high protein alternative.  Each recipe is free from the top 9 allergens.

• Hidden Sources of Allergens: This 3 page handout lists each top allergen and the foods that could be hidden sources of each.  For example, sesame is found in hummus due to hummus containing tahini.  If someone does not know that tahini is made from sesame seeds or that hummus contains tahini, then they would not know that hummus is not safe for an individual allergic to sesame.  It is very important to inform those with food allergies about the possible hidden sources of their allergens.  This handout also includes if cosmetics and medications could be hiding specific allergens as well.

• Allergy-Friendly Foods High in Omega 3’s: Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fats that play crucial roles in various bodily functions and offer numerous health benefits. Unfortunately, a lot of foods that are high in omega-3’s are also top allergens, such as nuts, fish and soy.  This 2 page handouts lists foods that are rich in omega-3’s, but not part of the top 9 food allergens.

• Chia and Flaxseed Recipes: This 2 page handout contains two recipes that are high in omega-3’s, in order to give you examples of how to use the “Allergy-friendly Foods High in Omega 3’s” handout to create delicious and healthy meals without using the top 9 food allergens.

• Egg-Free Baking: If you like to bake, you know that eggs are an essential ingredient in baked goods.  Unfortunately 2.6 million people in the US are allergic to eggs.  Does this mean they shouldn’t have the option of having delicious baked treats?  No way!  Thankfully, this 2 page handout lists 14 egg substitutions that make baking without eggs a breeze.

• 20 Allergy-Friendly Snacks: Whether children need snack ideas for school or families need ideas for long vacations, road trips, day trips or just day-to-day living, this 2 page handout lists 20, top 9 allergen free snack ideas to keep families energized and safe.

• Dairy-Free Calcium Sources: 6.1 million people in the US are allergic to dairy, while some choose to take dairy out of their diets even if not allergic due to an intolerance.  To ensure adequate calcium intake for these individuals, this 2 page handout lists 16 dairy-free alternatives that are high in calcium.  Serving size and calcium content are listed for each recommendation.

• Food Allergies & Micronutrient Deficiencies: The goal behind this handout is to understand and address potential nutritional gaps when living with multiple food allergies.  There are tons of micronutrients in the top 9 food allergens, so those living with multiple food allergies may find it difficult to get in the recommended amount of these important nutrients.  Therefore, this 9 page handout starts by listing the micronutrients in each of the top 9 food allergens, in order to understand what may be missing from the diet of an individual living with food allergies and then continues to list foods that are not top 9 allergens, but contain the same micronutrients.  These lists are meant to help you devise a meal plan, so you or a loved one will not become deficient in any micronutrient due to multiple food allergies.