When my daughter was diagnosed with some major food allergies I had to figure out what she could eat! No dairy (butter, cheese, yogurt, milk). No nuts (peanuts, almonds, cashews). No eggs (Mayo, noodles). Many of those foods were staples in our family diet. We did a lot of testing and trying to find some things that were actually decent tasting.
1. Silk Coconut Milk: I tried soy milk and I didn’t like it. I normally like Almond milk but the allergist told us to stay away from all nuts. I tried rice milk and it just tasted like the water that’s left over after rice has soaked in it (ew). The best option I have found so far is Coconut milk. I started off buying the original or vanilla varieties but I soon found that those were just a little too sweet for my liking. It was too overpowering when mixed with my cereal. But the unsweetened variety…. YUM! I love eating Rice Chex with coconut milk and frozen blueberries. I love how the coconut milk reaches up into the little rice squares and you get a nice coconut milky squirt when you bite them.
2. Sunflower Butter: I have tried two different kinds. I first tried making it myself. I used my Blendtec blender to grind up some roasted sunflower seeds but the flavor was too strong for me. I even added sugar to see if that would help but it was still too much. A few weeks later I bought a jar of the stuff from Trader Joe’s. I hate it but my daughter LOVES it! I make her a little sandwich with grape jelly and sunbutter and she goes to town. The flavor is just too much for me, in fact, I can’t really even get any in my mouth without feeling like I’m going to throw up. Maybe I’m just too used to peanut butter. At least my daughter likes it, she’s the one who’s allergic to peanuts, not me!
3. Earth Balance Buttery Spread: This one is glorious. I grew up with a mother who put butter in EVERYTHING! Oatmeal, vegetables, soups, and breads. Imagine my distress when I was told that I couldn’t have it in my life anymore while I was breastfeeding. So I had to find a tasty substitute. I looked high and low before I even found a butter substitute that didn’t have milk in it (did you know that most margarines contain a small percentage of milk?). The first one I tried was called Smart Balance and it was OK but I only used it if I had to. In fact, I made snickerdoodles with it once. But the taste and texture were just a little too different from my beloved butter and I kept up my search. Then one day I was researching different milk-free foods online and I came across a butter substitute called Earth Balance and I knew I had to try it. Ladies and gentlemen, I can assure you that this is the best butter substitute out there! I use it in all the same circumstances that I would normally use butter and it is wonderful!
So there you have it, 3 things that have made our allergen-free kitchen a little more normal. What are some of your favorite replacement foods?
The Simple Bluebird 