Congratulations!

Congratulations to Christine R. (Entry #6) who commented on January 12th!  You won my first ever product give-away...a multi-purpose blender valued at almost $50.00!  I hope you're reading.  I need you to get back with me via e-mail by tomorrow evening, Friday, January 22nd.

If I don't hear from Christine, then I'll randomly select another number.  If you entered and didn't win, please check back again on Saturday morning to see if Christine claimed her new blender. 

Thanks to all of you guys that entered!  I appreciate each of you taking a minute to leave a comment.  I got a bunch of great ideas.  Julie, I want to hear how you make blender yeast rolls.  And, Mishi, I'm definitely going to try your "banana un-nut fake-out ice cream".  Thanks for leaving the recipe.  We too use a ton of sunflower butter!

I'd also like to thank Cookware.com.  They really do have a lot very nice products.  I hope they'll considering sponsoring another give-away sometime soon!

Is it really a peanut allergy?

I'm deviating from my Healthy Change posts to write about a study that was just published regarding the "over-diagnosis" of peanut allergies.  Researchers in Manchester, England are claiming that a large percentage of people diagnosed with a peanut allergy may not be at risk at all.

You can read the whole article on WebMd, but here's the jist.  The University Hospital South Manchester fed 993 eight year old, peanut allergic children a special brownie spiked with a peanut protein.  They then gave these children a blood test, presumably a new one, that looks for a reaction to a specific part of the peanut which triggers a serious allergic reaction. The difference between their blood test and a normal skin prick test is that the skin prick test looks for antibodies to more of the peanut as opposed to the part that triggers the serious allergic reaction.  These researchers believe that traditional skin prick test gives too many wrong diagnoses.

Out of these 993 children, 80% who were believed to have an allergy did not suffer any reaction after eating the peanut-laced brownies.  That's a huge percentage! Further though "the researchers admit the study only looked at a relatively small number of children, but say they have confirmed the presence of peanut allergy is substantially lower than peanut sensitisation. They write that accurate testing is needed to allow anxious parents to find out whether a child will react to peanuts."

I'm not sure how I feel about this study!  I do agree that better testing is needed, and I wonder how many children are assigned the label "peanut allergic" without complete testing, i.e., blood test, skin test and food challenge.  Unfortantely, I know that Abigail is allergic and isn't just sensitive.  She had a mild reaction from ingestion before she was 2 years old.  We then had her blood tested, and her IgE numbers confirmed the allergy.  Because she had a reaction, she didn't have a skin test until 5 years later when we started the trial at Duke.  It did also end up being positive. Incidently, part of the criteria for being part of a clinical trial is that a child or adult must have had an actual reaction, and now, each participant is food challenged at the start of every study.

Because no one knows the type of reaction they're going to have at any given time if exposed to peanuts, I still see that peanut allergic individuals have no choice but to continue a strict avoidance.  I would hope that no one would assume they were just sensitive to peanuts and not allergic until a test confirmed as much.  I am intrigued though and look forward to seeing more results of this study.  I'll be asking our doctor at Duke questions about this study next time we're there.

I'm also a tad bit anxious when a study like this is published.  There is a large population that think we are making too big a deal of peanut allergies especially if it means they are inconvenienced.  These type of studies just add fuel to the fire, and are quite frustrating.  This one tells us that there is a chance that our children, or even ourselves, might just be sensitive, but it doesn't give us the means to find out. So, in the meantime, we have to continue to live by what we are told, and in many cases, what we've experienced.  Right now, we know that there is a risk of possible death if a peanut allergic person ingests a peanut product.  Until more is learned, that has to be our driving force!

Healthy Change #8: Natural vs. Organic Meat

A couple of days earlier I touched on the difference between "Organic" and "Natural".  I also mentioned that I purchase a combination of both.  Meat is one of those items that I tend to purchase "Natural."  For one, I haven't come across true "Organic" meat in my shopping expeditions.  Second, the dangers of meat that I most want to avoid seem to be addressed in some of the "Natural" brands.

I'm attaching a link to an article entitled, "Why Eat Organic Meat?"  When I purchase meat, I want to avoid antibiotics, added growth hormones and artificial ingredients as well as I want my meat to have had a vegetarian diet and be minimally processed.  If I am purchasing a pork product, then I also look for products that do not contain nitrates.  From what I can tell in this article, by not purchasing certified organic, I assume a greater risk of getting meat with BSE or mad-cow disease.  I also am buying meat that is processed with a lot less regulation. So, there are trade-offs.

I thought I'd give you a couple of brands that I stick to.  If you have a few or know of an issue with the brands I mention, please leave a comment.

I like to keep ground beef on hand in the freezer for soups, sauces, casseroles, and of course, hamburgers.  I purchase Laura's Lean Beef as well as Harris Teeter's Natural brand. Neither are certified organic.  I usually end up paying around $4.99/lb.  Occasionally, I can find it on sale for $3.99.

I've switched to Hormel Natural Choice for sandwich meat and bacon.  I can find the sandwich meat pretty much everywhere.  I purchase the bacon at Super Target which has the best price at $3.49 versus $5.25 at Harris Teeter.  We swear we can taste the difference in the bacon!

John Morrell's Bistro Naturals is a really good brand of hot dogs.  The hot dogs are also gluten free and contain no MSG.  The cost $4.25 at Harris Teeter.  I used to be able to purchase Bistro Naturals link sausage, but Harris Teeter (the only store I've found to carry the sausage) discontinued it due to lack of sales.  Now, the only place I can find a natural sausage link is Trader Joe's.

I'd like to state that I'm not compensated by any of these brands.  I mention them simply because I've done the research, used the product and my family likes the taste.  But....if a company ever wants to send me their product to review...I'll definitely do that.  Just be prepared for an honest one!

There's just one more day to enter my give-away so be sure to take a minute and do so!

Healthy Change #7: I smell something fishy. Fish truths.

There are a ton of benefits from eating fish, and lucky for me, everyone in my house likes it.  While my kids would rather have it in the form of a rectangle, they will eat it grilled, broiled, and of course, breaded.

I'm finding it harder and harder to find fish that was not only caught in the wild, but also fish that was processed in the country it was caught.  A while back, I stopped buying anything "farm-raised".  I also stopped purchasing anything coming out of Asia.  Considering about half of the fish on the market comes from a fish farm (www.greenerchoices.com) and more than 80 percent, about 10.7 billion pounds of the seafood Americans eat, comes from outside the United States, mostly from countries with sketchy regulations (Food and Water Watch), we're not eating as much fish as I'd like.

In a 2008 FDA inspection, 7% of the samples of farm-raised fish contained up to 3 different banned antibiotics and 2 banned fungicides.  Most violations occurred in farmed fish imported from Asia, mainly China, Vietnam, and Indonesia and South America.  In the Prevention.com article, 7 Foods That Should Never Cross Your Lips, one of those foods was farm-raised salmon, "nature didn't intend for salmon to be crammed into pens and fed soy, poultry litter, and hydrolyzed chicken feathers. As a result, farmed salmon is lower in vitamin D and higher in contaminants, including carcinogens, PCBs, brominated flame retardants and pesticides such as dioxin and DDT."

The article on GreenerChoices.org goes on to explain that another problematic trend is that U.S. companies export a good amount of wild-caught seafood to China where it is processed under more lax food safety and labor laws.  They then ship it back to the U.S.  Approximately 15 percent of U.S. wild-caught salmon and 12 percent of cod is exported to China unprocessed and then imported back from China.

What about organic farm-raised fish?  Well, there are no such standards in the U.S.   It's being marketed as organic, but without government oversight.

Here are a couple of tips:

Healthy Change #6: Avoid Chemicals in Foods

When I started this journey to share our experience in a Peanut Clinical Trial at the Duke Clinical Research Unit, I didn't realize that it was going to lead me down the path to also sharing what I'm learning about the food we eat.  I feel though that it all ties together. We're at Duke because Abigail has a peanut allergy.  I'm now reading labels and questioning ingredients because Abigail has a food allergy.  I also believe that the food we are eating and the environment that we now live in is a major contributor to the rise in food allergies.

Having to read the label of every single item that I purchase and spending hours reading about the latest news and trends in my search to better understand peanut allergies has opened my eyes to a myriad of nastiness in the food that I was serving my family.  I feel like I might have been able to prevent Abigail's peanut allergy had I known then what I know now, but I try not to beat myself up about it. I was in a different time and place back in 2003.  What I can do in 2010 and the years following just by modifying our diet is try to prevent cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, depression and other illnesses, attention deficit in my kids (and myself), asthma and other allergies.  That I have control over.  So, in addition to avoiding rGBH, conventional meat and produce, GMO products and farm-raised fish (both still to be discussed) we also try to avoid trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, sodium nitrate, artificial sweeteners and artificial food dyes.

It's the weekend, and I'm not going to go through a long list of the pros and cons of different ingredients.  I will though, provide you with a great tool to use when you look at a label and don't have any idea what the ingredient is, much less how to pronounce it.  It's an alphabetical listing of all of the chemicals that food manufacturers add to processed foods.  It's got a great guide that indicates whether the chemical is safe, if you should cut back, if you should try to avoid the food and lastly if you should avoid the food at all costs.  It's not light reading.  I admit, I've not printed it out, studied it in great detail or anything like that.  I did note the chemicals that we should avoid at all cost and 9 times out of 10 will put a product back on the grocery shelf if I see one of those in the ingredient list.

Here's the link:  Center for Science in the Public Interest, Chemical Cuisine.  I'd wish you happy reading, but it's neither light or entertaining!  It is, however, an eye-opener!

Healthy Change #5: Examine Your Cookware

Last year we stopped using our 10 year old set of scratched, Teflon coated T-Fal cookware and switched to stainless steel.  In hindsight, after learning the risks, we should have done that 8 years earlier (Teflon cookware should be replaced every 2 to 3 years).  I also pulled out a cast iron skillet that I'd never used, and for Christmas this year I got a new 5 quart porcelain covered casserole that I can put on the stove top or in the oven. I loved it!

Cookware is expensive.  There are also so many types and brands that it's almost over-whelming to shop for it.  And, how do you pick the safest?  Here's are a few reasons as to why I selected the types that I did.

Healthy Change #4: Chicken Safety 101

Maybe I should title this "Chicken Safety 102" because cooks everywhere understand the importance of storing and handling chicken. But that's after we get it home to our own kitchens. What about while it's at the store?

Consumer Reports tested hundreds of chickens at stores across the nation and found that two-thirds of the chickens harbored either one or both of the bacterias that cause campylobacter and salmonella.  The cleanest chicken they found was "air-chilled" organic chicken (about 60% tested were clean).  Just another reason to purchase organic!  Here's something I learned in the report.  "Air-chilled" is a process where carcasses are refrigerated and misted rather than dunked in cold, chlorinated water.  Chlorinated water?  Did you know that chicken was bathed in chlorinated water?  I didn't!

Here's another scary fact.  Out of those hundreds of chickens tested, 68% percent of the salmonella and 60% of the campylobacter bacteria was resistant to one or more antibiotics.  My 2 1/2 year old son is prone to upper respiratory infections.  He's been on more antibiotics in his 2 1/2 years than I've taken my entire life.  Tubes helped with the ear infections and now we battle sinus infections. The last one took 3 different antibiotics and almost 2 months to clear up.  He definitely does not need more antibiotics in the foods he eats!

According to the CDC, approximately 3.4 million Americans suffer from eating chicken and other foods infected with salmonella and campylobacter, 25,500 end up in hospitals and 500 die.  The USDA requires chicken to be tested for salmonella, but not campylobacter.

If you are interested in reading how individual chicken brands scored in the test as well as more tips on what you can do to until chicken becomes "cleaner", check out the GreenerChoices.org article on chicken safety.

Don't forget to enter my give-away for a free blender.  No strings attached...promise!