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Cindy Gordon, the owner and author of Vegetarian Mamma, is a foodie who loves to blog about gluten-free vegetarian/vegan recipes. Her family also focuses on foods that are peanut, tree nut, dairy and gluten-free. Cindy’s family is dedicated to finding/creating recipes and products that fit their families allergy needs. She resides in Ohio with her husband and two boys (born ’07 & ’10). She enjoys spending time with her family in the outdoors, as well as gardening, drinking wine and cooking! Connect with Cindy on VegetarianMamma.com, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
My husband and I switched to a vegetarian diet because we wanted to lead healthier lives. We also wanted to move to a plant-based diet and not eat animals. There was a need to eat healthier and be kinder to animals.
Yes, both of our sons are anaphylactic to peanuts and almonds. Our youngest son also has a dairy allergy and celiac disease. Before our children came along we consumed a lot of nuts to supplement our vegetarian diet. Now nuts pose a deadly threat to our sons, so we avoid them at all costs. But eating vegetarian has allowed us to focus on many “whole foods” that are healthier for our family AND allergy free!
Surround yourself with resources, whether it’s a local support group or an online support group. There are so many free resources that you can find online to educate yourself and to learn about food allergies. Try to focus on what you CAN have and not on what you CAN’T.
I am happy to report that we don’t struggle with eating a vegetarian diet. We have plenty of food resources around us at our disposal. (Thankfully!) We are able to eat a large variety of foods to get the nutrients we need!
This is a great question! If I had to pick my top three vegetarian foods/ingredients that I couldn’t live without, I’d pick apples, onions and Sunbutter (sunflower seed spread). What a combo, huh? Well let’s start with the onions. I put onions in everything to add flavor! Apples…we consume several apples each day and we love to eat them raw, on salads or cook with them! We even love to dip them into peanut-free Sunbutter. Sunbutter is our peanut-free spread for sandwiches or anything that one would use peanut butter for!
We have just recently successfully fundraised money for the training and purchase of a service dog for our children. The certified service dog is trained on the scents of almonds and peanuts. The dog will be able to detect down to the residue of those nuts and alert us to the danger. Since the dog is a trained certified service dog, she will be able to go wherever the boys need her: school, church, grocery store, playground, etc. We will be getting our service dog in May when we attend a 10-day handler course. We are excited for this new journey and this exceptional tool to help protect our children.
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