Making your own is a great way to come up with allergy-friendly candy – for the holidays and beyond. And it’s creative. The following recipes are free of Canada’s top 11 allergens (includes the U.S. top 8), and I avoid using corn syrup.

Sunflower Cups

Here’s a favorite: an alternative approach to the peanut butter cup.

• 1 cup (250 mL) sunflower seed butter (I used Sunbutter)
• 1 cup (250 mL) icing sugar
• 1 ⁄2 cup (120 mL) allergy-safe chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life)

To make cups

1. Mix the sunflower seed butter and icing sugar together to form a thick paste. Set aside.
2. Using a candy thermometer, in a double boiler temper the chocolate chips by melting until the temperature is 125 degrees F, then cooling to 84 degrees. This results in a glossy finish and a snap when cooled. (If you melt the chocolate without tempering, it won’t look as good.)
3. Spoon the chocolate into  molds, making sure to cover, not just the bottom, but also the sides with chocolate.
4. Let chocolate set (become solid), then spoon in the sunflower mixture.
5. Spoon on the top layer of chocolate. Leave in the mold until ready to eat.

Next: Boiled Candies

Sweet Sensitive Baby Sammy from the Goldberger Company was created just for infants with asthma and allergies. She’s made of materials that are allergy-friendly and don’t contain chemicals that can trigger symptoms. She can be frozen, then washed to minimize dust.
US: $14.99 at Tuesday Morning Stores and www.amazon.com.
Canada: $14.99 at Winners.

Your little girl and her best doll friend can share a safe playtime meal. American Girl’s Allergy Free Lunch includes a healthy plastic lunch, smoothie, medical bracelet, allergy stickers, a pretend epinephrine device and a fun lunch bag. Great for getting kids to think about stay-safe strategies in a non-threatening way.
US: $28 plus tax, shipping at www.americangirl.com; site also lists retail locations.
Canada: $28 plus shipping at www.americangirl.com.

Gifts for Kids & Teens

Kids will have a thrill on a hill with the Yardboard, which surfs over surfaces from snow to grass and dirt. The board requires no boots or bindings, and is made from virtually indestructible BPA-free plastic. A great way to keep kids with asthma and allergies active. For ages 6 and up.
US: $99 at www.spoonerboards.com.
Canada: $119 at independent toy stores, visit www.stortz.ca for locations.

When third grader Savanah Groft dropped a few stitches crocheting a round placemat, the Pocket Disc was born. Now fair trade-produced in Guatemala, the cotton, colorfully patterned disks are great for games on the fly. There are two styles: sport ($16.95 US/$19.99 CDN) and, for indoor use, regular ($9.95 US/$11.99 CDN), with a wide range of patterns.
US: see www.pocketdisc.com.
Canada: see www.stortz.ca for retail locations.

Olli Lolli’s stylish Cargo Pants feature a specially designed pocket perfect for carrying an auto-injector or asthma inhaler. Made from 100% organic cotton twill, kids can balance style, comfort and practicality.
US: $49.95 plus shipping at www.ollilolli.com.
Canada: $49.95 plus tax, shipping at www.ollilolli.com.

Next: Gifts for Women, Men & Specifically for Allergies

At holiday time, making your own chocolate goodies is a crafty and fun-filled afternoon. Following are my recipes for: chocolates, ganache frosting and chocolate clay figures and bouquets.

All are free of: The top 8 allergens, sesame and gluten. Enjoy!

Homemade Chocolates

Try whipping up some professional-looking chocolates. You’ll need store-bought molds in designs such as Santas, angels or bunnies.

“Tempering” will be crucial. That’s the process of heating then cooling chocolate to specific temperatures to produce glossy-looking treats that “snap” when you break them and look store-bought. Chocolate is finicky (one drop of water can ruin an entire batch) and it burns easily – so go slowly. It’s best to make small batches of a few chocolates at a time until you get the hang of it.

Ingredients

• 1 bag of allergen-free, semi-sweet chocolate chips*

Method

1. Using a BPA-free microwave-safe plastic bowl, melt 2/3 of the chocolate in the microwave slowly until it reaches 110 degrees F. (I set my micro to power level 2, and checked the temperature using a chocolate thermometer every 25 seconds.)
2. With a silicone spatula, stir in the remaining unheated chocolate until it melts. Stir until the thermometer temperature reaches 88 degrees F, then pour into molds.
3. Overfill a little, and use a straight-edged knife to level. Gently bang the mold on a flat surface to release air bubbles. Refrigerate until the chocolate is set, then release from mold.

*Note: I used Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mini Chips for this recipe and the ganache. There are other brands of allergen-free chocolate available as well.

Editor’s Note: Pamela writes the “Allergic Diva” column in the Canadian edition of Allergic Living magazine.

Next Page: Ganache

There’s nothing better than a cold treat on a hot day. But store-bought popsicles aren’t always safe for those of us with allergies or celiac disease. Here are some easy home-made popsicle recipes that are nutritious, delicious and free of all top allergens and gluten.

You can put them in a frozen-treat maker, like the Zoku Quick Pop Maker, or in a simple dollar-store plastic popsicle maker.

Note: I used a “wand” blender to whip up these concoctions, but a food processor or blender would work equally well.

Ice Pop Base Mixture

1 cup milk substitute* (Suggestions: rice, hemp or oat milk; coconut milk or cream; or a non-milk alternative such as Vance’s DariFree, a potato-based product free of all top allergens, gluten, casein, cholesterol, rice and fat)
1 tbsp sweetener (suggestions: sugar, honey or agave)

Variations:

Vanilla: add 1 tsp vanilla extract or small amount of vanilla bean

Chocolate: add 1½ tsp “safe” cocoa

Cappuccino: add 1 tsp decaffeinated instant coffee dissolved in small amount of boiling water

Canadian, Eh: substitute 1 tbsp maple syrup as sweetener

Tutti Frutti: substitute 2 tbsp of jam as sweetener.

A man walks in and introduces himself as a volunteer for a sports program and then begins handing out treats to the kids. I realize they are peanut butter cups, unwrapped, and the dream slides into a nightmare.

“Wait, excuse me!”, I jump to my feet and go to the man, ushering him away from the kids and towards the teacher. “We have kids here who can’t eat those…. We can’t eat those here… We are a peanut-free, um, allergy-aware school (please note, that even in a panicky dream I try to use the right politically correct words – not BAN, which is so divisive and causes so much controversy).”  Ultimately, I say firmly: “You can’t give those out.”

The man looks at me in confusion, and I am aware of a third adult, the principal. She draws the man aside and explains, and I watch his eyes shift back and forth from the principal to the candy.

I can sense his embarrassment and his disbelief, but he complies with the principal’s request to put the stuff away. The principal comes over and says to me, “I found that very awkward.” I want to reassure her, but instead I say: “It doesn’t get easier. It feels weird to tell someone they can’t do what they’ve always done, but the rules have changed.”

The dream takes a turn for the better as the focus shifts back to the kids, and we talk about food and why we have to be careful with some foods.

When the class is over, I find myself walking along the hallway with the principal. “That was quite a morning,” she says.

“Was the man with the peanut butter cups upset?” I ask.  “Once I explained he was fine with it,” she replies, “but then I got a call from a parent who saw the hockey sticks.…”

This is the point I wake up at with a knot in my stomach. I don’t have a clue what the hockey sticks were about, except maybe a reminder that other parents have fears, too, or that principals deal with a huge range of issues.

But the rest of the dream was clear. My mind is sending me a message that summer is over and there’s work to be done.

Coming Soon: Goldilocks goes to school.

In an article headlined, “It’s Just Nuts,” writer Patricia Pearson builds a case around her opinion that school accommodations for food allergies, particularly restrictions on peanut products, are nothing but a panic-driven, unnecessary over-reaction.

As a special education assistant and the mother of an child with anaphylaxis, I cannot let Ms. Pearson’s article go unchallenged. It contains too many incorrect conclusions that could impact whether an important health issue is taken seriously. It leaves Chatelaine readers questioning what is right and what is reasonable. It portrays the parents of kids with allergies as fearful and neurotic, when in fact,  we are asking for accommodations that medical professionals and school boards have deemed appropriate.

Chatelaine’s article ignores that the inclusive, community approach to protecting children with serious food allergies has been a vast improvement, and is working well. What can be difficult to grasp, is that the steep rise in food allergies is a new phenomenon. Researchers tell us that between 6 and 8 per cent of kids have now have food allergies. Conservatively, that’s the equivalent of half the population of New Brunswick. They live with the unpredictable risk of anaphylaxis, the serious form of allergic reaction that can cause shock, suffocation and heart attack in a frighteningly short period of time. There have been cases of brain damage and, tragically, even death.

It is the fast and severe nature of such reactions, combined with the fast-growing incidence food allergies and the need for total avoidance of a food allergen that have led to precautions in our schools.

Ms. Pearson fails to understand that such measures are not about inconveniencing her by depriving her son of peanut butter for one meal of the day. It’s about protecting children from anaphylaxis, no matter what food is involved. She belittles the low number of deaths from anaphylaxis, without realizing that it is exactly due to the approach of taking precautions rather than letting allergic emergencies happen that protects our kids from becoming statistics. Not that there haven’t been tragedies. It’s curious that in all her talk about schools and allergies, Ms. Pearson never mentions Sabrina Shannon. In 2003, at the age of 13, following a devastating anaphylactic reaction to an inadvertent exposure to cheese curds in her cafeteria (she was milk allergic), Sabrina died. It’s hard to believe that Chatelaine’s writer wouldn’t have come across Sabrina’s story in her research. When Ontario created the world’s first legislation mandating risk-reduction measures and emergency training to protect students with food allergies in their schools, it was named “Sabrina’s Law” in remembrance.

Even if anaphylaxis never caused death, the need to minimize reactions would still be of paramount importance. A reaction is terrifying, excruciating and stresses the body. It is also traumatic for school staff and other children to witness. Is a sandwich worth that risk?

In 2007, I was part of a committee in British Columbia that developed the Education Minister’s directive to the province’s schools about food allergies. In order to understand the scope of the issue, the government requested that school districts complete a survey on anaphylactic policies and incidents from 2005 onward. Almost half the districts that responded had experienced one or more anaphylactic reaction serious enough to warrant the filing of a critical incidence report. The anaphylaxis management policies pre-dating the directive ranged from non-existent to minimal to comprehensive – a far cry from the careful, commonsense approaches that Ms. Pearson claims were in evidence.

Regulations surrounding food allergy are based on education and awareness, stressing training for school staff, access to epinephrine auto-injectors, strategies to reduce the risk of reaction and communication with the school community. Each plan for each child is unique, reflecting the child’s needs and the school’s environment. Hand-washing, lunchroom seating, and cleaning practices are all examples of appropriate risk-reduction measures. But there is no escaping it – children like Ms. Pearson’s son are being asked to “please enjoy your peanut butter sandwich at home”.

Peanut butter is sticky, hard to clean, and ends up smeared over shared school supplies, toys and playground equipment. One teacher with a class of 20 little kids cannot possibly be expected to manage the risk. My 12-year-old son has had three accidental exposures to peanut since his diagnosis. Two occurred at his school when he was 6 years old. Young children cannot be expected to protect themselves without support. Peanut often causes serious reactions with a very small amount of protein, and it’s over-represented as a cause of fatalities when compared to other allergens.

While Ms. Pearson dismisses the fact that a new study finds slightly less than 2 per cent of Canadian kids have peanut allergy, she ignores that this is one of the highest rates in the Western world. Further, I would argue that the welfare of about 90,000 kids is worth bothering about.

I spend most of my days in a classroom and have never met a child who did not want to help keep kids with allergies safe once they understood the issue. I find that rational explanations almost always turn hostile parents of non-allergic pupils into cooperative supporters. Ms. Pearson is an exception, and that Chatelaine would publish such a distorted view is truly disturbing. My hope is that children at risk of anaphylaxis gain support and understanding in the community at large. They certainly didn’t find either in the pages of Chatelaine.

Pamela Lee lives in Vancouver. She is a special education assistant and an associate editor of Allergic Livingmagazine. She originally submitted a first draft of this article to Chatelaine to consider publishing. The magazine’s editor rejected the piece, replying that “there are no plans to publish a rebuttal article.”

Related Reading
• Can this be Chatelaine? by Gwen Smith
• Food Allergy Backlash – Why Is It Occurring?

Developed by The Diva’s talented chef husband Ralf (yes, I am lucky), the frozen dessert has excellent texture and flavour, and uses inexpensive, easy-to-find ingredients. For best results, serve immediately after making. However, these will keep well in the freezer for a week. We hope you and your family enjoy this summer – and year-round.

Alternative
Base Recipe

Free of: All top allergens, except sulphites and gluten-free.

Serves 4, generously

Ingredients

1/2 cup (125 mL) sugar
1/3 cup (125 mL)  water
2  400 mL (or 14 oz.) cans coconut cream*

*NOTE: We used Savoy Brand, which free of top allergens except sulphites.
Powdered coconut cream is also readily available, but read labels – some brands contain sodium caseinate, a dairy derivative. Coconut milk may be substituted for coconut cream, but know that the texture will suffer.

Base Recipe Method

1. Place the water and sugar into a sauce pan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil. Chill in refrigerator until cold.

2. Add coconut cream.

3. Pour mixture into machine.

4. Follow machine’s instructions on freezing. When the mixture is finished in the machine, it will still be soft, so repack it into a freezer-suitable container, and place it in the freezer for about an hour. Serve.

Flavours

Vanilla

1. During Step 1 of Base Recipe, add one vanilla bean or 1 Tsp (15 mL) vanilla extract.
2. Remove bean before adding to ice cream machine.

Chocolate

1. At the beginning of Step 1 of Base Recipe, add 1/4 cup (60 mL) cocoa powder.

Coconut/Lime/Pineapple

1. At Step 2 of Base Recipe, add juice of 2 small limes.
2. Pour mixture into machine.
3. Follow machine’s instructions on freezing.
4. Take mixture from machine, stir in ¼ cup (60 mL) of sweetened shredded coconut [look for allergen-free brands] and 1/2 cup (120 mL) of well-drained diced pineapple chunks.
5. Pack mixture into freezer-suitable container. Freeze for 1 hour to finish tempering. Serve.

Mango

1. In Step 2 of Base Recipe, add ½ cup (120 mL) chopped mango.
2, Pour mixture into machine.
3. Follow machine’s instructions on freezing.
4. When the mixture is finished in the machine, it will still be soft, so repack it into a freezer-suitable container, and place it in the freezer for about an hour. Serve.

Rum Raisin

1, In Step 1 of Base Recipe, add 1 Tsp (5 mL) rum flavouring.
2. Continue with Base Recipe instructions.
3. Meanwile, add 1/2 cup (120 mL) of water, 1/2 cup raisins and 1 Tbsp (15 mL) rum flavour to a saucepan.
4. Heat until simmering, then remove and drain well.
5. When mixture is finished in the machine, stir in raisins.
6. Repack it into a freezer-suitable container, and place it in the freezer for about an hour. Serve.