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New Year, new resolutions, right? I have been transitioning to chemical-free cleaning for the past few years. When I moved into my current place, I spent some house with ammonia-based cleaner in the kitchen, and while it needed the heavy-duty, chemical-laden cleaner, I felt awful afterwards. Since then, I’ve been making my own. So we’re going to talk, here, about cleaning for the next few Wednesdays. Denise addressed cleaning and caring for yourself if you have allergies — specifically coconut allergies, though all her products were great for anyone. I’m going to talk about cleaning your place.
Beyond my food allergies, I have environmental allergies to beat the band. I am allergic to almost everything and am overly sensitive to fragrances, particularly those of the fake, chemical kind. Yay me! Since I can’t live in a bubble, I do my best to make my environment habitable.
My allergist recommended establishing a “safe zone” in my bedroom — if you can minimize the allergens in your bedroom, you have 6-10 hours per day in which you can sleep and recover, giving your body a break. To do this, wrap your box spring, mattress, and pillows in dust mite protectors. Wash bedding in hot water weekly to kill dust mites, or use a specially-formulated dust mite killing detergent that works in cold water. Or, you know, move to Denver (apparently dust mites do not thrive at high altitudes. Minimize the fabrics in your bedroom — where possible, eliminate carpet, drapery, and upholstery, where mites can thrive unmolested, and where you have those fabrics, treat them with an allergen neutralizing spray (there are different formulations depending on your allergies and whether you have pets in the house). For any sort of specialized allergy products, I have to recommend National Allergy out of north Georgia. They do not pay me; I like their stuff.
For cleaning my house, though? I make my own products. I still buy dishwashing liquid, laundry detergent, and floor cleaner. I am not allergic to coconut or its derivatives, but for those who are, we’ll address that with the laundry detergent.
What will you need to embark upon this adventure? Not much. Overall, cleaning your house in an environmentally responsible manner which is also allergen-friendly? It’s CHEAP. With this arsenal, you can clean EVERYTHING in your house (not including dishes and laundry and yourself), I swear, and the grand total for cleaning for the year is well under $100, and some of these supplies will last for 5 years or longer. At first, the castille soap and essential oils might seem a bit spendy, but in the long run, they are not. They are cheaper than your common cleaning products and safer for use with kids and pets and people.
If you’re ready for this, I recommend the following:
Cleaning cloths — an old sheet or t-shirt will easily provide you a good number of cloths for dusting, polishing, and screen cleaning. A cheap stack of terrycloth washcloths will work for scrubbing and spot cleaning (either buy a stack at a home goods store or get some at a thrift store). For dishes, nothing works better than knitted dish rags. If you don’t knit, do you know a knitter? ALL of these can be washed in hot water and dried in the dryer, stay germ-free with regular washing, and are reuseable for years.
Do you have pets? You’ll need a pet hair remover unless your vacuum is really awesome (I’ve never owned that great a vacuum). I really like the Pledge pet hair remover. It works really well.
Rubber gloves. Especially if you have coconut allergies and want to use regular castille soap (which is coconut-based).
Baking soda — the cheapest and biggest size you can find.
White vinegar — again, buy the big cheap bottle.
Vodka — yeah, again, cheap, big, gallon bottle of gut-rot.
Rubbing alcohol.
Distilled water.
Castille soap (yes, this is all coconut-based. If your coconut allergies are severe, you can use Denise’s olive oil liquid soap (stop before you do the shampoo add-ins, just melt the olive oil bar soap down), but I’m going to say that for cleaning? It’ll be easier to suck it up and buy gloves. You are going to rinse everything off, so it won’t linger to touch your skin at all.) Your best deal is going to be Dr. Bronner’s baby soap if you want to add scents. I also like the tea tree for cleaning.
Borax
Olive oil
Essential oils — there are a billion “flavors” out there, so sniff ’em all and decide what you like. Only one warning — for the products we’ll be spraying on to things (counters or fabrics), you will need to avoid some citrus essential oils, which will stain. These scents are not like the fake scents added to most cleaning products, which are often likely to trigger environmental allergies and are, by some studies’ conclusion, very bad for your health.
Start your gathering. We’ll be talking clean for the rest of the month, and you’ll be ready way before spring cleaning begins.
First full year post-apocalypse. How have we done? Let’s chat.
MK’s Take:
I know that we haven’t been online for a year, but the original genesis for this blog was a discussion Denise and I had sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2011. I was really unhappy with the allergy diagnosis. I felt like I did not know what to eat, and even though I’d been through this when I stopped eating dairy, this seemed worse. I’d helped Denise some when she went dairy-free, and now she was able to help me some with this transition, as she figured out her allergies before I figured out mine. We decided to test a few recipe ideas on friends at a party in January 2012, and started working towards that deadline. Our first success was the recipe we’ll be sharing next week, so please stay tuned — we’re very proud.
I have a notebook from the early planning, listing all my allergens, all the things I needed to replace in my pantry, and the multi-page results of the afternoon discussion Denise and I had where we laid out everything we wanted to learn to make allergen-free. That list is now a spreadsheet we share, and eventually it sparked this blog. So far, I’ve found the testing and writing and sharing to be great motivators — not only to try recipes, but to innovate and plan and eat well. I love it. I thought that we could share some of our thoughts on the year and the lessons we’ve learned, as well as some of the products we now regularly rely on. Hopefully you’ll find this helpful, whether you’re new to the allergen-free lifestyle or just still exploring.
The first lesson, from me, is that there is an arc to coping with a diagnosis of food allergies, whether they be severe or moderate. From talking to others, this is true for other people who must modify their diets for health reasons (e.g. diabetics), with the notable exception that the “bargaining” stage is a little more dangerous (i.e. it could kill you). Anger, disbelief, trying to “game” the new rules, bouts of acceptance, bouts of despair, and an eventual understanding and acceptance of a new way of eating. This is, apparently, quite normal, but I wish I’d known in advance, so I didn’t feel I was failing so miserably with my attitude adjustment. It is HARD. It gets easier. It gets easier because you learn how to do it. You do stop having fits of rage reading packages in the grocery store, I promise.
As a reminder, my allergens are as follows: dairy, egg, soy, gluten, peanuts, hazelnuts, and pineapple.
From my list, entitled “MUST FIND,” here’s what I found:
Crackers: by far, my favorite are the Crunchmaster Sea Salt Multi-grain Crackers. These do contain flax, but no other major allergen — thanks to Angie for bringing these to a knit night! Not all of their varieties are safe for me, but this one is great. If you have multiple allergens, crackers are not easy — many GF varieties contain either eggs or dairy or both.
Pretzels: Snyders of Hanover Gluten-free Pretzel Sticks and Glutino pretzels contain soy lecithin, but no other allergens. I can handle the soy lecithin in small doses, so I only eat a few at a time.
Pasta: Schar pasta (I’ve only had the penne), Quinoa pasta (here, only had the macaroni), and Trader Joe’s corn pastas are all good. The corn pasta makes horrible leftovers, but it’s great when it’s freshly cooked. I was originally advised to try brown rice pastas, and I cannot say that I recommend any of them at all.
Bread: Hands down, the best gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, pineapple juice-free bread I’ve gotten in the past year is from Deland Bakery, and their millet potato bread is my go-to bread these days. Some of Schar’s baked products are completely allergen-free and pretty good (if they don’t come frozen, freeze everything you don’t use after you open the package; trust me). If you’re in New England, you might find some of Abigail’s Bakery’s Millet bread products — the loaf is good, but I didn’t love the other versions. For make-your-own breadcrumbs, I use Food For Life White Rice Bread as well as the tail end of anything I try and don’t really love for toast.
Miso: South River’s Chickpea Miso is both soy and gluten-free. It’s not as smooth or as strong as other miso products I’ve used in the past, but it definitely fills what would be a large hole in my pantry otherwise.
Margarine: this one was easy — the only good dairy-free margarine I’d found was Earth Balance. Earth Balance makes a soy-free version. This was the quickest fix on my list.
Mayo: Again, Earth Balance to the rescue with Mindful Mayo. See our review of it here.
Other things I am glad I have found now:
Chocolate: Enjoy Life chocolate chips (regular, mini, and baking chunks), Enjoy Life rice milk chocolate bars (crispy and plain — crispy are better), and a lot of Fair Trade certified dark chocolate bars are allergen free, if not specifically certified as such, so beware if cross-contamination is an issue for you. Enjoy Life makes chocolate chips — plus mini and large chunks — and so does Trader Joe’s (these contain soy lecithin — this seems to be okay for me, though I avoid it where I can). For nice chocolate, I’d also recommend checking out Taza. It’s probably not for the nut allergic, as they don’t appear to have separate lines for processing (I did not see an allergen statement on their website), but it’s stone-ground, handmade chocolate that’s dairy free and pretty incredible. Different than anything you’ve had before, I’d guess. My favorite is the cinnamon, closely followed by the guajillo.
Tuna: Many brands of tuna has soy or gluten in it. I know! Season Brand tuna (they don’t appear to have a website?) is good. Find it in the kosher section.
Frozen foods: Applegate Farms, turkey burgers (be careful not to overcook these, as they are then pretty bad, and they don’t work on the electric grill. But in a skillet, not cooked dry, these are a go-to easy meal for me) and gluten-free chicken nuggets (they’re chicken nuggets!), and Cascadian Farms spud puppies (aka tater tots).
Cereal: There is a gluten-free version of Rice Krispies (I know, they are rice, but the originals contain malt!), Barbara’s Cinnamon Puffins, and many versions of granola are gluten-free (but most contain nuts). Local to central New Hampshire, I’ve found Courser Farm Kitchen — gluten-free vegan granolas, which are fantastic.
The vast majority of what I eat is not packaged or processed or listed above, as I make almost everything from scratch. But having crackers, chips, and pasta on hand, as well as ice cream and a quick frozen dinner if I need one? All these serve to make me feel less deprived, a bit more normal, and less uptight about food, knowing I have something in the house to eat.
What else have I learned this year? Patience, perseverance, and the importance of the “buddy system” in any difficult endeavor. Don’t be afraid to “fail.” If you can eat it, it isn’t a complete failure, even if you dump the rest. Plan ahead — when you can’t grab food to go, you need to be prepared. Keep snacks at work, and if appropriate, in the car. When traveling, always have something you can eat with you and ID the closest grocery store.
For 2013, I’m looking forward to more breakfast discoveries (I hope), and continued recipe development, as well as playing with George (my new mixer) and coming up with some great vegan grilling options for next summer. I’m going to get a handle on this gluten-free baking thing, too. I’m planning to follow up Denise’s personal care posts with some posts on environmentally-friendly and allergen-friendly house cleaning.
Please share your favorite allergen-free products, links, or with us in the comments! Happy 2013, everyone!
Denise’s Take
Having had the benefit of reading Mary Kate’s take before having to write mine, and reflecting back on this journey, I think the most important part truly has been the “buddy system”. When the dairy allergy became severe enough that I was forced to give it up, I was lucky enough to have Mary Kate in my knitting group having been through the dairy free learning process before. She, in turn, was able to point me to resources and information and websites (such as GoDairyFree.org) where I could find additional information and issues. I had to learn all these new things and get advice from Mary Kate about products she liked and didn’t like, and I finally got in a place where I thought I knew what I was doing. And then I started having reactions again. In March of 2011, I tested positive for the next round of allergens, which meant I had to give up a bunch of the products I had found and liked and baking became much harder, and eating out became harder, and it was unpleasant. But since I had been through it so recently, I didn’t have to go through as much of the emotional adjustment process, other than some minor temper tantrums at the grocery store. It seemed to be just more on the same continuum. But I wasn’t really finding the solutions I wanted to some of the problems, because it was just food, and I didn’t really want make time to do it. I had a lot of other things to do, because I tend to be this somewhat Type A crazy person with a million things going on at any given time. I should just be able to eat whatever without any work right? (Talk about denial.) So I kept eating some of the solutions I had found, but I felt restricted, restrained and bored.
When Mary Kate received her second diagnosis of problem ingredients, I knew her frustration with having to start all over again. Since I hadn’t solved a lot of the foods that I still wanted to be able to eat, we had three allergies in common (dairy, egg and hazelnut), and we hadn’t been able to find a lot of books or information on food we wanted to eat (most of the books out there seemed geared toward kiddos), it made sense that we team up. As Mary Kate stated above, doing a cookbook seemed like a natural place to start, since we were both in a writing group together as well. But we both kind of need deadlines, so the blog was born as a way to actually make us do what we had planned to do.
I had specific things on our wish lists that I needed to find decent solutions for as well. (As a reminder, my allergens are as follows: dairy, egg, almonds, coconut, hazelnuts, crab, clam, scallops, and flax seed.)
A decent egg replacement for box mixes: Again, I can be lazy about food. Since I can have wheat, and since Duncan Hines makes a variety of cake and brownie mixes that don’t have egg or milk, I wanted to find a egg replacement that worked and that I liked. I tried Ener-G, applesauce, blueberry apple sauce, tofu, and flax seed (before I figured out that I was allergic to it based on the resulting reaction), without finding any of them acceptable. But then I found chia seed. (Cue heavenly choir). It works for Duncan Hines brownie mix, and is best in the 8 x 8 inch pan. I haven’t tried it in cake mixes yet, but I’ll let you know how it goes.
Mayo: Earth Balance Mindful Mayo, I concur with Mary Kate that it was a godsend. See the link for our review above. Also, try mixing in some Sriracha. Yum.
Chocolate: I agree with Mary Kate’s take above. However, if you don’t have a soy issue, I can often use Ghiradelli’s Semi-Sweet chips. I have to watch the ingredients because sometimes they use coconut instead of soy lecithin, and I can’t have coconut. It’s a lesson to continue to watch labels even after you think a product is safe. They change formulations all the time based on the prices of ingredients.
Coffee Creamer – For me, I don’t have a lot of options. I don’t like soy milk or creamer (I’ll drink diet pepsi at 6:00 A.M. for the caffeine rather than touch soy, and I generally won’t use it baked goods either, I can still taste it), and most of the other options contain either almond, hazelnut, or coconut, all on my no-no list. I found a recipe for homemade cashew milk that does the trick for me nicely, so I make up a batch, freeze it in ice cube trays and just thaw what I need in the microwave when I need it.
There were quite a few items that were in my old “normal” diet that I still wanted, that we were able to come up with versions that I’m pretty happy about. Most have been posted to the blog and some are still coming up on the schedule. (We have an editorial schedule, and blog meetings, I kid you not.) The ones we’ve posted that were “must finds for me” are:
The other interesting journey for me this year is limiting the cleaning and personal care products I use with coconut derivatives in them. Although it aggravates me that I have to spend some time making these products, honestly, it’s so much cheaper than buying commercial laundry detergent, shampoo, and lotions. And it really doesn’t take that much time. You can check out what we’ve posted so far here. A recipe for laundry detergent and other cleaning products will be posted in the coming weeks/months.
Looking ahead there’s still a lot on my list of things I want to be able to eat again. There are things that I’ve been working on, but they aren’t ready for prime time yet, and things that when I looked at our infamous spreadsheet to write this post, I had forgotten about and really need to get working on. Things I hope to solve in the next year include some Indian curries and kormas, a recipe for ice cream that’s dairy, soy and coconut free (I don’t like the Rice Dream and I can sort of tolerate soy ice cream, but want better), Alfredo sauce, Vodka sauce, mac & cheese, and pizza cheese (I can’t have Daiya because of the coconut oil, although it was the best cheese replacement I’d tried before finding out about the coconut allergy).
Besides Mary Kate’s thoughts on patience, perseverance, the buddy system and not being afraid to fail, I’d like to add another thing I’ve learned this year. Just because they have a commercial product on the market, doesn’t mean you can’t make your own very easily and much more cheaply, and it doesn’t mean that the commercial product works better or tastes better. Experiment, experiment, and don’t settle if you don’t like something. Keep trying. I’ve also learned how many of us there are out there, dealing with the same issues, and trying to share our knowledge. I hope we’re making a contribution and in the words of Red Green, “Remember, I’m pulling for ya. We’re all in this together!” And since we are all in this together, feel free to share your favorite allergen-free products, links, or recipes with us 🙂
Have a happy and productive 2013 everyone!
Final bonus link — need an allergen-free, good fortune soup for the New Year? Veggie Venture has you covered, and as a bonus, it’s vegan.
My dog-eared copy of Whole Grain Breads by Machine and Hand by Beatrice Ojakangas
This is not a book for those of you who can’t have gluten. This book does have five recipes in a chapter entitled “Nonwheat Breads” but two of them have spelt, and I think that spelt is still problematic for some folks. In any case, this review is geared for those who can eat wheat and gluten, but not eggs and milk.
When I first realized that I was really and truly going to have to cut all milk out of my life, I had a huge adjustment to face with respect to bread. When it comes to every day bread, sandwich and toast bread, I’m cheap as hell. I wanted to buy store brand or one step up from store brand sliced bread that you could get for less than two bucks (I haven’t bought a loaf of bread in two and half years, what’s a loaf of Country Kitchen Oatmeal Bread run these days??). Most of the breads out there fitting this description have milk in them. Now, I’m aware that I could buy artisan bread in the bakery section of the grocery store that would be milk free. It was also too expensive for my blood for day to day use, although I’d be happy to buy it for entertaining friends. So, according to my Amazon account, I bought my first bread machine on May 30, 2010. It was very inexpensive, because I didn’t want to blow a whole lot of money on something I was trying for the first time and wasn’t sure I’d use. The first loaf of bread I made according to the recipes that came with the bread machine could have sunk a canoe if properly propelled. It was so dense that I felt like I had a brick in my stomach after eating it. After having read the reviews of the bread machine on Amazon, which stated that the thing worked great, but that the recipes in the manual were garbage and to go get a bread machine book, I asked around at my knitting group (Mary Kate and I are both knitters) which met at a bookstore. No one had any specific advice, but our friend Linda got up to go look around and came back with Whole Grain Breads by Machine or Hand by Beatrice Ojakangas. I bought it at retail at a now defunct Borders store, but you can get it at Amazon, or ask your local retailer.
I have used the recipes in this book so often, that I wore out the first bread machine and had to purchase a second on March 31, 2012, once again according to my Amazon account. My copy is fairly dog-eared, stained and has some minor water damage, but since I can still read the recipe and my handwritten notes, it’s all good. There are two hundred recipes in the book, and after paging through the book I would say that I’ve tried about 40 of the recipes. There are very few recipes that need modification. Of those that do, I’ve been able to substitute nonfat dry milk with with rice milk powder or soy milk powder (except that I’ve discovered I really don’t like soy), milk with the alternative milk replacement product of your choice (I use rice milk), butter with Earth Balance Soy Free Buttery Spread or Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks, and buttermilk with the alternative milk replacement product of your choice and a little bit of vinegar. The very few recipes with cheese and egg, I’ve just ignored (although I’m considering attempting to use chia seed as an egg replacement). There are chapters on breads made with sourdough starters and with sponges, but that just takes more planning than I’m normally able to manage, so I have not tried those recipes either. Maybe during my staycation at the end of the month, I’ll manage a long yearned-for sourdough…ha..haha..ha.
In any case, I love, love this book. And one of the things that I love most about it, is that each recipe tells you how to make the bread by hand, by using a heavy-duty mixer (like a KitchenAid), using a food processor, using the bread machine and baking it in the bread machine, and using the bread machine to make the dough and baking it in your conventional oven. How cool is that? So when I wear out the bread machine again, I can make it in my mixer until the new one shows up. (No disrespect to my bread machine. For what I paid for it, and the kind of work out it gets, it’s a miracle it lasted that long the first time, and I liked it so much I bought the same one the second time around.) The other really cool thing is that each recipe has the ingredients for three different size loaves, a sampler loaf, a regular loaf, and an large loaf. I use the regular loaf for the 1.5 pound loaf setting on my bread machine and the large loaf for the 2 pound loaf setting.
Our two standby recipes are Maple Oatmeal Bread and Country White Bread. We pretty much make a loaf from each of these recipes once a week. These are great with any kind of sandwich and for toast. I eat a lot of toast because I pretty much gave up dry cereal as I can’t find a milk alternative that I can stand on cereal.
We’ve also made some of the more elaborate recipes, like the Beer and Mustard Rye Bread, Eleven Grain Buckwheat Bread, Ten Grain Cereal Bread, Chocolate Walnut and Wheat Bread (yummy!!), Cinnamon Pecan Wheat and Rye Bread, Caraway Onion Rye Bread, Rustic Grains Bread, and Oatmeal Seed Bread. There really hasn’t been a bread we didn’t like.
This is a great book for anyone (except anyone who can’t eat gluten or wheat). However, for those of us with food allergies to dairy and egg, there are so many recipes without either ingredient, and the substitutions I described above work so well, that I can recommend this book wholeheartedly.
Guess what? Most lip balms contain either coconut or palm too. (To see a list of coconut derivatives, go here, thanks to Becky at the Allergic to Coconut? blog). Luckily, once have all the stuff to make the lotions, you pretty much have everything you need to make lip balm except the coloring and/or flavoring (which you can leave out if you want) and the containers.
I had previously ordered everything I needed from Majestic Mountain Sage (no affiliation other than being a satisfied customer), but I did want containers and coloring and flavoring. The recipe that I modified also comes from their website. I also suggest getting some plastic pipettes, it makes your life a lot easier. I ordered the small pipettes and the 20ml lip balm containers.
Denise’s Version of Make Your Own Lip Balm
First of all, you can add any oil soluable lip balm colors or any of the flavor oils you want. I chose to mix equal parts of the red and blue colors, and I used the Blackberry Pomegranate flavor oil.
20 grams of beeswax
25 grams of shea butter
15 grams of cocoa butter
40 grams of avocado oil
3 ml of Blackberry Pomegranate Flavor oil (I used a plastic pipette to measure this out)
A drop or two of the Red oil soluable lip balm color
A drop or two of the Blue oil soluable lip balm color
7 – 20ml lip balm containers or other containers to hold completed lip balm
Using a kitchen scale, weigh all ingredients, except the lip balm color and the flavor oil, and place in a double boiler, over medium heat. Heat until all items are melted. Don’t heat over direct heat, and MMS cautions that oils and wax get hot very quickly and the temperature can climb higher than you suspect. Once everything is melted, remove the double boiler from the heat and add the flavor oil, mixing well. Then take a toothpick or a bamboo skewer, and dip the tip about a third of an inch into the red lip balm color and then stir it into the lip balm, mixing well. Repeat with the blue lip balm color. Add tiny bits more until you get the color you want.
Use a plastic pipette to put the mixture into the lip balm containers. According to MMS, it’s best to always use a plastic transfer pipette, as glass droppers are cooler than the oil mixture and it will quickly solidify inside the dropper. Let the containers cool and then screw on the caps.
Since most lotions contain coconut derivatives (to see a list of coconut derivatives, go here, thanks to Becky at the Allergic to Coconut? blog), and the one that I found that didn’t have any, had two ingredients that turned out to be forms of pesticide, I decided I needed to make my own if I was getting off the coconut bandwagon.
I used a recipe from FIMBY, but modified it to make myself a body lotion and then modified it again to make a facial moisturizer.
Denise’s Body Lotion
First of all, you can sub out any essential oil scent you want. I tend to use citrus and vanilla type scents because anything floral makes me sneeze. (Yes, I have a whole host of respiratory allergies too, aren’t I lucky?) The reason I use this as body lotion is that cocoa butter is comedogenic so I’m not putting it on my face.
1 1/2 ounces cocoa butter
1 ounce avocado oil
1 ounce apricot kernel oil
1/2 ounce extra virgin olive oil
1/2 ounce beeswax
4 ounces distilled water
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
30 drops grapefruit seed extract
10 drops grapefruit essential oil
Weigh out the oils and beeswax, and place in a double boiler. Melt the wax and oils over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once the mixture is fully melted, remove from the stove and add the water and baking soda. Mix with hand blender or mixer until creamy & thick. Stir in grapefruit seed extract and essential oil.
Facial Lotion
Denise’s Facial Lotion
I don’t put any essential oil in this because I don’t want any scents on my face, although you could probably use tea tree essential oil with good result. Shea butter is non-comedogenic, so I subbed that out for the cocoa butter. A little of this goes a long, long way, so don’t put a lot on or you’ll be using a tissue to wipe it off.
1 1/2 ounces shea butter
1 ounce avocado oil
1 ounce apricot kernel oil
1/2 ounce extra virgin olive oil
1/2 ounce beeswax
4 ounces distilled water
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
30 drops grapefruit seed extract
Weigh out the oils and beeswax, and place in a double boiler. Melt the wax and oils over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once the mixture is fully melted, remove from the stove and add the water and baking soda. Mix with hand blender or mixer until creamy & thick. Stir in grapefruit seed extract.
Gently Used, Halloween Themed Lotion Bar
I also tried making lotion bars from Smockityfrocks.com, which are wonderful especially on your heels and feet. I don’t think I’ll be having any problems with dry or cracked heels this winter. I did modify the recipe slightly, by adding a little Eucalyptus Citriodora (Lemon Eucalyptus) essential oil, and by only doing a quarter of the recipe (which still makes 3 lotion bars by the way). You could sub out the Eucalyptus Citriodora for any other essential oil that you would prefer as well.
Modified Lotion Bars (1/4 Recipe with Essential Oil)
1/4 cup of Shea Butter
1/4 cup of beeswax
1/4 cup of Avocado Oil
1/4 teaspoon of Vitamin E Oil
5 drops of Eucalyptus Citriodora (Lemon Eucalyptus) essential oil
Measure out shea butter and beeswax and place in a double boiler over medium heat to melt the shea butter and beeswax. Once the shea butter and beeswax have melted, Stir in the avocado oil, vitamin E oil, and essential oil. Pour into some molds (Yes, it was around Halloween when I bought my molds), tins, or lotion bar tubes. Allow to cool.
The best thing about all of the lotion and lotion bar recipes is that they take about 15 minutes to make. I made each of these recipes well over a month ago and I still have tons left. You may wish to put some of the lotions in the refrigerator. Some of the water separated out of mine after two weeks but it still works wonders compared to commercial lotions.
Also, I ordered most of the materials to make the lotions from Majestic Mountain Sage. Their prices are extremely reasonable, but their shipping is less so, so if you order from them, make the order worth the shipping. (No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.)
So here’s the thing. Being allergic to coconut is a b*tch, once you realize that coconut is in just about every cleaning product on the market. To get a list of coconut derivatives, go here, thanks to Becky at the Allergic to Coconut? blog. Due to some issues with breaking out much more than I should be at freaking *40*, I decided I wanted to try cutting out any coconut derivatives that touch my skin.
First, most soap and shampoos contain at least one of the coconut derivatives on the list, if not five to ten of them. Most lotions, face masks, acne treatments, etc., etc., etc., contain at least one of the coconut derivatives as well. When I decided to go looking at my beauty and personal hygiene products, guess what? Every single one had coconut in them, except one lotion, and when I looked up the ingredients I didn’t recognize on that label, it turned out to be two forms of pesticide. Yippy fricking skippy.
The first thing I did was to try to find a recipe for shampoo, because I was breaking out in my hair, which hadn’t ever been a problem before. I posted this information earlier in one of our Fabulous Friday Finds, but I’ve made some modifications.
I found this recipe for making your own shampoo, which calls for castile soap. Just be aware that even some castile soaps, like Dr. Bonner, have coconut in them. I found a recipe for making castile soap from Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Soap. Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Soap does not have any coconut in it. I made the shampoo with some modifications and found it too drying on my hair, so I added olive oil, but found it could be a bit waxy. This time I think I have it the way I like it. I’ve been using it as a body wash as well.
Denise’s Version of DIY Shampoo
1 Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Soap – 8 oz bar, grated (I grated it in my food processor, dumped it out, put the blade in, put it back in the food processor and pulverized it some more. Doesn’t take as long to dissolve in the water this way. Make sure you clean your food processor really well afterwards.)
5 cups of distilled water
3 Tablespoons of grapeseed oil
2 Tablespoons of castor oil
10-15 drops of tea tree essential oil
Grate Kiss My Face Soap. Place in a glass or plastic container with 5 cups of distilled water. Stir well, cover, and leave overnight. The next day, check to see if the soap bits have completely dissolved. If not, stir again and let sit. When the soap has completely dissolved, add, the grapeseed oil, the castor oil and the tea tree oil, and mix together. I used a whisk, I found it incorporated the oil better. This makes about 48 oz of shampoo. I put half in a pump bottle (Yes, it’s a store-brand hand sanitizer bottle, reduce, reuse, recycle, remember?) in the shower and half in the fridge until I run out. Or you could just make half the recipe 🙂
You can use the shampoo as body wash and facial wash as well, but stay tuned for further posts on facial cleansing options.
Now that Denise and I have established what we think is a nice rhythm, and we have a few readers (HI READERS! WE ARE SO HAPPY YOU ARE HERE. PLEASE KEEP COMING BACK!), we’d like to introduce a new feature, our catch-all for things we want to talk about or share but that aren’t recipes or links.
Welcome to Whatever Wednesdays! Anything goes here, so when we have a product review, cookbook commentary, personal essay, tips, tricks, or anything else to share, we’ll throw a post up on Wednesdays. This feature will happen when we have things, not every Wednesday, so consider subscribing so you don’t miss a post. We don’t want you to miss a post.
First up, as we gear up for the holidays, we thought we’d put together some thoughts and tips and tricks for traveling with allergies.
Denise’s Tips and General Opinions:
Having a food allergy is a pain. And some of your family and friends won’t understand. They think that you’re making it up, that you can just have a little. They get angry, they get passive aggressive, they want what they’ve always had and don’t want your new weird health issues interfering with their food. Well, some of us with food allergies risk dying if it’s even in the air around us, or if we have just have a little. And for some of us, while we won’t die, we’ll suffer huge amounts of intestinal and stomach pain, we’ll vomit or have diarrhea, our faces and parts of our body may swell up, we may get rashes and we may feel like we have the flu for days after. I don’t know what your particular food allergy is and what your reaction is, but we all have a responsibility to a) not eat something that’s going to make us sick, regardless of what anyone else has to say about it; b) make sure that we understand what is in all food that’s being offered to us (i.e. some people don’t understand that milk means butter, cheese and sour cream too); and c) to provide for ourselves to make sure we’re never put in that situation.
For holiday dinners, if you have anaphylaxis reactions where you could die if you are around a particular food, and your family refuses to catch a clue, then you no longer have holiday dinners with the family members who can’t be trusted. It’s that freaking simple as far as I’m concerned. I absolve you of all guilt and give you permission to cut them off. If someone doesn’t care that you might die, just so they can have what they’re used to having, they aren’t family. Family takes care of one another, and you are within your rights to ask that yours do this.
If your allergy is such that you can be around a food, but you can’t eat it, make sure you know how things are prepared. If you don’t know, DON’T EAT IT. One example in my life is turkey. My family bastes their turkey with a concoction made with margarine/butter (milk), bouillon (often containing milk), celery, onions and giblets. So that means I can’t eat their turkey. Most people wouldn’t expect that turkey would have milk in it. I’m going to be blunt here, but unless you have anaphylaxis, it is not your family’s problem to accommodate you. There’s no way I’m going to get my 96 year old grandmother to change her ways at this point, and she shouldn’t have to do so. So I bring my own turkey that I’ve made cooked safely. I’m not saying cook yourself a whole turkey, I’m just saying get some turkey, a piece of breast or a leg quarter and cook it yourself. I might even bring a potato I can nuke and a salad, and I bring my own dessert. Especially if it’s potluck. Because otherwise, you might only be able to eat the thing you brought. And don’t let anyone make you feel bad about it. Another strategy that I sometimes use for going to friends or families’ houses where I’m not sure what will be served is to just eat something before I go, so that if there’s nothing I can eat there, it won’t matter. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but after being at a few dinners where I couldn’t eat a single thing there, you start to catch a clue.
When traveling out of your local area on a car trip, pack accordingly. If I’m staying at a hotel, I buy things that I can eat without cooking for breakfast. Breakfast is really hard for me to eat out these days, since I’m allergic to milk and eggs. I buy fruit that I can eat without peeling, apples, pears or nectarines, and allergy-free-for-me non-perishable snacks I can eat if I can’t find anything else to eat. It’s also a good idea to research before you go. For me, I know that Chinese and Japanese restaurants are the easiest places for me to eat now. I don’t have an issue with soy, and they don’t use as much milk, cheese, or egg as other restaurants. So I go to Yelp.com and do a search for those restaurants within so many miles of my destination. When I find one that looks good, I then go to their website if they have one and check out the menu. If it looks like there may be things I can have on the menu, I then go to Allergyeats.com to see if others with food allergies have rated it. There are other websites and apps you can use also, just do a search. You can call ahead to see if a restaurant will be accommodating, but honestly, most of the time I just go. You do have to be prepared to be very assertive and ask questions about what you’re ordering. Be nice, but ask. If you are not comfortable that the waitstaff knows what they are talking about, be prepared to pick something safer on the menu.
When you are doing more extensive travel, again prepare. If you’re taking a cruise, flying or going to an all-inclusive resort, notify them ahead of time so they can make accommodations. If you’re traveling to a foreign country, check out these food allergy chef translation cards you might want to use. Also be prepared to educate those serving you. I took a cruise where they tried very hard, but didn’t really get it, and tried to pick off feta from a salad and tried to serve me sherbet, when I have a milk allergy. The waiter didn’t understand that sherbet has milk in it. Breakfast on the cruise was a challenge because I didn’t want to be served but went to the buffet. I ate so much melon on the cruise that I didn’t want to look at a melon again for six months after I got home. I probably should have sucked it up and gone to the formal dining breakfast where I could find out what was in stuff.
Mary Kate’s Tips:
First caveat: I do not have anaphylactic food allergies at this time, with the possible exception (which I’ve not tested, of hazelnut). Even so, my allergies can ruin an entire weekend, trip, or week, so generally, if I don’t know what is in it, I do not eat it.
Personally, beyond just food, I have about a gazillion environmental allergies, including dust and pets. (I know. I should live in a bubble, but that’s just cumbersome). Beyond taking my medications, there are a few things I can do while traveling to help me out. I bring along my own pillow, if driving, encased in its own dust mite covering. If I’m flying, I can take the dust mite pillow cover with me. Sometimes I also bring along an allergen neutralizer — I use Allersearch ADS Anti-Allergen spray, which neutralizes pet dander and dust mites in fabric surfaces. Depending on the severity of your allergies, you might consider a traveling air purifier, too.
For most of my environmental allergy needs, I use National Allergy to find products. My allergist recommended them, and I’ve found their customer service to be great.
For breakfasts when staying in hotels, I know there is nothing on a continental breakfast bar that I can eat anymore. I try to make sure there is a coffee maker in the room, and I make instant oatmeal, mixed with a travel cup of applesauce and a packet of sugar. If you can’t tolerate oats, consider cream of rice or instant grits.
If you can eat nuts, most of which I can eat, Larabars are a great travel food. They’re compact, protein-dense, and keep reasonably well at the bottom of your purse or backpack. They do not, however, taste good a year beyond their expiration date, so clean out your bags occasionally. I also take dried fruit, plain nuts, or other snack-sized things when I can find them.
For road trips? Bake ahead. Bring brownies or cookies with you, especially if you can make a breakfast-like cookie. Roasted vegetables travel well and are somewhat neat to eat on the go.
I used to be primarily a baker, and for years I’ve been making baked goods for other people’s birthdays — at first just because I enjoyed it, and later that, plus a selfish desire to be able to eat the baked goods. But for potlucks, I never bake anymore, as I want more than dessert — always bring a main dish or a side dish that can be your main dish (check our small plates category — it’s our biggest so far — for stuff Denise and I both like).
Most of all, try to find ways of enjoying holidays and spending time with people that do not revolve around food, as eating is the one area you’re most likely to feel odd or left out. Game nights are kind of awesome, and I really love playing cards with my neighbors. Movie night is also good. Or invite everyone you know over and cook safe tasty foods for them — we’re working on giving you all the recipes you might ever need for entertaining.
