Over the years, Mike and I have tried to nurture a growing passion for good food in both G and M, very much based on our own love of food, eating out and experiences of a variety of culinary delights from around the world. M has become a real foodie and has never been afraid to try something new, be it oysters at age 4 or E028 at age 9! Whether it’s because of the lengthy presence of T1D in my own life, or due to identifying food allergies in G from an early age, we have never been afraid to go into a restaurant and challenge their menu options to make sure there’s food there that we can all eat and enjoy. Not everyone is as confident in making these demands and I frequently see requests for ideas for safe restaurants in the many FB forums that cover the topic of food allergies. These anxious parents trust the experiences of others in the same shoes and appreciate the advice that is so freely and gladly given; but what do they do when there’s no-one else on-line to share their tips or with the knowledge at their fingertips? Up until recently, the answer was probably to wait it out, especially if they were too nervous to step out of their comfort zone and give somewhere a try, but thanks to a fellow allergy Mum, last March an amazing new website was launched to help the allergy world share their experiences and highlight restaurants that really can cater for food allergies.
Can I Eat There? is the brain child of Nicky Granger, whose young son, Gabriel, lives with 9 severe food allergies. Nicky and her fantastic team, who have an impressive amount of allergy experience between them, have set up a website that gives “…people with food allergies the information they need to make sensible choices about where to eat. Like menus you can filter by allergy. Customer reviews from other people with food allergies. Forums for chatting and sharing experiences and advice. And the opportunity to put your questions and concerns to our expert partners…” – a completely new venture that is unlike anything else I have seen out there and that really answers a growing need.
The premise is simple: the initial search engine on the site allows you to enter your location and then apply any filters you wish from a choice of: allergy, cuisine, rating, dietary or allergy awards, to suit your individual needs. Once these have been selected, the results are brought up, showing all restaurants in your chosen area that meet your requirements. At the most basic level, the restaurants listed will provide information about the restaurant type, the food offered and which food allergies they feel they can cater to. Some will have provided the CIET? team with a more detailed menu as well as full contact details and their website.
What makes this website so fantastic in my opinion, is the ability for users to add their own reviews and experiences of the restaurants listed and give them a star rating for their attitude to catering for food allergies. These reviews are easily accessible under each restaurant’s listing and give the anxious diner an honest review of just how well the restaurant managed to meet someone else’s needs. This really is a unique resource for families living with food allergies and one that I hope will continue to go from strength to strength. The success of the website is, of course, dependent on not only spreading the word that it exists, but also encouraging people to take the time to add their thoughts and reviews about the restaurants they’ve visited, 
especially if they would recommend them to others or, indeed, warn other food allergy sufferers against going there. Needless to say, as soon as I first heard about CIET?, I contacted Nicky to find out how I could become involved with her new venture and am proud to be one of the allergy ambassadors and partners delighted to be working with CIET? as much as I can. It really is a 5-star website and I wish them every success for the future.
If anyone was going to describe the last decade of my life, the one indisputable conclusion they’d end up reaching is that it’s been anything but boring. Thanks to a pair of children who have thrown more than their fair share of life challenges into the mix, we’ve weathered more storms than I ever believed possible and, for the most-part, we’ve come out the other side still smiling and relatively unscathed. We’ve survived a lot of challenges, met a whole host of amazing people and learned a great deal along the way; and if I had to pick just one lesson that constantly resonates, I’d have to say that we now know to never take things for granted as they can change at the drop of the proverbial hat. Two years ago I 
We all felt the benefits of that visibility to start with and I no longer felt the underlying pressure to defend the true extent of M’s illness and food allergies whilst my outwardly healthy-looking youngster was intent on tearing around practically making a mockery of every problem and pain we said he was suffering.
For those of you who are not in the know, the #FFFA are the brainchild of Michelle Berriedale-Johnson and were launched in 2008 to celebrate excellence and encourage innovation within the free from food industry. Each year a group of judges from across the allergy and free from community are invited to taste a variety of new free from products and rate them on quality, usefulness, innovation and nutritional value. The foods are all tasted “blind” in the first instance, with names and packaging removed so that the products really are assessed on their own individual merits. Then follows an active discussion as each individual judge is asked to help reach a group consensus on the category winner and which other products deserve to be shortlisted, commended or given a highly commended award. Given the judges have a variety of backgrounds from free from food professionals to health professionals and from allergy sufferers to allergy bloggers as well as the occasional “normal” person to compare each item to their non-allergy counterpart, you really do get a rounded point of view about what makes the highest quality free from product. Believe me when I say that any manufacturer who wins a category is producing something that has impressed across the board.
Breakfast: 
Confectionery: ![IMG_0094[1]](https://7yearstodiagnosis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/img_00941.jpg?w=225&h=300)
I’m so excited for it to hit our shelves in the next couple of months and can’t wait for G to try it. My other choice is something I know G won’t want to try, but it ticked so many boxes for me as it was tasty, free from and could be prepared in the microwave in less than 5 minutes, truly the quintessential ready meal. 
The teatime category was again filled with a delicious array of biscuits and cakes, but there was one product that for me stood head and shoulders above the rest: the amazing 
and kept my fingers crossed. The first batch looked delicious and I couldn’t wait to take a sneaky bite or two to…ahem…”taste test” before serving them to my discerning public. The smell wafting through the house worked better than a dinner bell and first one child, and then the other, drifted to the table with washed hands, ready to try dinner. For that first meal, I prepared 2 chicken breasts worth of popcorn and left my youngest bitterly disappointed that there was absolutely not another morsel left for him to consume. Subsequent meals have seen bigger portions prepared and disappear in similarly quick fashion, and I’m delighted to have found another winning 
With the start of a new year, we decided to branch out and challenge yet another popular old friend, TGI Fridays. M has been reluctant to visit this restaurant since he went elemental last year and our first suggested meal out after he was discharged from GOSH fell sadly flat, when he refused to stay there because “..everyone around me will be eating chips Mummy…“. As we had not long had to stop the potato trial due to all his 
For those of you not in the know, TGI Fridays has a separate menu for allergies, which lists the lactose- and gluten-free options readily available. G was delighted to see such a selection of starters that were safe for her and begged to be allowed to try one of those as well as her main course. She opted for the BBQ houmous starter with corn tortilla chips, followed by the Bacon burger with fries from the allergy-friendly children’s menu. Having sorted our little Miss out, we’re turned our attentions to the more knotty problem of young Master M and here I have to say, TGI Fridays came into their own. The manager came to sit with us at the table, armed with a mammoth allergy information folder and cross-referenced every single menu item we were considering for both children to ensure the food would be absolutely safe. He advised us that they used separate chopping boards for the food preparation to avoid cross-contamination risks and showed an in-depth understanding of our requirements which reflected the extensive food safety courses I later found out the restaurant chain insists all their managers attend.
I was impressed to discover that before settling on that as an option, he had actually investigated whether they could get hold of any rapeseed oil from one of the neighbouring restaurants for M’s chicken breast, but had rejected that option when he discovered those restaurants couldn’t guarantee that there was no cross-contamination risk. Instead, the chefs prepared the chicken oil-free and the speed at which it disappeared from M’s plate is a testament to how well prepared and tasty this dish turned out to be. G’s food vanished in similarly quick fashion and Mike and I breathed a huge sigh of relief that our risky restaurant choice proved to be such a success.
ody respond when food is eaten; a daunting prospect when you have another child to love and nurture at home as well as a job to hold down.
working hard to bring him back to a healthy position ready for the new school term. We weren’t happy about this situation, but felt there was really no alternative; we had to give their plan a try in order to find some answers.
Having had that much-needed rest, M started to lose that haunted look that had been plaguing him for a few weeks and we finally seemed to have turned the corner and be back on track. We agreed on a new short list of foods to challenge in the run up to Christmas and had finally restarted where we had left off, more or less. However, last weekend, with another 3 unsuccessful attempts at reintroductions to chalk up to experience, tensions started to build and emotions threatened to overwhelm the tenuous calm that had just begun to settle. The final straw broke when G asked Mike and me to taste and review her cupcakes for her Food and Textiles homework. With hot, angry tears cascading down his cheeks, M crawled on to my lap to fitfully confide that it “just wasn’t fair” that everyone else could eat cakes when he couldn’t. Gently stroking his back, I offered to whip up a batch of one of the few sweet treat recipes I’ve managed to adapt for him in the last 12 months: 
as I weighed and measured out everything I needed, M’s interest was piqued and he pulled up the step-stool to stand by my side and help out. He rolled up his sleeves, washed and then floured his hands and, having selected an interesting array of cookie cutters, brandished my trusty rolling-pin to roll out the gingerbread dough on my pastry board. He chose to use the Christmas cutters as well as the odd one or two Mr Men ones, which have survived from my childhood and spent hours planning out to most effectively cut the shapes from the dough in front of him. We ended up with an impressive batch and I am heartily assured by my trustworthy taste-testers that they more than fit the brief and hit the mark!
M wanted to use them to create Pudsey Bear’s face as best he could. Design done, Wednesday evening saw M whipping up the cake batter with a little supervision from me and the resulting 24 perfectly baked M-friendly 
We had already made a simple cardboard frame in the shape of Pudsey’s head to hold the cupcakes securely and,having fitted 10 cupcakes neatly into place, M got started on the icing.
I crumbled 8 cupcakes into a bowl and was delighted to see that the grated apple and pear in the cake mix gave enough moisture to form balls. M cut up some drinking straws as I carefully moulded our cake balls and stuck them to the sticks to create the lollipop shape. My full recipe is 
It turned out to be a later night than planned, but M ended up with 2 entries to the school competition he could be proud of and was delighted that nearly all of his cakes sold at the fundraiser on Friday.
Canadian Halloween experiences with cousins and friends and their outfits are still hanging up in M’s costume wardrobe as a permanent memento. It was, understandably, a big part of Mike’s childhood, but is not an occasion I ever remember marking in my own upbringing and at home, here in the UK, I can’t quite reconcile myself to the idea of sending my children out in their ghoulish fancy dress to knock on random houses in our village to ask for treats, when, for the other 364 days of the year, I’m drilling into them the mantra to not accept sweets from strangers. Whilst we might not be avid Halloween fans in our household, I know it is a custom that is becoming more and more popular around the country.
7 years to diagnosis 
