Corn is Overused

It can be so hard for a parent to come to terms with this allergy. It's just so shocking to realize that there are so many products out there that will make our kids sick and no one else seems to have to worry about them. Avoiding any food because of allergy can be difficult, but when the allergen that needs to be avoided is corn, the problemS can seem insurmountable.


None of us knew that meat, veggies and dairy were making us sicker every year because we didn't realize that corn was used in processing every one of them. Our government has been busy keeping corn a major economic powerhouse and industry has been busy looking for ways to replace expensive products and processes with cheap corn substitutions. That wouldn't be a problem except that we took it to extremes. Now, more and more people are starting to react to corn every day, but it's too late. Our economy is dependent on corn and most products would not make it to the store shelves without corn of some kind now.

Corn allergy is very much like any other allergy except that corn is overused in our society. Most nut allergic individuals cannot tolerate even breathing in the dust from nuts. People allergic to bees can't take six stings before they start reacting - they react instantly to the first sting. Dairy allergic kids can't eat some cheeses but avoid all milk......they can't do any dairy products of any kind. For some reason, people would rather categorize us as crazy, extremist, hypochondriac conspiracy theorists instead of thinking about our allergy the way we are all taught to think about peanut allergies. Why is it so far-fetched that we can't tolerate any corn at all?

If you don't believe that corn is in everything, just a tiny bit of research on food manufacturing is all it will take to convince you. Wild ocean-caught fish is generally iced down below deck immediately in citric acid-laced ice. That's corntanimation before the fish even reaches the shore! What about the glue that holds any safety seal to the top of a jar? What is it made from? Maybe it's corn just like all the other adhesives out there (especially any adhesives that will be used near food). How much of a pre-ground spice would have to come into contact with that residue on the top of the jar before it caused a corn reaction? How much corn do I come in contact with when I open a cardboard package from Amazon? How much corn is in my house that I still don't even know about yet? It's to the point that I truly dread researching something because I always find corn involved somewhere down the line.

For further reading, the helpful people in the corn business have several publications online that will give you a better idea of how prevalent corn is in our society.
Uses for Corn from the Texas Corn Producers
National Corn Growers Association Corn Uses Poster
Corn Refiners Association pamphlet about "Tapping the Treasure" that is corn.

More information about the myriad ways corn is hidden in our food and other products can be found at Glenda's new Hidden Corn blog.

Corn-Free Basics

When coping with a new corn allergy, many people try to depend on packaged foods from the corn-free list at first. That can get you through the first few days if you live in a large metropolitan area with Whole Foods and Trader Joe's stores. Because of the limited list of foods that are corn-free, most people will get desperate fairly quickly for easy meals. "Easy meals" is a relative term, as you'll soon find. It's really important that you learn to cook at least a few basic things for yourself now that most convenience foods are out of the question. Here is a list of things I would put at the top of the list to master (youtube is a rich source of cooking videos):

1. Dried Beans: refried beans, bean dip, hummus, bean soup, cold bean salads, red beans and rice, fried bean patties, etc.
2. Brown Rice: Spanish rice, chicken and rice, rice cooked in broth, fried rice, rice and eggs, rice pudding, etc.
3. Eggs: scrambled, fried, boiled perfectly, deviled eggs, omelets, baked eggs, egg salad, homemade mayonnaise, egg drop soup, egg noodles, quiche, frittatas, poached, etc.
4. Wheat: muffins, quick bread, pancakes (can be used for sandwich bread), waffles, fritters, fried dough (make bread dough and pan or deep fry, roll in cinnamon sugar), rolls, buns (roll out a circle and fill with meat or bean mixture, close up and bake), crackers (a million variations possible), pies (there are tons of pies that can be made if you learn to make a simple pie crust in the food processor - it's a snap), bread sticks, garlic bread, toast (baked or fried), pasta, dumplings, cake, and on and on....
5. Chicken: whole boiled chicken and broth (cook soups or rice with the broth and pull meat off bones to use in chicken salad, etc.), broiled chicken pieces, roasted whole chicken, chicken cut up and fried, etc.
6. Salad Dressings: oil and vinegar, mustard vinaigrette, green goddess (avocado), ranch, parmesan, homemade Italian, etc.
7. Vegetables: basic roasted veggies, dishes too numerous to list.....

Most of the ingredients needed for the dishes listed above are pretty easy to find. Here are the ones that I've found even with our limited shopping options (no Whole Foods or Trader Joe's here): 

1. Beans: Pretty much any brand of dried beans including lentils and garbanzos from the local Indian market and Adzuki beans from the local Asian market. I can buy Eden canned beans from my local health food co-op but they are prohibitively expensive.
2. Brown Rice: Lundberg organic from Kroger or Unenriched white rice from the Asian market.
3. Eggs: farmers market - two of the five vendors carry safe eggs for me. One of them even has duck eggs. Look for organic eggs that haven't been washed in corny detergents or local eggs from farmers you can question. My eggs come straight from the farm dirty so I know they've not been corntaminated. I actually do better with duck eggs and I believe that's because they have an entirely foraged diet without corn or soy.
4. Wheat: Private Selection organic unbleached, unenriched wheat flour. Many do well with King Arthur organic whole wheat flour as well.
5. Chicken: I get pastured whole chickens and livers from a vendor at the farmers market. Empire chicken seems to be widely available and corn-free (I've never tried it because I seem to be in an Empire-free zone!).
6. Salad Dressings: I buy Filippo Berio extra virgin olive oil in glass bottles from Kroger (refined oils contain citric acid), Gold Label virgin organic coconut oil from Tropical Traditions, Bragg organic apple cider vinegar, Eden Brown Mustard, Daisy Sour Cream (full fat - lite version contains corn), local pasteurized but not homogenized or fortified cow milk from a vendor at the farmers market (fortified milks contain corn)
7. Vegetables: amazing veggies and fruit in season at my farmers market, Birdseye Deluxe Frozen vegetables from Walmart (NOT Steamfresh or ones with sauces or seasonings. I get a friend to pick up that one thing for me because we can't go in that store without a reaction).

As you can see, if you pick up the things on that list and keep a good supply of a few others*, you can have a huge variety in your diet as long as you learn to combine them creatively. *safe butter (Kerrygold salted butter), salt (Redmonds Real Salt or Morton canning salt), EVOO, cheese (Kerrygold from Sam's Club or Costco or Organic Valley from Kroger or the health food co-op), and seasonings (organic herbs and spice from Mountain Rose Herbs), Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, organic sugar (Private Selection from Kroger), onions (Kroger sweet), garlic (Elephant garlic - Kroger), celery (unbagged conventional celery - Kroger), peppers (farmers market only - dehydrate or freeze extras for winter), and citrus juice (Santa Cruz organic lemon juice and lime juice from Kroger).

I found it helpful in the beginning to look for recipes for specific things I had that I knew were safe. Try doing a google search for "egg recipes" or "cabbage recipes" or whatever safe ingredients you have accessible. This opened my eyes to many dishes from other cuisines and we've incorporated them into our diet. Sprinkling Indian or Mexican or Asian dishes in with your tried and true recipes will make your diet much more exciting.  

I love looking for dessert recipes on All Recipes by excluding the ingredients you can't have....for instance: I would do an ingredient search and put in the keyword "cake" then put eggs, milk, flour, sugar in the "Ingredients to Include" column and put corny things like sweetened condensed milk, cool whip, cake mix or evaporated milk in the "Ingredients to Exclude" column. If you start reading the recipes and the top few contain another corny ingredient, you'll want to revise your search to add that to your "Ingredients to Exclude" column. It will help to broaden the scope of possibilities because it will bring up things you've never had or didn't remember existed. There are tons of simple corn-free desserts that can be made as long as you can eat wheat, sugar and dairy. In the end, I may not even use the recipe from Allrecipes.com, but it will point me in the direction I want to go with dessert. I can then look for "traditional" or "homemade" recipes for the dessert I want to make. 

It'll soon be spring and you can shop for fresh peppers, tomatoes, lettuces, cucumbers and such at the farmers market so you'll have an endless supply for fresh salads. It will require washing (remember not to use prewashed baby carrots or salad greens), but you can learn to wash large amounts and store it for combining at meal time. Plus you can just saute onions and peppers in butter before adding eggs and shredded cheese to the pan for fancy scrambled eggs.....if you have safe sausage or bacon, all the better. Imagine whipping up a batch of biscuits to eat with your Western omelet cheat or just toasting some homemade bread. It's easy enough to make biscuits or bread for the freezer so you can bake only what you need at one time or bake the whole pan and freeze in individual portions. You can make several batches on your day off and put them in the freezer for later (freezer = essential longterm solution). 

I would say that most of my meals take slightly longer than just opening a can or package and reheating and I spend far less time and money shopping. Also, I cook in bulk and freeze portions for later or we eat the leftovers for a cooking break. I really enjoy my cooking much better than anything I could buy, anyway. I would never be able to just reheat a can of store bought beans and be satisfied with it. The only time I ate the Eden canned beans I had to saute garlic in EVOO and stir the drained beans into the pan to reheat while adding salt, pepper and a dash of vinegar. Once you start to enjoy your own cooking, you'll see things like canned beans as something you keep for emergencies like a power outage for several days.