As many of you know, I am a summer camp counselor at a local Girl Scout Day camp, and having this summer job has been an amazing experience and opportunity for personal growth over the past two years.  Earlier this summer, I was working with a group of Junior Girl Scouts (9-10 year olds) for the “plant-power” themed camp where they earned their Flowers badge. At our camp, we have to make a program-driven snack twice a week, and to help the counselors prepare, we are given a list of the campers’ allergies/dietary restrictions/ other pertinent health information before our planning period. So when I saw that I only had one girl with a tree nut allergy, I was excited because I am already a pro at avoiding nuts. For one of our snacks, I had planned that we would make flower-shaped sugar cookies and frost them in our favorite colors. 

But then on the first day of the week, one of my campers informed me that she was vegan.  This meant my flower-shaped sugar cookies idea would have to change. Luckily I had the perfect recipe for the group, and my camp directors were able to go shopping for my new ingredients later in the week, allowing me to bake these in the afternoon on Friday. Everything worked out in the end- and it probably provided a better experience for the girls than the cookies. 

I’ve had this recipe since childhood when I invited a girl who was allergic to eggs to my birthday party, and after some googling, we found this “Depression-era Wacky Cake” recipe. 

1.5 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 cup white sugar
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
5 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cold water
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F, and grease an 8×8 pan, or line 12 cupcake tins.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, sugar, cocoa, and baking soda.  Mix with a whisk. 
3. Then stir in oil, vinegar, and vanilla.  
4. Once dry ingredients are moistened, pour in cold water and stir until smooth. 
5. Add in chocolate chips (optional), and pour into your pan of choice
6. Bake 8×8 for 30-35 minutes, or cupcakes for 18-24 minutes.

This recipe has become my family’s go-to for sturdy cupcakes and I was really glad to bring it to camp. The girls were thrilled to all have cupcakes that they could all eat. To finish them off, we used store-bought canned frosting that only contained sugar, chemicals, and soy. 

Next, I taught them how to pipe different kinds of flowers and this really got them excited. I was so proud of my crazy energetic girls who were able to sit down and learn to pipe slowly and  carefully. It was so rewarding to see their hard work yield such great results! Making something fun like this was a great end to the week, and allowed me to pull one of my favorite end-of-day camp counselor planning techniques- the treat and yeet.  Here’s to more fun (and safe) cooking adventures at camp!

Next week, we celebrate America’s 243rd Birthday on the Fourth of July.  And along with this holiday comes all kinds of festivities that you guessed it- use foods.  So, I have compiled a list of some of my favorite Fourth of July ideas that are allergy-friendly.

Part 1: The Menu

Everything is more exciting with pointy sticks, and so every year I love making red, white, and blue fruit skewers as an appetizer.

For the main meal, my family always uses our grill to heat up some burgers and farm fresh vegetables, but really, the sky’s the limit when it comes to the kind of food you like to share with your Fourth of July squad.

And of course, what’s a summer party without some frozen treats! Luckily, one of America’s most iconic red white and blue desserts, the Firecracker Popsicle is free from all top-8 allergens!

Another festive dessert option is deep-dish s’mores.  Now this recipe is free of all top-8 allergens except for wheat/gluten, but if you need to switch out and use safe graham crackers instead, that will work fine as well. To make this dish, coat the bottom of the pan with graham crackers, then top with a sheet of enjoy life chocolate chips.  For the final layer, dip the marshmallows in water and then roll them in sprinkles to make your flag colors. To complete, stick the whole tray into your grill until the marshmallows are nice and golden.

Part 2: The Fun

And of course, now that you’ve got some food ideas, it’s time to share some of my favorite Fourth of July activities!

Every year, we start off our holiday at our local Independence Day Parade.  It’s such a fun way to celebrate the things that my community has to offer. As a kid, I had frequently appeared in the parade to promote the show I was in that summer and had a blast walking down Main Street.

Another fun classic event is going to watch fireworks.  There is a golf course near my house that always has the most spectacular fireworks show that is preceded by live music on the course and leads to becoming such a wonderful night.  Since everyone puts down their own picnic blanket, you don’t have to worry about touching any allergens in your area and its really a nice time.

And finally, is it really Independence Day if you don’t watch everyone’s favorite patriotic musical, 1776?? (guess that might just be a Gray family tradition…)

Leave a comment below with your favorite allergy-friendly ways to celebrate the birth of our nation!

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Today is an incredibly special day for so many reasons.  Not only is today Mother’s Day, but it’s also the beginning of Food Allergy Awareness Week, and I think that these two events go hand in hand. As a child who grew up with food allergies, a big part of my “growing up” dealt with transferring allergy management from my mom to me.  Now that I am older, I can really respect the amount of time and effort my mom went through to educate other parents, carry around wipes, Benedryl, and epinephrine, pack me safe treats, hand make each and every birthday cake, and never see it as a burden.  She made sure that I never felt different, excluded, or limited because of my allergies, and for that I am eternally grateful.  Her confidence and planning allowed me to experience so many cool things, and I have so much respect for all that she did to keep me safe.  But I think one of the best feelings for a mom is being able to see her child speak up for her allergies, and I can only hope that my mom can feel that pride as I tackle each experience life throws me.

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While I am incredibly thankful for all that my mother has done for me in regards to keeping me safe with my allergies, I know that is not up to her and other allergy parents to keep the world informed and tolerant towards allergies, and that’s where Food Allergy Awareness Week comes in. Food Allergy Awareness Week is a campaign started by FARE’s predecessor, FAAN (Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network), in 1998 to educate others about the severity and prevalence of food allergies in our world.  

As a refresher, food allergies are caused by the IgE antibodies in a person’s blood reacting to a particular food protein as if it were a toxin and signaling a release of histamines.  Anaphylaxis is caused by a more intensive immune response, where your body releases chemicals that cause an intense drop in blood pressure, restricted airways, full body hives/welts, and other symptoms that when combined are life-threatening. There is currently no cure for food allergies, but research is being done to see what strategies we can take to reduce the likelihood of reactions for those with a diagnosed allergy.   People with food allergies must ensure that they are very cautious and avoid exposure to their allergen to prevent anaphylaxis. 

This week is a great week to learn about the causes of allergies, how you can help those with allergies, and to get involved with activism, whether it be through petitioning your law makers for increased access to epinephrine, donating to allergy research by signing up for a Hometown Heroes Walk in your hometown, or simply by wearing Teal on Thursday May 16^th for #TealTakeover.  And if you have any questions, be sure to reach out to me on Facebook or in the comments section below. Happy Holidays!

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Imagine living in a world where each meal you eat might be your only meal for the next two days.  Where you must scavenge for anything to get you by so that you can have some slim chance to be able to beat the cycle of poverty to make life better for you and your family.  At the beginning of the month, I got to know people who experienced this world every day.

During my spring break I had the opportunity to be a student leader for Catholic Campus Ministry’s trip to Camden, NJ.  While in Camden, we worked with DeSales Service Works, a project of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales that provides visitors opportunities for faith-driven community service.  Throughout the week, we volunteered with a lot of different organizations, including St. Joseph’s House, The Last Stop, Holy Name School, the Sandwich Ministry, and Hopeworks.  We also participated in some local park clean-up and gardening for the community.  We had exposure to all different kinds of people and life experiences as we engaged with the Camden locals in our projects to help the community. 

This week was incredibly eye-opening as we learned more about the privileges that we did not even realize that we had.  On one day after cleaning and sorting at St. Joseph’s House homeless shelter, we had a guided reflection about being homeless and I realized how little control people have on every aspect of their life when they are homeless.  Throughout my life, I have had the ability to chose what I eat and to read the ingredients of most foods before I eat them, but for the people who are homeless, they just have to take what they can get.  This also goes for finding where they can sleep or finding jobs.  These people have limited carrying capacity in their arms, and can only own what they can carry, so even if they get a job interview, it can be hard to get a job if they lack the professional clothing to help them out.  And even if a shelter resident is able to get a job and stop relying on service organizations for sustenance, it is hard to provide for your family without first repaying all of your personal debts.  Camden is a well-known food dessert with no large grocery stores within the city limit, and most residents rely on bodegas for most of their food.  On the first night of our trip, our initial group of five people had the challenge to buy ingredients for dinner for our group of six at the corner bodega with only $4.  We made ourselves a can of black beans, a can of carrots, and a bag of rice.  But what was only a little fun challenge for us is the life experience of so many city-dwellers who have limited access to fresh foods.

Having my background with food allergy knowledge, it was difficult for me when we were distributing food because there was so little information about the food we served.  The soup kitchen at St. Joseph’s Place and the cathedral’s Sandwich Ministry worked solely on donations. These donated casseroles, soups, and desserts had no labels on them and when people asked us what was in the food, we had no real answers except for what we could tell from looking at it (“this is ham and beans”, “this is chili with some meat” “this is pasta with cheese and meat” “this is a brownie”).  The most immediate difficulty I saw was for the population at the shelter who did not eat pork.  Often, the meat options in dishes like chili or pasta sauces were indiscernible ground meat, and so we had to offer them the vegetarian options which was just pasta with red sauce and canned green beans.  This meal is so low in protein and it would be hard to sustain yourself on that for several weeks on end.  And for a lot of people who have avoided pork for religious regions for most of their life, if they accidentally eat pork products, their bodies are so unused to it that they will get sick even if they desperately needed to eat that meal.  And if these pork-free people struggle so much, I can only imagine this situation for anyone with food allergies.  As the population in this country with food allergies grows, the chance that some of these people may end up having to rely on services that provide free meals will increase as well, and we need to prepare to serve this population with the dignity that they deserve.  It already takes so much effort to get people to donate food that if we were to require all donated foods to go through an intensive labeling process, even more people might go hungry. 

After my experiences with this trip, I opened up my email to see that the sign-up sheet for 2019 FARE Teen Advisory Group projects was open, and I am so excited to be participating in a project that addresses food insecurity for people with food allergies.  With the experiences that I have gained over my trip, I feel as though I will be able to help give my team the reality check needed to make sure that our initiatives for food banks will be sustainable after we give them our presentations.  I can’t wait to continue the good work from my trip through this new project and if anyone has any ideas for ways that we can improve food labeling and allergy-friendliness of food banks and soup kitchens, be sure to comment below or on my Facebook page.

Yesterday, March 8^th, was International Women’s Day.  This day has been in existence since 1911 to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.  I absolutely love this day because it provides me with an opportunity to read about a plethora of inspiring women yesterday as I came across their accomplishments on various social media platforms.  It was so awesome to see how many things in this world have been created due to the hard work of women everywhere.  As I read through these stories, I began to wonder about the impact that women have in the food allergy research community.  Luckily, March is Women’s History Month so I still have an excuse to do some brief research on the contributions that women make in the field of allergy research.  Today, you will get to learn about three amazing women in the allergy community.

The first woman I want to feature is Sandra Gawchik, DO, who has been my allergist for 18 years.  She is the recipient of the 2017 “Women in Allergy” Award presented by the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.  This prestigious award is given to women who have “advanced the role of women in the field of allergy/immunology … or who has made a significant contribution to the specialty”.  She has been the president of the Pennsylvania Allergy and Asthma Association and the Philadelphia Allergy Society and is an active member of several other societies involving the advancement in medical practice for allergists.  She has conducted lots of research on asthma and seasonal allergy topics, such as sublingual immunotherapy to house dust mite allergy (1), latex allergy (2), growth and bone maturation of asthmatic children treated with inhaled corticosteroids (3), and many more topics.   I am so thankful that I have been able to experience her guidance and expertise as part of the successful management of my food allergies.   

Edda Fiebiger, PhD was the 2017 recipient of FARE’s New Investigator Award for her research in inhibiting the active enzymes during allergic reactions to improve outcomes during oral immunotherapy.  Along with being an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Fiebiger is also a researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital.  Her research is focused on understanding the mechanisms behind food allergies in the immune system of the gastrointestinal tract (4).  Some of her recently published research has investigated Soluble FceRI as a biomarker for IgE-mediated diseases (5), the mRNA patterns in Eosinophilic Esophagitis patients (6), and the functions of dendritic cell bound IgE in allergic patients (7).  Dr. Fiebriger’s innovative research will give the allergic community a new and stronger understanding of the mechanisms behind allergies so that we can get closer to a cure.

The final woman I want to feature in this post is Stephanie Eisenbarth, MD, PhD.  Dr. Eisenbarth was a recipient of FARE’s Mid-Career Investigator Award for her research in inherited predisposition to food allergy.  Dr. Eisenbarth is very busy at Yale University as an Associate Professor of Immunology, Associate Chair of Research in Laboratory Medicine, and Assistant Director of Clinical Pathology Residency.  Her lab studies T cell driven pathology, Dock8’s role in allergic immune response, and the role of IgA in mitigating food allergy.  Her diverse research looks at many aspects of the immune response and why it occurs for many different conditions including allergies, asthma, and vaccines.

The three women I learned about today are just a small group of amazing and influential women in STEM who are going to make their mark on the world.  Their research will be important in improving the lives of the 15 million Americans with food allergies, and the food allergy community cannot wait for their discoveries.  I hope that you all had an amazing International Women’s Day and that you are empowered to pursue your unique passions, despite any push backs you face!