Corn Allergies in Children
By no means am I a doctor or pediatrician, I am a husband and father of 3 wonderful kids! I want to share a story from earlier this year about my daughter and what we all went through as a family because it could happen to you and your kids. This happened over night it seemed like, corn allergies in children. It was that quick!
Last summer, kids were out of school and everything was good. One day my daughter panicked, she said she couldn’t swallow and from there it started. We took our daughter to the ER where they said that nothing was wrong, it was just a panic attack. But my daughter wouldn’t stop talking about it, she kept saying that her throat felt closed.
We then took her to an allergist and what came back amazed me. My daughter was allergic to CORN! Of all things…CORN! Now I am allergic to mosquito bites, no big thing, but this is a FOOD ALLERGY. This can mean LIFE OR DEATH. My wife and I were devastated. How can our daughter be allergic to corn when no one else in the family is? There isn’t even anyone else in our immediate family that has a food allergy! But this article isn’t about why she has it. I want to inform you guys in case this happens to you because it can be very scary.
First off, I would like to make a list to show you what you CAN’T have if you are allergic to corn. This IS NOT everything, this is probably the most common ingredients. First off you know you can’t eat corn if you have a corn allergy. DUH! But did you know that almost every food you can buy in a store has some sort of corn product in it? That is what got me and my wife so upset. It is so hard to find food that doesn’t have corn in it. Now we are lucky, my wife loves to cook and she took charge of this and has made some GREAT food for us without corn products. But, back to the list of stuff you CAN’T eat if you are allergic to corn.
SO because of CORN she cant have any of these:
Image from http://www.zazzle.com/corn_allergy_list_postcard-239670312210095672
- Corn
- High fructose corn syrup
- Corn sweetener
- Corn meal
- Corn syrup solids
- Baking powder
- Hominy
- Corn flour
- Maize
- Masa
- Corn starch
- Corn alcohol
- Grits
- Dextrin
- Maltodextrins
- Food starch
- Vegetable gum
- Modified gum starch
- Vegetable starch
- Sorbitol
- Vinegar (Distilled Vinegar, but they can have Apple Vinegar)
- Corn Oil
This is NOT everything, the list goes on and on.
Now companies are making products now that don’t have so many corn products in them and this is great! Some foods that my daughter can eat and actually like are: Nutella, Organic Peanut Butter, Organic Apple Sauce, Fruits and Vegetables (Real fruits and veggies, not from cans) and Vegenaise (A kind of mayonnaise and it’s not that bad.). Just to name a few. From reading what my daughter likes now, you may have noticed the word ORGANIC. First off, this means MORE EXPENSIVE to us moms and dads. But it is truly better for us to eat and in lots of cases it really does help out your local farmers! We all need to eat better and eating organic foods is one way to do it!
We also thought that she was allgeric to gluten, but she wasn’t and that was a relief. If you have a child that is, look at this book, A Complete Guide To Raising Kids In The Gluten-free World. That is a great resource on what you can and can’t feed your kids. A must read if you have a child that can’t get gluten.
The reason why my daughter can have more organic foods is because organic foods don’t have all the preservatives in them. There are A LOT of things made from corn that are in everything! I truly think you would be surprised, I know we were.
Please comment on this article and tell me what you think. If you have more information, please add it in the comments. As parents, we need ALL the information that we can get to keep our children happy and healthy. If you have questions from a parent that has been through this, please comment and I will get back with you. All parents need to stick together and help each other out, that’s what Daddyplace is all about!
Great blog post, very informative!! Corn allergy is on the rise, and its nice to find information because information is so scarce on it right now. I believe in the next few years corn will make it to the top food allergen list.
Information isn’t scarce really, but you have to know where to look. I’ve been doing corn allergy coaching for 5 years now and it’s a major learning curve starting out. There’s a couple groups/forums online that I think are great sources of information. One is on Delphi forums called “Avoiding Corn”, the other is on Facebook groups called “Corn Allergy & Intolerance (Maize, Zea Mays). In honesty, I moderate the latter group.
Sorry to hear your daughter has a corn allergy but it looks like you’ve got a good start to keeping her healthy.
I would like to mention that it would be nice if you didn’t steal your information and pictures. The picture you’re using is a post card I have for sale at Zazzle, and would be nice if you actually had it link to where you took it from. http://www.zazzle.com/simplyv
Sorry for that. I found it on google images. I have put the url information of the pic. If you want me to take the pic down I will and find a new one. Just tell me.
If you can link the picture to where the item is.. that would be great. Thanks. http://www.zazzle.com/corn_allergy_list_postcard-239670312210095672
I put the link below the pic. I hope that is ok. I also hope this drives some attention your way. I would like to know that I helped in some way to get the word out to more people about corn allergies.
Thanks for pointing it out VY.
Did the allergist suggest any possibility of her growing out of it as she gets older?
He said that is always a possibility, whether it happens or not he doesn’t know. That’s one reason to keep getting tested at least once a year.
Every two years.
Great blog post Keith! I can’t even imagine what you guys went through and are going through. We have been very fortunate that our son has not had any allergies that we have had to deal with. You all have done wonderfully.
There is some good info here thanks.
I’m glad that I wrote it, John. I have meant too for quite awhile. It’s very scary for parents when they first find out about allergies. They are life threatening, but are very manageable. Sometimes, like in the case with our daughter, we have to change the way the whole family eats. But it’s a good thing, we are all eating better now.
This blog impressed me and over exceeded my expectations. You know how to involve a reader and increase his curiosity to read more. Many congratulations!