Wow, what a year! Here are my 2018 My Allergy Kitchen highlights:
Top Recipe
My most popular recipe this year has been my pumpkin seed butter freezer fudge. I made this for my yoga class recently and everyone who tried it asked me for the recipe! It has none of the top 14 allergens in the recipe, is suitable for vegans and is also refined sugar free.
Top Post
My top post by far and away was this guest post by Dr Trill about breastfeeding with food allergies. I was shocked when I learned that what I thought I knew about allergens in breastmilk was completely wrong! Keep an eye on this lady, she is one to watch! She is a scientist whose two babies both had severe FPIES. She's combined her scientific knowledge with her passion for helping others to create a new company, Free to Feed.
Top Instagram Post
This photo linked to my milk ladder post had a huge response! I had so many conversations with so many of you following that and I realised that there is so much confusion and worry for parents around the milk ladder, and it seems like there is such a lack of support!
Have you heard of 'breastfeeding peer supporters', where mums are trained to support other mums with breastfeeding? My dream would be to create a similar role for food allergies, with playgroups around the country run by 'food allergy peer supporters'! It seems the NHS is struggling to cope with the sheer numbers of children with food allergies nowadays. To be honest, beyond medical advice, I think you can get better support for day-to-day issues from other allergy parents who have lived through it themselves. Doctors and dieticians might know about the theory of food allergies, but they don't know what it's like to live with it every day.
Top Tweet
This tweet was viewed by 9620 people! BBC Watchdog did another investigation a few weeks later into allergen information in restaurants. Shockingly, 5 out of 30 restaurants gave incorrect information, even after referring to written allergen details! There have been huge improvements in how allergen information is provided since the EU regulations were introduced in 2014. However it seems there is a huge need for better staff training in these establishments. Hopefully it won't be long before we see a new law to improve labelling and information in restaurants.
Good to see @BBCWatchdog covering food allergen labelling - the loopholes in the law need to be closed. ALL food should be fully labelled with ingredients/allergens. #foodallergy #natashaslaw
— Zoe T. Williams (@myallergykitchn) November 7, 2018
Other Highlights
I created a video presentation for Allergy 2018. In it, I spoke about our experiences of having a baby with food allergies and how the symptoms were missed time and time again. Hopefully this will help to raise awareness amongst health professionals of what it is really like to live with undiagnosed food allergy - oh and a test for non-IgE allergies would be really nice if any scientists want to develop one! I hope to be able to share a link to the full presentation very soon (a sneak peek is on my Instagram feed)
I'm also excited about my new partnership with Libereat, with my recipes now featured in their app!
Next Year
Looking ahead to 2019, and it's going to be an exciting year! My book 'The Busy Parent's Guide to Food Allergies' will be coming out and will be available to buy at the end of January. That's taken up most of my time and energy for the last year so I am looking forward to sharing it with the world, and helping more allergy parents!
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