EOE and Holiday Celebrations

While the holidays are a wonderful time for celebrating, it is also a time for celebrating with food. For some, food celebrations aren't always a pleasurable experience. Traditional meals, work parties, or other events that provide a smorgasbord of goodies can equate to indigestion, mood swings, migraines, nerve pain, stuffy or runny noses, coughing, swelling or even a trip to the hospital for many.

Below are the top 8 most common food allergies but any food can be a potential allergen. For those who suffer from food intolerances or eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders (EGID), the holidays can be just as challenging to navigate.

8 most common food allergies:

• Milk products (cheese, whey, butter, natural flavoring, casein)

• Eggs (some people are allergic to the egg whites but not the yokes and vice versa)

• Wheat (pasta, matzo, couscous, bulger, bread, flour)

• Soy (miso, hydrolyzed soy protein, tamari, tempeh, teriyaki sauce, edamame)

• Peanuts (Spanish peanuts, beer nuts, Arachis oil, Goober peas)

• Tree Nuts (pistachios, walnuts, cashews, chestnuts, almonds)

• Fish (perch, pike, bass, catfish, anchovies, salmon, tuna, fish oil, BBQ sauce)

• Shellfish (shrimp, lobster, crawfish, crab)

Create a supportive environment.

It's not easy to accommodate for every friend, co-worker or relative's intolerance or allergy, but your compassion and understanding can go a long way. How can you help someone you love (or even mildly like) during this time of year? Here are six ways that you can be more supportive of someone who suffers from a food allergy, intolerance or EGID.

Curiosity is great but interrogation is demeaning. Wanting more knowledge about how food affects a person is great but once it crosses the line into questioning the existence of the condition, it is demeaning. After all, it's hard enough to live with food allergies and intolerances, people don't need extra doubt, sarcasm or scolding. Would you ask a diabetic how they know they are diabetic or what tests they have taken? If the answer is no, then don't ask for proof from someone who has allergies or intolerances.

Make them feel welcome. Ask them to bring a dish to share or offer to make a dish that omits their particular nemesis. Take part in their non-allergy dish & reveal in their ability to create something new.

Refrain from being a food pusher. You may make the best stuffing in the world but for someone who has a wheat allergy or egg allergy, your delectable stuffing can wreak havoc. Pushing someone to just "take one bite" only makes the person feel bad, or angry and it may be perceived that you don't care about that person's well-being. Trust us, we know, your stuffing is the best, but it isn't always the best for every 'body' (literally).

Mind your own plate. Look, mashed potatoes are lovely, but if they are made with milk or sour cream, they may get passed up. It's not the potatoes, or you... it's the migraine or joint pain that they may be avoiding. They will eat what they can and omit what they can't. Leave the keto, high-carb, low-carb, paleo or other diet comments inside your head. Trust that they know what they are doing…it's not a diet, it's self-preservation.

Don't hide the ingredients. So, you created a pumpkin pie masterpiece, full of vitamin A and yumminess but it happens to also be made with a flour crust. If someone asks about the ingredients, please don't be offended and do not fib. A 911 call during your family or friend celebration isn't worth it. Hiding the fact that your pie contains wheat may cause an anaphylactic reaction in someone you love. Besides, who wants a trip to the hospital as a holiday memory?

Ask before giving unsolicited advice. You mean well, you really do. You want your favorite person to feel better, and who to give better advice than you? That being said, even if your cousin's friend was cured with lavender oil, now isn't really the time to bring it up. Alternative therapies work for many people and conditions, but before you start engaging with them about reiki, acupuncture, or even new medical treatments, etc., ask them if they want to hear about it. Sometimes, people just want to feel more normal and not discuss their conditions on that day.

Enjoy your loved ones and friends. Embrace the time spent and the conversations had. This year, I would encourage everyone to put less focus on the food and more focus on the celebration. Food and holidays go hand-in-hand but for some people, it creates a detrimental environment. By arming yourself with a little knowledge, and empathy, you can help make someone's food celebration more comfortable and inviting.