Gluten-Free Wheat-free Pancakes for the Allergic in You!

When I found out I was allergic to 47 different foods, my first task was to accept the fact that there are many foods I will never be able to eat again, like pancakes. Jump ahead two years and you'll find me experimenting in the kitchen because NO ONE should have to give up EVERYTHING.

One of those things I missed the most was pancakes. Being allergic to wheat and being gluten intolerant made finding a pancake that didn't taste like crap with the consistency of a brick almost impossible. Then I came across this recipe on Allrecipes and I HAD to try it. 

The recipe calls for

• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk (cow, soy, almond, coconut, etc)
• 1 TBSP canola oil (it says vegetable, but we use canola)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup rice flour

After mixing the ingredients together, you wait one hour. I've managed to make it to the 50 minute mark before making them. I found the time does make a difference.

These are very good! My next step is to make them with fruit instead of milk to see how they turn out. I'll let you know. I will also try it with flax instead of eggs and let you know how that turns out.

If you have allergies and want to try this, let me know how you like it!  I'll add reviews here too.

Food Allergy Comments that Make Me Giggle Inside

I spent a lot of time (since August 2010) relearning how to eat with all my food allergies. I have a much healthier respect for food but, that doesn’t mean I don’t have moments where I long for a piece of cake or some other forbidden food.

Throughout it all, people have made comments about my diet, food allergies or menu that just make me giggle inside and brings a smile to my face. I thought I would share some of them with you.

“I would starve on your diet”

Well, yes, for about the first week you would feel like you were starving to death. But your body would adjust eventually. I called my dietitian after a week of gorging on everything I could eat because I was starving. She promised me this would not continue. It didn’t and my appetite finally mellowed out and leveled out.

“OMG! What do you eat?”

I eat a lot of different foods actually. I have chicken, eggs, fresh and cooked veggies, fresh fruit, jarred applesauce, biscuits and bread that I make myself, cookies, chocolate, cake, coffee and a lot of experiments.

“Ew! how do you eat that? It looks so gross!”

Excuse the ill-manners, but yes, sometimes my food does look gross. When you have an allergy to foods, sometimes your food isn’t very pretty. But that doesn’t mean that it tastes nasty either. I admit, I do get irritated when people refuse to taste it but keep saying how nasty it is. I don’t sit there and comment on how nasty your food is, why is it okay to make comments about my food? When did this become acceptable behavior? Okay, so this doesn’t make me giggle all the time. But I do love to occasionally make gross looking food just to sit and eat it slowly in front of someone who is trying not to hurl while watching me eat.

“Do you ever miss cake (insert another food here)?”

Why, yes, yes I do! And I miss a lot of foods sometimes. But then I remind myself of how miserable I was before hand and I don’t miss it so much anymore.

Susan… Truly a Miracle in Human Form!

This is Part 4 of my story. It’s a testimonial to the wonders of the MRT LEAP test by Signet. You can read Part 1 here which starts as a FAQ and turns into a testimony. Here is Part 2 and Part 3.

Learning to eat Again

My next appointment with Susan we actually laughed about the number of food reaction. I was starting to feel a little better by then but not great because with so many food allergies, I was having trouble figuring out what to eat and contained everything that I was allergic to.

Corn, it turns out, comes in many forms. As does milk and soy. Milk wasn’t a problem for me but I am allergic to whey. I could eat yogurt since I didn’t react to it but many of the yogurts had modified food starch (corn) or whey added into them.

Also, there was a study about corn fed beef and chicken and eggs that come from corn fed chickens. If you have an allergy to corn and eat those beef, chicken and eggs that come from corn-fed animals, you could also react to them. So my new goal was to just get to where I could eat. Then start experimenting with brands of chicken and beef and eggs and see if I react to them.

We ended up discussing what was safe to eat and how to read a label better to search for possible allergens, like modified food starch, maltodextrin and other foods that might come from foods I am allergic to. It was a little overwhelming but she really helped with a lot of my fears.

Then she told me that since I hadn’t been eating solid foods, I could spend some time not eating and then just eat when I finally get hungry. She promised me I would get hungry eventually. I took this idea and ran with it.

After the appointment, I went back to Yuri’s house and told them all about the appointment and vowed that I was fasting until I felt like eating again. Water and coffee was all I was going to have. By evening I was starting to wonder if this was really good suggestion but I kept hearing Susan’s comment in my head “I promise you will get hungry eventually”. And so I fell asleep that night wondering how long it would be until I felt hunger again.

HUNGER! OMG! Actual, HUNGER!

The next morning I woke up STARVING. I mean I was famished! I was so hungry I could have eaten an entire pig if I wasn’t allergic to it. We packed our things and headed to Fred Meyer’s in search of safe foods for the road trip home.

By noon we were doing wonderful, we were out of Snoqualmie pass and heading home in record time. I didn’t have to stop every hour to sleep and I was feeling quite human again.

At a rest area I called my friend in complete excitement and told her that I was HUNGRY! I was positively, absolutely hungry again! In my happiness, I told her, “Listen to what I had to eat today”. Understand, this was the friend who worried and fretted as she watched me go downhill. She hadn’t seen me eat solid food in some time, so to hear that I ate anything solid was the best news she could have gotten from me.

“I ate a whole chicken, all by myself!, a bag of grapes, a bag of baby carrots, an entire bag of sweet potato chips with a tub of hummus, 2 ounces of cheddar cheese, four 32 ounce vitamin waters and two hard boiled eggs from the gas station.” I could hear the shock in my friend’s voice, “WOW! Dotchi that is great!” Then I gave her the best news “And that was breakfast! Let me tell you what I had for lunch…”

For the next two weeks, I couldn’t stop eating. I would eat and then 20 minutes later I felt like I was starving to death and eat some more. I called Susan after a week of devouring my kitchen contents and asked if this would keep up forever. She told me no, it wouldn’t. Eventually it would calm down. But I had gone so long with so little that my body was definitely starved. She promised that it wouldn’t go on like that forever. Thankfully! I couldn’t afford to keep eating enough food for four people everyday.

“I eat like a pig! And I love it!”

The nutrition class, I weighed in found I had lost THREE POUNDS! I was floored! The whole week I spent eating myself out of house and home, enough to feed a starving family of four and I still lost THREE POUNDS! I was elated.

My whole class was floored to see me walk in with a smile on my face and positively bouncing off the walls. I sat down next to my stunned partner and started munching down on my bag of grapes, my new favorite food!

Jenny started with the normal “share what new things have happened this week” with the class. Everyone looked at me with a look of “okay, spill it!” And I gleefully told them about the MRT test and how I can actually eat, I have energy like you wouldn’t believe, I felt alive again! I only slept about 6 hours a night now and then I was good to go for another 24 hours or so. I positively glowing!

I told them how they were right about Susan! Apologized for my piss poor attitude of the last weeks they were stuck with me. I just so miserable, I couldn’t feel happy. I worked that weekend before and the people at work asked if I was on speed. I did an entire eight hour shift, plus 2 extra hours afterwards and then WALKED HOME! I felt like I was on top of the world… and I was NOT sharing my grapes. The bag was gone after class and I ate them all.

And then I told them a shocker… I was not getting gastric bypass. I was going to let this play out and see how it went first. My case manager was so supportive of this and I felt like I had found my cure.

A Miracle!

I continued going to Susan until I hurt my back at work a year later. I really loved going there. She always had great ideas. I told her any food experiments I did with recipes and she always had some great idea for food substitutes.

Over the time since I went to see Susan, I have finally am losing weight. at my largest, I was 300 lbs. and wearing a 30+ (I stopped buying clothes with numbers after size 28) and  now I am 204 lbs. and wear a size 16. I was down to 193.6 before my epidural steroid injection but I expected to gain a little weight.

I never did get the gastric bypass surgery, my health is wonderful, my cholesterol went down and I am energetic and I am healthier than I have ever been.

This is my story and I love sharing it with people because I went from knocking on death’s door to fully living and healthy again… and all because of food allergies!

The Miracle Worker. My Hero.

This is part 3 of my testimony to wonders of the MRT LEAP test. If you want to start at the beginning, you can read Part 1 here. Part 2 is here.


My Journey to Healing Begins
I made my appointment to see Susan like everyone kept telling me to do. Before the appointment, I couldn’t figure out what she was going to do for me. “She’s a dietitian and I can’t eat. This is going to be pointless.” I kept telling myself. But then I would remind myself that I would keep an open mind and that I promised myself I would do everything they asked, including paying for massages.


The massages were wonderful! They helped my stress and I felt great relief from them but I still couldn’t eat anything solid without horrible pains.


My appointment day with Susan came and I signed in, weighed in and waited nervously for this lady everyone was hailing as a miracle worker to come see me. She walked out and I couldn’t help but think how skinny and healthy she was. I was expecting some lecture about my weight or something.


Instead, inside her office she started with “Your eyes are swollen and blood shot.” I wanted to say “Well, duh Captain Obvious!” But I decided to bite my tongue and just say “uh-huh” and see where she was going with this. She asked if they itched a lot and I said yes. Then she asked if they watered a lot. Well, yes, actually they did. At this point I was starting to think she was a psychic healer or something. How did she know all this?


Could it be allergies?
She said she suspected I had food allergies. Then explained that allergies aren’t just the kind that make you stop breathing and drop to the floor. They can be delayed reactions which happen hours or even days after you ingest something. She had my full and undivided attention at this point.


She explained that the instant reactions were from IgE responses. Those are the ones that happen within minutes of consuming whatever it is you are allergic to. Then there are IgG responses. Those are the ones that are delayed. They happen later and can include anything from swelling to anaphylaxis.


I was totally intrigued by all this and I couldn’t help but wonder if all my health problems were from allergies. Wouldn’t that be great to not have to have gastric bypass and lose weight just because I was allergic to foods? So she had me tested for IgE responses (none) and told me about the MRT LEAP test by Signet. The only bad thing was, Tricare wouldn’t pay for it so I would have to pay for it.


No Gastric Bypass?
And then she hit me with a doozy. She would not approve me getting gastric bypass surgery because we knew I reacted to eggs and soy and she suspected I was allergic to milk. After gastric bypass, they give you protein shakes to drink. They are either made from eggs, soy or whey. You can be allergic to whey and not milk or vice versa and until we knew which I was reacting to, if I had gastric bypass surgery, I would die of malnutrition afterwards without the shakes.


I didn’t really care about gastric bypass at that point, I just wanted to know if I had food allergies that were causing all these issues. I wanted to know if I could skip the surgery altogether and still lose weight and get healthy.


My friend gave me the money for the test as a birthday present. That turned out to be the best birthday present EVER! I went in and got my blood drawn and mailed back to the company. Then I waited a week for my results.


“Congratulations! You broke the clinic’s record for food reactions!”
One week later I came home to a voicemail that went something like this: “Hi! this is Susan! I got the test results back. You really need to call me and make an appointment. But in the meantime, don’t eat any pork or wheat. Actually, you want to avoid fish and corn too. You know what, just make an appointment STAT and I will email you the results!”
I checked my email and could have passed out when I read it:


“Congratulations! You broke the clinic’s record for number of food reactions at 47! Please make an appointment to see me ASAP.”


I still have that email saved and read it every now and then. I printed off my results from Signet and stared at the papers. A lot of the foods I reacted to were foods I would eat a lot when I could actually eat.


47 Food Reactions… AKA Poisons
I was allergic to whey (which is what was in my protein shakes) and rice (I switched to rice milk after she suspected milk allergies). I started doing research about allergies to keep myself from freaking out and came across a site about raising kids with allergies. One mom wrote “You know you live in a house with allergies when your child sees bread and shrieks “POISON!” in the middle of the grocery store.” I giggled and then it dawned on me… I have been drinking poison!


No wonder I was so sick! I was slowly poisoning myself. My appointment was the next week and I was ready to conquer this head on… screw gastric bypass! I wanted to EAT!


Part 4: Susan. Truly a Miracle in Human Form

Road trips, Sick and Doctor Visits…

This is part 2 of my last post. If you want to start at the beginning, click here.


Packing and Driving: The longest trip I’ve ever taken
After a good amount of sleep, the kids and I packed our bags and we headed out. I started out with a 20 ounce Glaceau Vitamin Water and an empty stomach. I had the Vitamin Water to keep myself from thirsting to death on the way. I decided not to eat unless I was just too hungry. I didn’t think that would be a problem because I hadn’t felt hungry in a long time.


We started on our 8 hour trip to Bremerton, WA. It actually took us closer to 16 hours to get there. I was so tired I kept having to pull over and sleep at rest areas. I sipped the water so I wouldn’t become dehydrated and finally I broke down and ate one mini donut. The entire 16 hour trip was done on 20 ounces of Vitamin Water and one mini donut… and I wasn’t hungry when I got there. In fact, I was miserable, exhausted, in pain and I wanted to keel over , fall asleep and never wake up.


Sleep was my only reprieve from the pain and feeling like I was dying. Yuri asked if I wanted to go right then or if I wanted to sleep first. I voted for sleep. I was a walking a zombie at that point. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the afternoon. When I did get up, Yuri was so sweet. She took care of me and my kids until my brother, Daniel, got home.


Going to the ER
Before we went to the ER, I decided I wanted to go to Taco Bell and get a bean burrito with sour cream and a large soda. If I was going to go in, I was going to be in excruciating pain, doubling over and they would not be able to ignore me and honestly, I was starting to wonder if it was all in my head. It worked.


When we arrived at the Naval Hospital in Bremerton, I was in a lot of pain. They took me back and did an exam. I was dehydrated, so they hooked me up to an IV and gave me fluids. They also gave me Delaudid for the pain and Zofran for nausea. Then they did a CT scan and an ultrasound of my upper abdomen. I think they did another test but I was pretty doped up at that point and can’t really remember.


By the end of the night, they diagnosed me with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease. Finally, I had something to go on! It wasn’t all in my head!


And more tests!
I had more appointments to follow. (These aren’t in order but here are they are)…
I went to see a surgeon about my Gallbladder. He wasn’t sure the pain was just from my gallbladder and wasn’t comfortable taking it out just to find out that it was actually from something else.


Then I went in for an upper GI with a specialist. He said I had adhesions in my esophagus, Mallory-Weiss tears in my stomach, duodenitis, gastritis and basically everything was swollen. He said I needed to lose weight for my liver or I could die. I started telling him how I have tried to lose weight for 12 years and nothing worked. I could NOT lose weight. I tried. I behaved. Nothing worked. He suggested that I look into a gastric bypass. He had a reason for this.


1) If I got the bypass, I would lose weight. 2) In the process of getting ready for the gastric bypass, they will send you through nutrition classes, to a dietitian, a psychologist, your doctor and someone else. Somewhere along the way either you figure out what is wrong and avoid surgery or you get prepped mentally and physically for it, get the bypass and lose weight.


Either way, I was going to lose weight.


Then I went to my new doctor who wanted me to see a GI specialist about the side pain. She prescribed pain medicine for me so I could function and hooked me up with an appointment for my case manager who would help me with appointments and what to do next.


Then I met the case manager, man she was such a sweetheart! I was all thinking everyone would think I was a lazy sloth and not trying but she just as positive and happy to help me with everything. I was thrilled with how they were so non-judgmental.


Nutrition classes and Susan
Then I started seeing the nutritionist. Since there are so many people going through the program, they have classes instead. Our class was huge and my first day I broke down and started crying. I was miserable, my body was hungry for nourishment but I wasn’t hungry, I was sick of drinking shakes, I was sick of not knowing why I couldn’t eat and I was frustrated that I had to go through the classes.


But everyone was so supportive. I get teary eyed thinking about it. They all comforted me and Jenny, my teacher, told me “You have to see Susan! She is a miracle worker!” and a few others chimed in with “Oh my gosh! Yes! Go see Susan! You just HAVE to see her! She is just awesome!” At this point, I was so numb that I was just nodding and saying okay but inside I was shrugging my shoulders and saying “Whatever.”


It took a couple of classes to get the referral into the system right but eventually I got the appointment set with the highly regarded Susan, the dietitian that was going to work miracles on me. The only thing was, I couldn’t figure out how a dietitian was going to help someone who drank her nutrition. I really wanted to keep an open mind about it but I really couldn’t understand how she was going to help me. She would really need a miracle to help me!


Luckily… she was the miracle worker they sang praises about in my nutrition class!


Part 3 Miracle Worker. My Hero!

FAQ: What test did you get for food allergies?

The short answer:
Signet’s MRT LEAP test. MRT stands for Mediator Release Test. It’s a patented blood test that


The Long Answer (and a testimonial too):
Let’s start at the beginning. At my largest weight (300 lbs.) I was morbidly obese with a BMI of 44.3 and I was trying desperately to lose weight. I tried everything I could find. Low carb, high fiber, Atkins, Slim fast, Hydroxycut, weight watchers, more water, more exercise, counting calories, counting fat… you name it, I probably tried it in various forms. My weight would drop a little and then go right back up (and usually go a little higher too).


Moved to Southern California
I moved to Southern California in December of 2006 and lived on a boat. I was definitely more active. I spent the whole time trying my damnedest to get the weight to come off. I managed to get my weight down to 265 and it wouldn’t budge from there. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t lose weight. I was doing everything right. But I was also miserable.


I felt sick a lot of the time. I was nauseous, which I dealt with before living on a boat. I couldn’t handle eating a lot of food. I would eat and then it would just sit on my stomach and not move. I felt full all the time. I kept telling doctor after doctor that sometimes I could eat and other times I couldn’t. It was like my stomach wouldn’t empty.


Then one day I ate a hotdog while on weight watchers. I always kept within my points. This was my treat for the week. The next few days I had no appetite. I wasn’t hungry and if I forced myself to eat, I felt like I was going to throw up. Then I finally did. I threw up chunks of hotdog that I ate days before. I told the doctors and they ran a few tests but they said I was fine.


In fact, every doctor was stumped. They labeled me as “anorexic”. I had to laugh. at 280 lbs. I was anorexic. That was hilarious! And my weight just clung to me like you wouldn’t believe. I couldn’t get it to come off.


Moved to Montana
In November 2008, I moved to Montana with my kids. We didn’t have a car so I walked everywhere. I doubled my efforts to lose weight and I managed to get down to 250 lbs. Even with walking everywhere, eating healthy and drinking water; my weight would not budge! I was seriously confused as to why it wouldn’t move.


And to top it off, I was having side pains when I ate. Everyone kept saying “oh, it’s probably your gall bladder.” and the doctors here just told me there was nothing wrong with me.


I started logging my food intake on Sparkpeople and tried various menu plans. Low sodium, vegetarian, high fiber… nothing worked to get the weight to come off. Plus, I noticed that I could not force myself to eat enough to get above, on average, 548 calories a day. No wonder I felt tired all the time!


Starting to get close to the problem…
In June 2010, I went to the emergency room because I was hurting so bad that I thought I was having a heart attack. The doctor that saw me there ran a lot of tests. Luckily I wasn’t having a heart attack. He suspected it was my gall bladder and referred me to a surgeon. He also gave me Ultram so that I could eat more than 548 calories a day. If I ate more, I doubled over in pain. So this gave me a chance to eat one good meal a day and hopefully start feeling better.


The surgeon here is the biggest jerk I have met. He was pompous and arrogant. He looked at the test results and said that I was fine. Then implied that it was all in my head, refused to refill my prescription and told me he’d humor me and run a few tests.


By this point, I couldn’t drink water or eat without doubling over in excruciating pain. I asked if I could have one pill for each day from that day until my scheduled test that he was going to do. He refused and told me, I shit you not, “If you don’t want to eat, admit yourself to the hospital.” I was floored.


I knew I was getting bad. I couldn’t work a whole shift without getting sent home. I couldn’t clean my house without a 5 hour nap in between 5 minute cleaning sessions. The only nutrition I was getting was from specially made protein shakes that I made in the lab section of The Protein Factory (I highly suggest them! They are awesome!). I looked sickly and my friends were openly voicing their concerns. I had to find a real doctor! I couldn’t wait a month without eating. I would die.


I have a decision to make!
I went home and cried my heart out. I was scared that I was going to die before they figured out what was wrong with me. I had two kids who were watching me slowly go downhill and I knew they worried. I called my husband in California and cried to him. We weren’t together anymore, but he was still a good friend that I could cry to if needed. I had a moment where I lamented about leaving California and moving to Montana. The medical care here is a joke and I feared that I given myself a death sentence.


That’s when we started talking about Navy doctors and hospitals. we tried to think of a way to get all of us down to Southern California so I could see a doctor there. Our finances were a little tight and we just couldn’t do it. I had a car by then but I couldn’t drive that far. I’d have to sleep constantly.


Then we got an idea. My brother and his wife live in Bremerton, WA near a Naval Hospital. So I called them and explained my situation and asked if I drove out there, would they take me to the Emergency Room. They agreed and I cannot tell you how happy I was to hear that. We couldn’t afford a hotel room. We were going to be pushing it buying the gas there. But we had a plan and I immediately called my work.


I told my boss I wouldn’t be coming in. I was packing up my kids and heading to a hospital with REAL doctors. If she wanted to fire me, fine. But I wasn’t dying because of these incompetent bastards! She told me she wouldn’t fire me. She would do everything she could to help me keep my job. I agreed to send doctors notes and anything that I could to help her help me.


And then I fell asleep. I was exhausted and I needed to figure out how I was going to make an 8 hour drive on no food, no water and suffering from severe fatigue.
Part 2: Road Trips, Sick and Doctor Visits

Wheat-free Chocolate Cake in a Cup

I decided to start this blog trying out chocolate recipes. I started searching for cake recipes since I haven't had cake since August 2010. (Today is May 14, 2012) After lots of experimenting and a lot of chocolate cake going in the trash, I finally found a recipe I like! Let me know what you think of it.

Wheat-Free Chocolate Cake in a Cup


You will need

• 4 TBSP Gluten Free Oat Flour (see note at the bottom of the recipe)
• 4 TBSP Sugar (I use organic sugar, but I did try it with regular white sugar and it was fine too)
• 2 TBSP Cocoa Powder (I use Hershey's cocoa powder. The dark coco powder tasted horrible)
• 1 egg or egg substitute that is egg-free in case of allergies.
• 2 TBSP Canola oil
• 2 TBSP Milk (coconut milk, soy milk, almond milk, cow's milk, etc)
• 1/4 tsp Vanilla extract (I use Disaronno liquor but you can use any extract)

Mix all your ingredients in a microwave safe cup. I use a Campbell's Soup Mug I found at Wal-Mart awhile back.

Microwave your cake on high for 3 minutes. I found if I stop it to peek at it, it is much more dense than I care for. So just let it cook.

Once it's done, I eat it straight out the cup! You can add a frosting if you want, but I am still searching for one that is corn-free. I enjoy it plain.