Yeast Allergy in Foods

I've a substantial number of patients with yeast allergy.

The obvious question would be what to avoid. The basic thing would be to avoid most kind of bread or products containing bread like croutons and fried food with bread crumbs. Any alcohol drink will have yeast as its ingredients and must be avoided. Less common known products that contains small amount of yeast include instant noodles, pau (chinese steamed buns) and other buns, over-ripe grapes and raisins and for those who are very sensitive to yeast, yogurt products and even vinegar. Soya sauces can also cause reactions.

With my patients I tell them to bring the products for muscle testing to see if they can consume them or not.

In most cultures, we have got so accustomed to eating bread and drinking some alcohol that abstaining from these become not such an easy task.

Lesson: AVOIDANCE OF YEAST IN FOOD REQUIRES DETERMINATION AND PLANNING

and my learning continues...

Egg Allergy and Avoidance

Lets say you (or your child) has been diagnosed with egg allergy and you have been told to totally avoid eggs, as ingestion of eggs will cause your allergy to worsen.

It is very easy to say, "avoid eggs at all cost" but in practice, it takes a lot of effort to do so.

Lets examine what type of food has eggs:

• All fried food that contains batters (flour with eggs added) e.g. goreng pisang (banana fritters)
• Most pastries and bread contains eggs
• Most types of biscuits in its content or they are glazed with eggs
• Mee noodles (egg noodles - the yellow ones) especially those instant ones
• Ice cream, chocolates, cakes and the list goes on and on

I am still learning from my patients which foods contain eggs and which do not. Reading labels on the food packet usually does not help (as there is no law on strict labelling in Malaysia, but your country may have it) and as such imported food need not state all the ingredients. So if you are unsure whether a particular food has egg or not, avoid it!

Lession: FOOD AVOIDANCE IS NO EASY TASK BUT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY

and my learning continues...