Along with the other features I have planned for 2013, I also hope to bring back my Ask the Readers feature. It never really went totally away, I just stopped posting it as often. For this year though I hope to share a couple of Ask the Readers questions a month.
I love learning from all of you and Ask the Readers is a great way to share our knowledge with each other and brings a sense of community to this site that I love.
If you have a question you would like to submit for my Ask the Readers feature, you can find out more information and submit it here.
Now for today’s Ask the Readers question. This question come from one of you. This is a subject I am clueless on, so I am hoping some of you might be able to help.
Does anyone eat sulfite-free? If you do, do you have a good resource for finding a safe food list. It seems extremely complicated, however my husband is supposed to try a sulfite-free diet to see if his severe asthma and allergy symptoms improve.
Do you have any thoughts, tips, or resources for eating a sulfite-free diet that you can share?
I love to cook and bake, and it is a good thing, because my family loves to eat. I live with my husband and three kids on 43 acres in Northeastern Oklahoma. Between homeschooling, helping in my husband’s dental office, working on our property, taking care of three dogs, and raising hogs as a side job/hobby, I am constantly on the go like most of you.
I would be interested in this. A friend of mine told me he has a friend that gets migraines if he eats anything with sulfite in it. Since I have suffered for over forty years with migraines maybe it might help me. I do look at some labels but I’m not very good at it.
It can get quite complicated, but the simplest guide I’ve come across is the following:
ALWAYS TELL A RESTAURANT YOU HAVE A SULFITE ALLERGY. The chef can most usually adapt the ingredients to make it safe for you. This means not eating in places where they pre-prepare the food (e.g. McDonald’s, Chinese Buffet, other fast food)
WITH Sulphite:
FOODS:
Dried fruit (except for dark raisins and prunes)
Fruit Products like concentrates, syrups, purees and non-organic jams.
Dehydrated vegetables and dehydrated meals for campers
Non-organic soup mixes and sauce mixes.
Shrimp is often sullfited if bought packaged (if it’s fresh, always ask)
Cheap bread and rolls made in big batches (use a sulfite-laden batter softener)
MSG (most often in Asian foods) ALWAYS ASK- every restaurant doesn’t use this
Molasses
Grapes (non-organic)
Vinegar and things with vinegar in it (mayonaise, ketchup, mustard)
Commercial pre-prepared potatoes (like fast food french fries)
BEVERAGES:
Wine and alcohol
Commercial fruit drinks
Commercial orange drinks
IN PACKAGED FOODS, ALWAYS READ THE LABELS. Sulfites are often hidden by manufacturers using different names. These include:
potassium bisulfite
potassium metabisulphite
sodium bisulphite
sodium metabisulphite
sodium sulphite
sodium dithionite
surfurous acid
Hope that helps. You can see how complicated it can be. It’s a problem for me when I eat at someone else’s home but isn’t usually a problem if we go to a good restaurant. At home, I use ‘whole, unadulterated foods’. Real food doesn’t have to be organic (I just like it better).
Thanks for taking the time to share that.
Sulfites are in everywhere snd hard to avoid label resding is a must. And even tjough fresh fruits and vegtables are not supposed to be sprayed… just err on the side of caution. In reference to your food list I have been advised by my allergist that all shrimp is sulfited on the dock so it is never a safe choice for silfite sufferers. I am very allergic to sulfites, I will not eat any grapes even if organic. Be careful with the raisins because grapes have natural occurring sulfites and they do not have to label them for silfites if they are sprayed in the process of growing them. Wines are almost always dangerous. Please be very careful. Sulfite sensitivity is a very slippery slope. One thing you can do is keep a good journal of everything you eat and any reactions you have later. It may help you pinpoint specific triggers to avoid. My personal list is way too long but my reactions are severe enough that I have little choice. I know this post is a little old but I hope it helps. If you want to get a deeper understanding of the sulfite problem go to http://www.learningtarget.com/nosulfites. Or google the words headache asthma fries and a cola.
My response isn’t so much about the sulfites as it is about a diet example. One year I tried the Blood-type Diet by D’Adamo, to lose weight. As with all diets, I lost 20 pounds and then tried to find a way to make it liveable for me and my family because it is about lifestyle changes and me not eating pizza again is not a realistic lifestyle change, but I digress. I followed the diet for a year and then decided to try something else because I missed pizza and other foods and needed to lose more weight BUT what I found in looking back over that time period was that I did NOT take a single sudafed/anti-histamine the entire year! It wasn’t until I had some stuffiness and a headache brewing after changing up our diet that I realized I hadn’t had a single issue with stuffiness the whole time I was eating for my blood type (which is A-, btw). I was simply astounded!!! Problem is that many foods I love are foods that I should avoid for my blood type. Ugh! That was several years ago and this year, I intend to see if can figure out which foods are causing these symptoms.
I hope this real life example can be some help. D’Adamo’s book is “Eat Right for your Type”,
I’m not yet good at it, but I have been trying to avoid sulfites, as I really think they give me headaches. I have found a few other dried fruits at Whole Foods that do not use sulfites. I have to read every label! And there is also an organic wine that has no sulfites. I was going to start having a glass of red wine at night but still haven’t tried it so I can’t say if it’s good or not. I keep trying to make as much homemade items as I can so thank you, Lynn, for the Cheeseburger Helper!!
Amy
Thanks Elizabeth for the list of things, really appreciate it. And thank you for the input from the other girls.