Oh boy!  Today my son is challenging baked dairy in the form of pizza.  Yes, he is having experiencing the “gold standard” of participating in a food challenge, in a medical setting.  It is very dangerous to try to challenge a food not at a physician’s office.  At the doctor’s office my children are monitored closely and staff is ready to leap into action if needed.  We normally visit our beloved allergist, Dr. Joshua Jacobs in Walnut Creek, California for all our food allergy and asthma needs.  Due to a new school calendar year and shorter vacation, I could not pull off a summer trip to California.  So, we are seeing a wonderful  local allergist today to test out cheese pizza.  Last year, he participated in a baked dairy challenge in cake and he did great.   Actually, since Dr. Jacobs knows my son so well, he insisted upon a double blind placebo test for baked dairy.  My son was soon introduced to the all American treat of Goldfish and homemade cakes with cow’s milk baked in.  Although, we still prefer Vegan baking.  The next step after the baked dairy challenge is baked cheese.  So, hello cheese pizza.  Oddly enough, we were asked to purchase Amy’s Cheese pizza based on the work of Dr. Sicherer of Mt. Sinai and him using Amy’s frozen pizza.

 This what I will bake tomorrow morning before heading out the allergist’s office for the baked cheese food challenge!

Allergens in the  Cheese Pizza Factory?

Now, Amy’s had a few allergen warnings on the package regarding tree nuts.  So, standing in the isle of the grocery store, I called Amy’s and explained that they are now part of my “gold standard” food allergy challenge and I needed to know more about the tree nuts in their factory.  I was very curious since this brand was the choice of Dr. Scott Sicherer.  The lovely woman on the other end of the phone line explained that yes, indeed, there are tree nuts on the same line but they take extra steps to keep their food allergic customers safe.  They only bake nut allergens on the same day.  At the end of each day, they shut down all the lines and thoroughly clean them and test as they clean.  They then test for allergens while running the regular lines as well.  They seem to test like crazy actually. They did advise me there are no peanuts in the factory at all as well.  I felt very confident with their product based on their line management and testing commitment.

Wish us luck-say a prayer and send some good joo-joo!  I’ll post to share how it went.

UPDATE:  After 5 long hours he was deemed safe to eat baked cheese!  PHEW!!!  We are so tired but he sweetest moment came tonight when he asked to spend quite time with me.  I reminded that we just 5 solid hours in a small room together and he said, “I know, I just want to bond some more”.